It's not just a bad rebuilding year for BYU, it gets worse for them
by CRIMSONandWHITE on Oct 6, 2010 12:06 PM MDT
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These have been dark times for the team down south. True they're having a rebuilding year, but I don't think anybody expected them to struggle this much. Honestly, I'm quite surprised that they've struggled as much as they have. But I do think they were warning signs of this. If you go back to 2006, that was the best team that BYU had in a while. That was the team that was lead by the senior quarterback John Beck. Now, 2006 was Bronco Mendenhall's second year as BYU head coach. That 2006 team was full of Gary Crowton's kids. I know Gary Crowton received a lot of criticism as a coach, but I think people gave him a little more crap then he deserved. He took over a BYU program that got screwed after a formula was found to stop Lavell Edward's infamous air raid offense. Gary has actually done really well as an offensive coordinator at LSU. And just before BYU fired him, his team started to look better. So Bronco took over Gary's position in 2005. BYU did very well in 2006. (Still Gary's kids). Then, in 2007, Max Hall took over at quarterback. He wasn't bad, but he had a tendency to force passes and make poor decisions with the football. Most fans, (Utah fans or BYU fans), would probably agree that John Beck was better than Max Hall. BYU as a hole was not as good in 2009 as they were in 2006. They dominated in 2006, in 2009 they had several close calls. Again, 2006 was Gary Crowton's squad. (2009 was Mendenhall's). Bronco has received a lot of credit as a head coach. I think he has received too much credit. As a matter of fact, I think he was the most overrated coach in the entire country. I think he is making BYU weaker as a program. And I think it's finally starting to show. True it's a rebuilding year for them, but still, it's been a pretty bad year for even a rebuilding year. BYU looks like they'll go 4-8 at best. They can't pass, they can barely run. They can't defend the pass. They can't defend the run. They can't do ANYTHING. So I do think they're getting weaker with Bronco. And I think the not as good Max Hall team was a warning sign. And it only gets worse for BYU, because they're about to go independent. Nobody is going to want to schedule them. Players are going to become less interested in playing for them. I have a feeling that Bronco might not be able to keep his job forever.
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Ok, how could Bronco be making the program weaker when he took over a team that had posted 3 losing seasons from a coach who won 51% of his games, and has subsequently won 72% of the games played including back-to-back-to-back-to-back 10+ game winning seasons? That is a logical jump of astronomical proportions.
I disagree with CrimsonAndWhite about Bronco
But it’s not that big of a logic jump. If you assume (including missions) that the 2005, 2006 and 2007 teams were Crowton’s players and that the 2008 and 2009 teams (and, of course, the 2010 team) were Bronco’s players, then Bronco is doing worse than Crowton in recruiting.
Personally, I think Bronco is clearly a better coach than Crowton. He made a mistake this year by assuming he’s smarter than every college football coach in america and that he could play 2 QBs. Kyle made the same mistake in 2006. Other than that, I don’t think he’s done a bad job. This is going to be a bad year (looking very much like a losing season unless they beat SDSU, and even then, UW, CSU or UNLV could get them).
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
It IS a huge logical jump if you compare records between the two groups
Crowtons guys
2005 6-6
2006 11-2
2007 11-2
Mendenhalls guys
2008 10-3
2009 11-2
2010 1-4 (could end up 4-8, but we won’t know until the season is over, Mendehall’s teams usually end stronger than they start)
There is not a huge gap between the two groups, to say there is, is to completely ignore the difference in the other teams they played. Also, in the current team there are a lot of highly recruited players, but they are a very young team. What you’re really seeing is that in the previous years you had a lot of veteran leadership. This year there is virtually no veteran leadership. Given the things said about Jamie Hill’s firiing by both the coaches and former players, it sounds like there were behind the scenes issues that had been festering and finally came to a head. Issues in the locker room can ruin team chemistry, and BYU has always been a finesse team. A finesse team with bad chemistry = a bad team.
