Responding to Questions & Comments, Part 1
I noticed in comments and on twitter – a LOT of people completely missed the point I was really trying to make in my open letter, despite my explicit disclaimer:
(Disclaimer: comparing Bronco to LaVell is actually foolish, because the era’s of college football, opponents, and circumstances are SOOO different, it really doesn’t reveal anything. BUT, we are in fantasy land, so we don’t care about any of that.)
My point wasn’t to compare 2 coaches from completely different eras. I knew it was risky to run with, but proceeded for a purpose. The comparison of LaVell v Bronco? Simply a charade… partly for entertainment, partly to be sarcastic, but mostly to point out what I find to be compelling truths – that LaVell had strange consistency over his 29 years compared to the first 10, and, likewise, to Bronco. Now I didn’t major in Statistics, but I took a few classes, and am equipped enough to notice that just like any data set or sample population, LaVell’s success has ebbs and flows. A simple average usually ignores these. My FOREMOSTobjective was for people to recognize that those peaks and valleys during LaVell’s tenure are directly tiedto who was under center. AND, the current valley that Bronco is facing is equally directly tied to who has been under center (less than 1% of readers went to the page with the win-loss graphics, so most weren’t able to personally view this reality.) I did NOT run the comparison in some feeble attempt to say – see look, Bronco has similar numbers, so he’s just as good as LaVell.
I pointed out that most years found BYU winning 8 or 9 games. That was simply a finding though, not a prophecy. I don’t want BYU to be mediocre any less than you do. I’m definitely not saying we are destined to 8 or 9 wins going forward, or that such is a dandy year, and I’m happy to have it!! I want 12 wins and a national championship every year!!! I never played in a single game at BYU I didn’t expect to win. I think you are weak as a competitor if you go into any contest otherwise. But at the same time, I also didn’t head for the ledge of the nearest cliff if we did lose a game. What I’m saying is this: even though players and fans should hope for, even expect, undefeated seasons, players and fans should not declare the season – or for some people, the world as we know it – over, dead, ruined, deceased, etc., should we slip up and lose. (Very sadly, college football in general, and especially independence, further propagate this tendency. I will discuss that topic in the next post.)
Another misconception found in comments and on Twitter – “you lost all credibility when you defended playing Riley Nelson.” My inclusion of Riley wasn’t about defending the decision to play him (although, I will come back to that in a moment). It was to make another point (which appears to be largely missed by readers). I will be the first one to tell you – Riley Nelson was often a lousy quarterback. That being said, he is truly one of the best ‘football players’ I have ever seen, and I would go to war with that dude any day. At times he threw some of the worst balls you’ve ever witnessed. But, his toughness and intangibles led us to valuable wins, during a time when we had limited options.
I digress, back to my purpose in including Riley – it was two-fold. A: it provided a nice segue into the SUPREME point of my letter - that Quarterback play is the principal determinant of victory, and B: to dramatically show how much the landscape of college football has changed from 1974 to 2014 (further advocating that a comparison of LaVell v Bronco is futile at best.) I was fascinated to learn that essentially the same passing numbers which award you the Sammy Baugh trophy in 1974, now reward you with criticism of not being able to complete a forward pass in 2012. It was that discovery I was highlighting, and I felt I just couldn’t leave it out. Again - times certainly have changed.
Just a word on playing Riley Nelson. Overly criticizing the coaches for this – talk about going for the low-hanging fruit. (I emphasize ‘overly’ because some criticism is okay, fair and warranted, especially when it is objective.) It’s easy to sit back in your recliner or on row 30 at a stadium and nit pick every little decision the coach is making, without knowing anything of what is happening in meetings, at practice, behind closed doors, etc. Or without having to be responsible for those decisions. Just go ahead and kick the dog. He’s close by, and won’t do anything about it. What isn't easy - having limited options at the most important position on the field, multiple injuries, and trying to make the best decision for your team to win ball games (coaches just want wins, remember…and so do fans…neither really care if they are ugly.) Just start Jake Heaps you say? Well, no true freshmen had ever been the full-time starter at BYU. In fact, I watched firsthand as Gary Crowton was too scared, all year, to play Ben Olson (my roommate) as a true freshmen in 2002, despite him being HEAD AND SHOULDERS better than all of our other quarterbacks, and everyone on the team knew it!! Anyway, do you really think having a 2-headed quarterback was Bronco’s greatest dream?!? Give…me…a…break!! They wanted to ease Jake in, without too much pressure on him, by sliding some of that pressure onto Riley, who actually had college football experience (8 starts at USU, and a whole year in BYU’s system under his belt). Riley got hurt anyway, so that point was moot the rest of the year. Heaps played solid football down the stretch, but he regressed the next season, sucked it up the first few games, and was benched (pretty sure QBs get benched all the time, even good ones). Riley came in and won a bunch of games, though they certainly weren’t pretty. Heaps transferred after the season (and how’s he played since then?) Enter Taysom Hill 2012. True Freshmen. Same problem all over again. And now Riley is a senior. Keep in mind folks, even the great Ty Detmer couldn’t unseat the incumbent as a frosh, and he was a redshirt freshmen. Some fans criticize Bronco left and right for “not being able to see Taysom is better than Riley.” Come on man!! OF COURSE they knew he was better, it’s just really really hard to start a true freshmen over a senior who just helped you win 10 games the year before. Taysom ended up getting the nod a few games in anyway, and he did great, but tore his knee. We’re going in circles here. At the end of the day, Riley Nelson truly is the poor man’s Tim Tebow (who is one of the best college ‘football players’ EVER!) I once sat on the field stretching before a game against Denver in 2010 and watched Timmy warm up….honestly, the ugliest arm I’ve ever seen. I sat there in disbelief and said – ‘how in the world did that guy get drafted in the first round.’ Guess how – grit, charisma, and leadership. Truck loads of it. Boat loads of it. Much more than Riley (plus more size and athleticism), which is why he made the next level. But not enough to keep him there. Guys want to go to war with those dudes. And sometimes coaches decide to play them over other options. It doesn’t make them great quarterbacks though.
