The state of BYU football

[JohnnyLingo]

I should introduce you to my father in law sometime.

Okay, so we know of one so far.

P.S. Awesome avatar.

[byu71]

That's not totally true. You don't just start picking up recruits left and right after having so many miserable seasons. I'm not saying the coaching staff can't improve, but we aren't long removed from the Crowton years. Bronco has done a miraculous job getting this team to where it is today. If you would have told me in 2005 that we would have won this many games in four years I would have been doing back flips. The only reason what is going on isn't good enough is because Utah and BSU have been to the BCS. None of this was every going to be a short term fix. If you want a quality program that wins year in and year out, it takes time.

I don't think picking up recruits left and right was Crowton's fault. I think it was an overly presumptious view of what Bronco could do with average recruits and the armour of God. I think perhaps Elder Eyring duped him a bit into thinking how much influence God would provide if Bronco fielded righteous warriors. Wasn't Eyring a Ute.

[byu71]

will this year go down as a good year if you end up getting beat by both TCU and Utah.

If we get beat by Utah, it will be an average season with a point in it that was one of the highlights of my long time BYU fan experience.

Now there are those fans who will still consider it good because of the fireside successes and the GPA of the players and a few other things. I won't knock their happiness as long as they don't try to tell me I should be happy too.

[WashingtonCoug]

I do think these next fours will say where the program is going. We've seen good things and bad things to this point in the Mendenhall era. Mendenhall has proven that he can take a program in the crapper and make them a good team. Now we'll see if he can take the next step.

[U-Ute]

I realize that Ute fans would like to claim these last two years as the demise of BYU football, but it really says more about the lack of knowledge Ute fans have. Two years does not make a football program. With the recent history of the Ute program, their fans would like to think this way. Remember only four years ago, BYU was coming off a 6-6 season. Before that was even worse. Since then BYU has multiple 10 win seasons, two MWC championships and two bowl wins. That doesn't seem too bad to me. BYU is still working through the damage done in the Crowton years. Now if BYU struggles with TCU for the next five year I will be concerned, but two years is nothing big.

I don't know if Utah fans are predicting the demise of BYU football. I don't think that is going to happen. We are predicting the demise of the dominance of BYU football in the league. And it isn't just two years worth. Since 1990, Utah has the edge in games against BYU: 10-9.

The problem, as I see it, is that BYU is consistently good, but never great. They'll always be in the hunt for the conference title, but I don't know if they can reach higher than that with the constraints on the program. In the days before talk radio and the Internet, LaVell's players weren't under as much scrutiny as they are now and he could afford to roll the dice on guys. I don't think that will happen much anymore.

Utah has shown that it can reach higher than the conference title, and it seems TCU will also break that barrier this year.

U-Ute

[Hot Lunch]

How many players on the 2009 team were even recruited to BYU by Gary?

Matt Putnam
Nick Alleto
Mitch Pain
RJ Willing
Brett Denney
Jason Speardon

With the mission program that BYU uses, the number of players on this list should be much higher.

[Portland Ute]

I do think these next fours will say where the program is going. We've seen good things and bad things to this point in the Mendenhall era. Mendenhall has proven that he can take a program in the crapper and make them a good team. Now we'll see if he can take the next step.

Maybe Bronco's kind of like a higher performing Ron McBride in that he raised the program but just can't get it to that elusive "next level." You'll remember that Ron McBride came in and within a few years took a do-nothing program and vaulted them into the national spotlight (1994). From that point on, Utah had some decent years, then some down years, but he kinda just fizzled out after resurrecting Utah's program.

If so, who is an Urban Meyer type that can come in and get BYU to that BCS bowl?

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

So what your saying is that players being recruited by Bronco did not look at the past couple years wins and losses? Think about it, in 2006, 2007 and 2008 Bronco had to recruit players that did not know what kind of program they would be walking into. Don't forget that most of these players were recruited in 2004-2005 and are now seniors after serving missions. Do you not realize how hard it is too get the top athletes when your program has been in the crapper for 4-5 years?

Growing up Mark Bigelow and his family were some of the biggest BYU fans I know. Mark dreamed of playing for BYU. When the basketball team went down the crapper it nearly pushed him to play for Utah instead. Cleveland was very lucky to get Bigelow to sign. Everyone thought he was crazy for signing with BYU. Mendenhall has had the same issues.

I am saying that Gary was bringing in talent despite his bad years, so yes I think Bronco should be bringing in talent using winning years. I think BYU will always get the kids that want to come to BYU. So Bigelow nearly went to Utah. Well he didn't he went to BYU.

Again if Crowton is still influencing BYU football he is the most powerful LDS sports figure ever. The kids Bronco is now recruiting were 10-12 years old when Gary coached his last game at BYU. If those kids that were 10-12 then are now saying to Bronco what about Crowton? Bronco should respond with "He brought in Austin Collie, John Beck, Curtis Brown, all the guys that have made you love BYU football over the last 5 years. So trust in me and don't worry about what BYU's record was in 2003, after all you were only 9 then." Seems like an easy enough recruiting sell.