NC Ute: I will admit that I’m not an expert on the Gary era. However, he took over after Lavell Edwards retired. During the Edwards era, BYU used the traditional air raid offense. Then people figured out how to stop that. And BYU had a hard time figuring out what to do about that. What I think happened is, Crowton got handed a bad situation. He then took years to figure out how to get out of it. And by the time he figured it out, (or at least almost figured it out), BYU fired him. When you think about BYU, they still use the air raid in it’s adjusted form. They haven’t had a good pass defense, because that was never their focus. They have always kept the same basic system. They’ve just been trying to adjust. So what I think might have happened is, Gary figured out how to make the system work a little better. And Bronco replicated that. (He worked for Gary at the time). And now Bronco seems to have recruiting issues.
Crowton didn’t get handed a bad situation, he went 12-2 in his first year remember. He subsequently went 5-7, 5-6, and 5-6. The thing that Crowton did that hurt the most was to seperate himself and the team from BYU’s tradition. Could you imagine a coach coming into Notre Dame and saying, we’re going to start a new era and change our logo, uniforms, and everything else about us? People would freak, yet that’s just what Crowton did. I get that BYU isn’t Notre Dame but they did have tradition and a name. He put all of that in jeopardy.
As far as the Air Raid offense, BYU ran a passing heavy offense but it was never the Air Raid. The Air Raid was loosly based on BYU’s offense, which predated the Air Raid. But also remember that when Lavell retired his offensive coordinator didn’t get the head coaching job and decided to leave. It was just some guy named Norm Chow who went on to be the offensive coordinator that resurrected the USC offense and won a couple of national championships. So blaming the offensive troubles during Crowtons years on the Air Raid offense is also short sighted since they WEREN’T EVEN USING IT. Crowton brought his offense with him from Lousiana Tech. Even then the problem there was not offense, they still put up decent numbers (28ppg average over his tenure), but they couldn’t beat anyone because they had no defense. Now the one thing that I will give him is that his defense DID improve slightly over time. If you look at the average points scored on his defense over that period it drops 2 ppg each year from 32.6 to 26.8 in his final year.
Bottom line, one bad year does not a broken program make.
I don't think Bronco is on the hot seat yet
Even though Mendenhall benefited from Crowtons boys when he took over, Crowton left a huge mess for him. Don;t forget, BYU was also having trouble off the field with legal issues (rape allegations). The mentality at BYU was in disarray and needed a change.
I do credit Bronco for turning things around, but I firmly believe a part of his success was simply him being a breath of fresh air from Crowton’s mess.
Bottom line: Crowton was a lousy head coach, but the man has a brilliant offensive mind.
Bronco is a good coach but not a great one. I think it would take another bad year (maybe two) for Bronco to really be in trouble. Then again, never underestimate the responsibility and expectations that comes with being the coach for BYU.
I've figured it out.
BYU is stinking it up on the field on purpose. It’s a shrewd plan to improve their SOS and it works like this. They’re going independent, right? They need to schedule games, right? and they’d like to think that they’re good enough to play for all the marbles, but there’s a little conundrum they have to solve. Strength of Schedule.
So how to solve it? Lay some HUGE stink bombs on the field this year as they talk to big name schools, lulling them into believing that the bloom is off the rose and BYU is now just a bunch of pansies. BCS teams jump in (they’re always looking for an easy win) and schedule a few one and dones or twofers with the TDS.
HA! Sez the TDS, gotcha! They’ve improved their SOS for sure, but there’s a problem in Cougarville. This is a young team and by the time this year is over they will have learned how to lose; and if CrimsonandWhite is correct, Bronco Billy ain’t the man to turn that around.
It certainly doesn’t suck to be U right now, does it? The Utes move on to a legitimate chance at playing for all the marbles in the Pac 12 with a coach that has proven he knows how to win and how to recruit and build winners.
You guys have it all wrong
Bronco is just being charitable. You know, a turn the other cheek kind of thing. After Washington, he saw the light and realized that it wasn’t about winning, it was about helping other teams feel good about themselves.
I keep accidentally eating my pets. Maybe I should get something less appetizing, like a cat instead of a Twinkie.
Sort-of-daily sort-of-funny sort-of-thoughts at danoftheday.com
by CrimsonUte on Oct 7, 2010 8:29 PM MDT reply actions 1 recs
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