You will rarely hear me say this

. . . but, I think coaching is failing us.



Before I go any further, I want two points clear:



1) I LOVE Bronco, I think he's the right man for the job, and most of his assistants are top notch; and



2) The lowliest intern on BYU's staff is much more qualified about this subject than I.



That being said, I fault the coaching staff for losing the AF game.



The wide receivers are the guys who drop balls, and sure, it's the QB's who throws errant passes, but it's the coaches who decide to commit the cardinal sin of dual-quaterbacking--akin to engaging in a land war in Asia--and limit the opportunities of the receivers to find a rhythm with EITHER QB. It Was Lavell who said "if you have two quaterbacks, you have none."



And when they finally went with one, they went with a QB that pulled BYU out of its circle of confidence. Riley is simply not the answer; not now, and certainly not later. I would support Riley, however, if he could throw a football a mere 10 yards farther. He becomes ineffective because he becomes predictable, and cannot force a defense to respect his passing abilities. I agree that he brings a new element, and he might bring some fire to the huddle. But as this season wears on, I guarantee Nelson will grow less and less effective.



Additionally, I revere Coach Hill as near deity. That man probably knows more about football than any other staffer. Yet he's playing a few kids that cannot get the job done. I agree that you have to know where to go to make the play, but what good does knowing where to go do you when you cannot get there? He has weapons--I hope he decides to use them.



Finally, I also disagree with Bronco's hands-off approach with Doman and Anae. During his post game interview, Bronco seemed to not know exactly why Jake was pulled. Instead, after seeing Riley flounder for the 3rd Q, he should have ASKED. (It's quite possible, however, that Bronco DID know, and he is just refusing to air his laundry to the press.) This is one of those critical times that Bronco needs to listen to his mentor and insert himself into the QB conversation.



I think the staff has grown a bit too comfortable with their past success, and are too focused on other marquee matchups. They blew this AF game.



JL McGregor

Dallas TX

And you will hear me say this VERY OFTEN, as I have said in the past: Anae SUCKS... I can't stand the guy, what he did with our offense, most notably at QB, was the worst I have seen BYU under Mendenhall... Like him or not, he is NOT a good offensive coordinator.

I would like to see Doman call the offensive shots. He obviously knows the offense very well.



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I've been discussing this with my family, I've reached the conclusion that we can't have false expectations about the current coaching staff. Bronco is an excellent administrator and manager and an even better motivator, but he's hit-and-miss for game planning and an average in-game tactician. Is he making improvements? Sure. Some coaches are students of the college football game and know exactly what to do and when during the games. That's not Coach Mendenhall. For Coach Mendenhall, the focus is more on your own execution of the game plan, though the results from perfect execution of the wrong game plan look similar to the results of sloppily executing the right game plan.



Don't get me wrong. I think Coach Mendenhall is the perfect man for the BYU coaching job. He instills discipline and hard work into the program. BYU will always be a 8 to 11 game winner under Mendenhall, but there will be times that he is outcoached, either game planning or in-game strategy. Yesterday was one of those games.

McGregor as always you are spot on. It was Epic Fail for our coaches and they need to fix it fast. Riley is a great athlete, but Heaps is the QB of the future. We need to take our lumps with him and he will only get better.



Hopefully our coaches will figure it out. Soon. If not, we are in for a very long season.

It is just one game and so I don't want to go over board, but watching the game I've got to agree.



Too many runs for Nelson. His passing was ineffective, and not because of the defense. 8/19 for 73 yards? And 56 of those yards came on three plays. That means the other 5 passes he completed went for 3.4 yards per. You can't win with a QB doing that.



I don't understand why when they were down by 21 in the fourth that they didn't go back to Heaps and let him air it out. No harm in it. Nelson's 4.8 per carry and 3.8 per pass were not going to bring you back, so really try out your new toy.



I think we were going to lose this game with Heaps or Nelson, because the defense wasn't holding, but I think the decision to pull Heaps and stick with Nelson was the wrong one.



I think Nelson needs to be used more like Tebow his freshman year. Bring him in to mix things up, run the option and mix in the pass, but QB draws and his pocket passing is not going to get things done. Love his toughness though. I want to see him used, just not like that.