My point in all of this? Going for Bronco’s jugular for playing Riley Nelson is too easy and too cheap, and surely doesn’t take all factors into account. I’m not saying he necessarily made the absolute correct choice each step, or even that I myself would have played him, but I for one wouldn’t want to be forced with making those tough decisions (I promise you, I sat and yelled at my TV screen just as much as you did watching Riley make bone-headed turnovers.)
Sadly, the pattern of easy-pickins-condemnation goes further. Many people in comments and on twitter have executed our coaches for not developing enough draft picks (which I will address more in a future post) or recognizing the pro talent of Brad Sorensen and Ziggy soon enough. Pointing things out after the fact sure is fun, isn’t it?! Personally, my hindsight is flawless - I’ve successfully predicted every Super Bowl champion the Monday after the game. Come on guys!! NOBODY knew Sorensen would be a pro guy. He redshirted in 2009 (while Max Hall was winning us 11 games and helping us finish 12th in the country.) We already had highly touted Lark and Munns, and even higher touted Heaps coming into town in the spring. What did NOT highly-touted, NOT highly-recruited, WALK ON Brad Sorensen do?! He transferred to SUU that same spring. Ummm, please tell me what exactly our coaches could have done more?!?! Please please tell me, cuz it will also be the solution to learning magic, leprechauns, and the Easter Bunny. Should they have twisted his arm? Promised him the starting job? The keys to Bronco’s truck? Folks…folks…there’s NOTHING they could have done more (and beyond that, he stayed one year in the league and never played a down…so quit trying to act like Bronco ran him out of town, and he would have been the savior to 2010, ’11 and, ’12.)
As for Ziggy? Beast athlete, no doubt about it. I remember like yesterday standing on the sideline next to Kelley Poppinga watching a practice his first spring. I said “who is that dude!?” Kelley laughed, told me his story, and said the following - “man, he could really be scary if he figures out how to play football.” Believe me friends – there is nothing the coaches wanted more than to unleash that monster on the field. But they couldn’t do it for a long time, because he didn’t know what in the crap he was doing. All the athleticism in the world can’t make up for going in the wrong direction. And going to the wrong place compromises the entire defense. Two examples. I arrived at the Giants just one year after they cut the greatest ‘freak’ of them all - LaVar Arrington (which they did just one year after signing him to a 7-year, $49 million contract!) What did the other LBs say about the famed LaVar?! To a man – “he’s the single most impressive athlete I have ever seen in my entire life, but he seriously didn’t know how to play football.” They said they literally had to explain cover 3 to him in the huddle…every time they called it!! Ultimately, he never succeeded in the league for 2 reasons – injuries, and lack of an understanding of football. Example two. A few months before I left the giants, they drafted Jason Pierre-Paul 15 overall. The similarities between Pierre-Paul and Ansah are uncanny. Both 6’5” 270. Both hoopsters late to football (Pierre-Paul didn’t begin til a Junior in HS.)
Ziggy 4.63 forty, 7.11s 3-cone, 9’10” broad jump, 21 bench reps
Pierre-Paul 4.71 forty, 7.18s 3-cone, 9’7” broad jump, 19 bench reps
Both posted low sack numbers - Ziggy with 4.5 to Jason’s 6.5. And, both had limited starts – Ziggy with 9, and Pierre-Paul with only 7. GM Jerry Reese was hung by the media for “over-reaching” on Pierre-Paul at #15, especially considering the G-Men already had 2 pro-bowl DEs on the roster. Now that Pierre-Paul is an All-Pro, Reese looks like a genius. Back to my point – just like Ziggy, it took time for Pierre-Paul to become a starter at South Florida because he was late to football, raw, and still learning how to play a complicated game. It’s tough for a coach to give a guy extensive playing time when they don’t know what they are doing, even if they are a world-class athlete.
My first post was a defense of Bronco, but much more than that it was a declaration that players, not coaches, determine the outcome of games (most especially the quarterback). I am shocked how many people can’t understand this simple truth of athletics. In fact, a commenter said the following:
Bryan, I read your letter you made valid points but guess what - using the players as scape goats is really low.
Wow?! My bad for, you know, placing the blame for a team’s poor performance on, you know, the guys on the team…who are actually out there playing the game!! I asked a Texas High School football coach (O Coordinator) what he thought of the points I made in my letter. His reply:
Funny you should ask…We started 5-0! We now sit at 5-4. We have had 8 TDs called back in those 4 games for holding or some other penalty. We have thrown 4 INTs in the Redzone and have fumbled twice inside the 5-yard line. I couldn’t AGREE MORE with you! Coaches coach and players play!!! Now it’s my job to make them play better!! But I can’t play for them!
In future posts I will elaborate more on why I felt the need to go to bat for the guy many people have written off, and some even want executed in the town square. For now, I will reiterate it again. Bronco deserves plenty of blame both for our mid-season slide, and recent struggling’s in past years. BUT – he doesn’t deserve all of the blame, he doesn’t deserve to be fired, and, most importantly, in order for us to play better – we need the guys actually playing to...play better. The coaches can't play better for them.
ps Check back soon, I will post the second part to my Response shorty, it's almost done. Including addressing the rivalry with Yewtah.