However part of me wants to believe what you are saying because then there is no hope for Washington to ever climb out of the sewer it lives in, beating just bad teams getting destroyed by good ones. They have 5+ years to recover from Gilbrertson and 5+ years to recover from Willingham. By the time those 10+ years are up, they will have 5+ years to recover from Sark! The cycle will never end!

[WashingtonCoug]

Maybe Bronco's kind of like a higher performing Ron McBride in that he raised the program but just can't get it to that elusive "next level." You'll remember that Ron McBride came in and within a few years took a do-nothing program and vaulted them into the national spotlight (1994). From that point on, Utah had some decent years, then some down years, but he kinda just fizzled out after resurrecting Utah's program.

If so, who is an Urban Meyer type that can come in and get BYU to that BCS bowl?

That's a good point Bronco may really be the Cougar version of McBride. I don't know anyone personally that could be the next Urban, but the dude three rows ahead of me that yells "run!" on every running play seems to think he would do a great job.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Mitch Pain

Okay so Crowton is still hurting the team. My apologies.

[Portland Ute]

That's a good point Bronco may really be the Cougar version of McBride. I don't know anyone personally that could be the next Urban, but the dude three rows ahead of me that yells "run!" on every running play seems to think he would do a great job.

Well, to be honest, he's much more consistent than McBride. However, he had a lot of advantages taking that coaching job in 2005 that Ron McBride couldn't even dream about when he took the Utah job.

I'm more impressed by McBride's "turn around" than Bronco's, but Bronco has been the model of consistency, something McBride most assuredly was not.

[WashingtonCoug]

Again if Crowton is still influencing BYU football he is the most powerful LDS sports figure ever. The kids Bronco is now recruiting were 10-12 years old when Gary coached his last game at BYU. If those kids that were 10-12 then are now saying to Bronco what about Crowton? Bronco should respond with "He brought in Austin Collie, John Beck, Curtis Brown, all the guys that have made you love BYU football over the last 5 years. So trust in me and don't worry about what BYU's record was in 2003, after all you were only 9 then." Seems like an easy enough recruiting sell.

Look I'm not talking about the recruits Bronco is getting now. Crowton does not affect the recruits coming in today, but those recruits for the most part (with the exception of a Heaps or Van Noy) won't have an impact for 2-4 years due to missions. Find a roster and look at the seniors on the team. If they served missions, they were recruited either by Crowton or were recruited at the end of the Crowton era. The seniors that did not serve missions came on board in 2005-2006. That was only a couple years removed from Crowton and an awful 6-6 season with Bronco's first year. BYU is not having problems signing top recruits now, because they have had success. It's easy now to say BYU was in the crapper back when you were six years old. But when these seniors were recruited nobody knew including Bronco what the future would be like.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Okay so Crowton is still hurting the team. My apologies.

lol. I call him Major Payne and I think it's funny- no one else thinks it's funny.

I think the lack of players on the team from the Crowton's last two seasons is troubling. Think about it, guys recruited during the 2003 and 2004 seasons should be juniors and seniors this year even without a redshirt when taking missions into account. There are two ways to look at this: 1) There aren't that many players recruited by Gary Crowton that are still on this team so Crowton isn't hurting the program anymore; or 2) Why aren't there more players that were recruited during those two seasons that are still on the team.

But Mendenhall still hasn't fielded his most talented teams. 10+win seasons yield better recruiting results, that's undeniable. Although Crowton may not have directly influenced BYU's lack of talent issues, the lack of success during his tenure did influence the level of talent that BYU could bring in during the first year or two of Bronco's tenure. If I were the father of a recruit, a 6-6 followed by a 11-2 mark wouldn't be enough. I would want to see a longer track record, but I think Bronco has established that.

I think BYU is going to win the remainder of its regular season games, including Utah. That means another 10+ win season. Eventually BYU will have another Kehl-Jensen combo in the LB corps and the defense will be respectable again.

[JohnnyLingo]

I think BYU is going to win the remainder of its regular season games, including Utah. That means another 10+ win season. Eventually BYU will have another Kehl-Jensen combo in the LB corps and the defense will be respectable again.

What makes you think BYU will beat Utah? Recent history shows the Cougars cannot beat the Utes by more than a touchdown except in the case of a great, great team like the 1996 squad (15 years ago).

However, Utah is utterly capable of mowing BYU down in years like 2008 and 2004.

BYU's offense has scored 17 and 24 points against Utah with Hall, Unga, Pitta, Anae and company the last two years. Do you think BYU's defense can hold Utah to under 24 this time around?

[TheBYUGuy]

What makes you think BYU will beat Utah? Recent history shows the Cougars cannot beat the Utes by more than a touchdown except in the case of a great, great team like the 1996 squad (15 years ago).

However, Utah is utterly capable of mowing BYU down in years like 2008 and 2004.

BYU's offense has scored 17 and 24 points against Utah with Hall, Unga, Pitta, Anae and company the last two years. Do you think BYU's defense can hold Utah to under 24 this time around?

We can only pray that BYU's defense is better than San Jose Freaking State.