Mingjai wrote:
I've been discussing this with my family, I've reached the conclusion that we can't have false expectations about the current coaching staff. Bronco is an excellent administrator and manager and an even better motivator, but he's hit-and-miss for game planning and an average in-game tactician. Is he making improvements? Sure. Some coaches are students of the college football game and know exactly what to do and when during the games. That's not Coach Mendenhall. For Coach Mendenhall, the focus is more on your own execution of the game plan, though the results from perfect execution of the wrong game plan look similar to the results of sloppily executing the right game plan.



Don't get me wrong. I think Coach Mendenhall is the perfect man for the BYU coaching job. He instills discipline and hard work into the program. BYU will always be a 8 to 11 game winner under Mendenhall, but there will be times that he is outcoached, either game planning or in-game strategy. Yesterday was one of those games.

The thing to remember about Bronco is that he rarely if ever makes the same mistake twice. As for the ingame adjustments, I think that falls on the co-ordinators to make. The HC makes sure they are making them and makes the final decisions, offers guidence, etc. but it is the OC and the DC that come up with the actual adjustments or at least should do so. That may be why Bronco said he didn't know why Heaps was on the bench but he wasn't one to step on the toes of those he said he has full confidence in. The one plus that I take from this game is that we see what kind of player Nelson truly is. I agree he is a "wildcat" back and not a starting QB for a major passing team. I would not be surprised if they go another game with him running it almost by himself but I don't think we would see a different result which leads me to believe that he will eventually play his way to backup. I expect that Heaps will be the fulltime QB by the next conference game.

Bronco is a good coach but he screwed up this time. It happens but now they find themselves in a position where it is clear they screwed up with the two qb system and that he should have listened to himself when he has always been crazy adamant about picking a starting coming out of spring ball so that they get the most reps possible with the receivers etc.



he did it with max and it worked. why he veered from that, I don't know. I think he has this problem starting young guys. he is too stuck with they have to pay their dos. just start who is best.



coaches are blowing it. we'll see what happens going forward. i think air force exposed riley though. he should NOT be byu's starting qb. he is probably the third best qb we have right now on the roster.



either let jake get in his flow or don't but no more splitting. its so incredibly stupid. They have not put jake in a situation where he can succeed. This is like a circus. give jake most of the reps or just sit him.



florida state has not pass defense. we can beat them throwing the ball and playing good defense. we won't beat them with riley. apparently thsoe riley supporters can't see that he is easy to gameplan for.

I fear that Doman sees a lot of himself in Riley and for that reason wants him to be the starter and maybe even thinks he should be the starter. The problem is that Riley isn't as good as Doman was. Hopefully Heaps is starting by the time we play USU. I do not want to see Riley start vs his old school and potentially lose to our little brother. I don't mind if he starts vs FSU though as that would be a tough first start for Heaps. I do hope Heaps gets more PT vs FSU though. If he turns it on then let him play the game out.



McGregor, you know I agree with you on the defense. Just curious who do you think should play at FS and any other positions in question?

mcgregor wrote:
. . . but, I think coaching is failing us.



Before I go any further, I want two points clear:



1) I LOVE Bronco, I think he's the right man for the job, and most of his assistants are top notch; and



2) The lowliest intern on BYU's staff is much more qualified about this subject than I.



That being said, I fault the coaching staff for losing the AF game.



The wide receivers are the guys who drop balls, and sure, it's the QB's who throws errant passes, but it's the coaches who decide to commit the cardinal sin of dual-quaterbacking--akin to engaging in a land war in Asia--and limit the opportunities of the receivers to find a rhythm with EITHER QB. It Was Lavell who said "if you have two quaterbacks, you have none."



And when they finally went with one, they went with a QB that pulled BYU out of its circle of confidence. Riley is simply not the answer; not now, and certainly not later. I would support Riley, however, if he could throw a football a mere 10 yards farther. He becomes ineffective because he becomes predictable, and cannot force a defense to respect his passing abilities. I agree that he brings a new element, and he might bring some fire to the huddle. But as this season wears on, I guarantee Nelson will grow less and less effective.



Additionally, I revere Coach Hill as near deity. That man probably knows more about football than any other staffer. Yet he's playing a few kids that cannot get the job done. I agree that you have to know where to go to make the play, but what good does knowing where to go do you when you cannot get there? He has weapons--I hope he decides to use them.



Finally, I also disagree with Bronco's hands-off approach with Doman and Anae. During his post game interview, Bronco seemed to not know exactly why Jake was pulled. Instead, after seeing Riley flounder for the 3rd Q, he should have ASKED. (It's quite possible, however, that Bronco DID know, and he is just refusing to air his laundry to the press.) This is one of those critical times that Bronco needs to listen to his mentor and insert himself into the QB conversation.



