Bronco's overall recruiting

[frank ryan]

Is he a poor manager of talent? This year the top 6 d lineman are seniors. 5 are scholarshiped.

If Kyle Van Noy goes pro after this year, their starting linebacking corp would be gone too. Hadley,Ogletree and Kaveinga are all Srs.

Seems like suspect planning and player management.

[USUC]

Is he a poor manager of talent? This year the top 6 d lineman are seniors. 5 are scholarshiped.

If Kyle Van Noy goes pro after this year, their starting linebacking corp would be gone too. Hadley,Ogletree and Kaveinga are all Srs.

Seems like suspect planning and player management.

He has been hitting the JUCO kids hard for 2013 to try to fill in the holes. Sometimes even the best coaches have stuff like this sneak up on them. But I think he has been a poor manager of talent in the past. Its my understanding he has been a bit more selective in handing out scholarships now.

[BYUMizzou]

Is he a poor manager of talent? This year the top 6 d lineman are seniors. 5 are scholarshiped.

If Kyle Van Noy goes pro after this year, their starting linebacking corp would be gone too. Hadley,Ogletree and Kaveinga are all Srs.

Seems like suspect planning and player management.

This is a weak argument, IMO. With missions and redshirts, BYU players typically take 4 or 5 years from HS graduation to make it to the point where they're contributors on the field.

For a variety of reasons, the DL commits from those classes didn't pan out at BYU. With the normal progression (mission + redshirt + 4 years of eligibility), the 2007 recruiting class should be juniors in 2012. This class included some kid named Star Lotulelei and Eathyn Manumaleuna. In 2008, Bronco picked up two 4 star JC defensive linemen (Tevita Hola and Bernard Afutiti) along with HS defensive ends Solomone Kafu, Kevin Bills, and Colby Clawson.

In 2009, Bronco didn't sign any DL prospects. I'm not sure what happened that year, but looking at Utah's recruiting class for that year, signed a JC kid and a bunch of 2 star and 3 star kids from out of state plus Latu Heimuli, who appeared to be the only decent HS DL prospect in the state of Utah that year. Under BYU's normal progression, the 2009 class would be freshmen or sophomores this fall.

[Goatnapper'96]

Is he a poor manager of talent? This year the top 6 d lineman are seniors. 5 are scholarshiped.

If Kyle Van Noy goes pro after this year, their starting linebacking corp would be gone too. Hadley,Ogletree and Kaveinga are all Srs.

Seems like suspect planning and player management.

I think Bronco has recruited well enough overall. However, his DL recruiting has been very mismanaged IMO. He landed some solid recruits in 2006 and 2007. The two most talented that he landed both flopped, wrt BYU in Matangi Tonga and Star Loluetei. But others have made it and played either solid to pretty well in Fuga, Manu and Dulan. IMO, good recruiting will field the needed starters over a two year period. The problems started with the 2008 and 2009 classes when BYU landed only two DL prospects in Bernard Afuititi and Thomas Bryson - both of whom flopped. I think he recruited well for DL in 2010 but with missions that class should not be expected to contribute until the 2013 or 2014 season. I think there are some decent kids in the program for DL, not as many as I would like, but still some good talent with names like Kaufusi, Rowley, Tuiloma and Kanuch. But there is no doubt that the DL recruiting holes caused with the poor recruiting in 2008 and 2009 will bite BYU in 2013 as the Y will be forced to go the JC route heavily and hope for the best.

I also think that there have been some mitigating circumstances that has resulted in this glut of seniors such as late mission service (Dulan and Russel T) as well as all of them experiencing some unfortunate injuries that prolonged their careers as a result of numerous medical redshirts. But that also could be a boon for this year as the depth should be a boon for the defense.

WRT the linebacking corps, even if Van Noy goes to the NFL after this year there are some really good prospects in the pipeline. I don't think there is anyone as good as Van Noy at OLB but I think there are some solid prospects and at ILB the talent is very high for some years to come.

Finally, another legitimate critcism of Bronco, IMO, is that he does a poor job of motivating/forcing players to change positions. It has been obvious since the fall of 2010 that either Mahina or Holt should move to DL. There is too much of a concentration of highly talented athletes at that one position. I know injuries happen and last year demonstrated that with all of the 3 top TE prospects missing either parts or all of the season, but my guess is one of those two will be moved to DL for next year and whomever that is would be a better DL if they had been moved earlier - think Vic So'oto who should have been moved to DL much earlier in his career. It was obvious that Coates and Harline could hold down the position and it wasn't like Pitta was a secret amongst BYU coaches as we could see his potential in 2004.

[frank ryan]

This is a weak argument, IMO. With missions and redshirts, BYU players typically take 4 or 5 years from HS graduation to make it to the point where they're contributors on the field.

For a variety of reasons, the DL commits from those classes didn't pan out at BYU. With the normal progression (mission + redshirt + 4 years of eligibility), the 2007 recruiting class should be juniors in 2012. This class included some kid named Star Lotulelei and Eathyn Manumaleuna. In 2008, Bronco picked up two 4 star JC defensive linemen (Tevita Hola and Bernard Afutiti) along with HS defensive ends Solomone Kafu, Kevin Bills, and Colby Clawson.

In 2009, Bronco didn't sign any DL prospects. I'm not sure what happened that year, but looking at Utah's recruiting class for that year, signed a JC kid and a bunch of 2 star and 3 star kids from out of state plus Latu Heimuli, who appeared to be the only decent HS DL prospect in the state of Utah that year. Under BYU's normal progression, the 2009 class would be freshmen or sophomores this fall.

I don't think losing your first and second string dlineman in one year reflects good management. I hope Johnson turns out to be decent and I hope Bronco can land some solid juco guys