I think the staff has grown a bit too comfortable with their past success, and are too focused on other marquee matchups. They blew this AF game.



JL McGregor

Dallas TX

Amen.

jonnylingo wrote:
Bronco is a good coach but he screwed up this time. It happens but now they find themselves in a position where it is clear they screwed up with the two qb system and that he should have listened to himself when he has always been crazy adamant about picking a starting coming out of spring ball so that they get the most reps possible with the receivers etc.



he did it with max and it worked. why he veered from that, I don't know. I think he has this problem starting young guys. he is too stuck with they have to pay their dos. just start who is best.



coaches are blowing it. we'll see what happens going forward. i think air force exposed riley though. he should NOT be byu's starting qb. he is probably the third best qb we have right now on the roster.



either let jake get in his flow or don't but no more splitting. its so incredibly stupid. They have not put jake in a situation where he can succeed. This is like a circus. give jake most of the reps or just sit him.



florida state has not pass defense. we can beat them throwing the ball and playing good defense. we won't beat them with riley. apparently thsoe riley supporters can't see that he is easy to gameplan for.

Bronco definitely has issues with playing freshman and he takes it too far sometimes. Most freshman aren't talented enough to start and that's why they don't, but if a freshman is more talented than the starter than there's even more reason to start him. A. They're better than the starter and that gives you a better chance to win more games and B. they're your future, so why not get them as much experience as possible? Just play the best player! This is a rebuilding year and so there's even more reason to get the younger guys experience.

I think KVN should start at OLB, they should move Brandon Bradley over to one of the safety spots, then let Eason play boundary. It would be great to get Stout prepared.

Short_Change wrote:

McGregor, you know I agree with you on the defense. Just curious who do you think should play at FS and any other positions in question?

As mentioned above, I think Bradley should be a safety. But I've thought that from the very beginning, and have always questioned why he is a corner.

pjmuli wrote:
I think KVN should start at OLB, they should move Brandon Bradley over to one of the safety spots, then let Eason play boundary. It would be great to get Stout prepared.

I agree with this 100 percent. Eason was outstanding against washington.

Bradley @ FS >>>>>>>>>> Steven Thomas

Isola wrote:
It is just one game and so I don't want to go over board, but watching the game I've got to agree.



Too many runs for Nelson. His passing was ineffective, and not because of the defense. 8/19 for 73 yards? And 56 of those yards came on three plays. That means the other 5 passes he completed went for 3.4 yards per. You can't win with a QB doing that.



I don't understand why when they were down by 21 in the fourth that they didn't go back to Heaps and let him air it out. No harm in it. Nelson's 4.8 per carry and 3.8 per pass were not going to bring you back, so really try out your new toy.



I think we were going to lose this game with Heaps or Nelson, because the defense wasn't holding, but I think the decision to pull Heaps and stick with Nelson was the wrong one.



I think Nelson needs to be used more like Tebow his freshman year. Bring him in to mix things up, run the option and mix in the pass, but QB draws and his pocket passing is not going to get things done. Love his toughness though. I want to see him used, just not like that.

I was about to add on but I can't. I completely agree - there must be something going on behind the scenes.

Pertaining to this thread, I have one other observation/question. So, as I think back over the past three or four years, it seems to me like BYU is always good for at least one loss of double digits that just reeks of coaching mistakes. In the past three years...Utah 2008, Florida State 2009, and Air Force 2010.



Is this a pattern? If so, what is the cause?



I am a HUGE Bronco believer and supporter. I think BYU football is stronger than it has ever been. There always seems to be that one week of every year that makes me wonder.



J

Bronco has a tendency to lose games by large margins. He simply doesn't lose close games. Bronco has lost 16 games as BYU's head coach. 10 of them have been by 10 or more points.



In games decided by a touchdown or less, he is 12-5 and BYU has won their last 11 "close" games.



Here is Bronco's MO: Win big in games (37 fo 49 wins by 10 or more). Win close games (see above). Lose big in games (see above).

We win games we should, and we don't win games we shouldn't.



It's as easy as that, and you can read into that all you need to.

Question, when was the last time we had a big come back? Lavel use to do it all the time. We get down and it seems we panic, game over.