Rumor mill...
 

There are rumblings of coaching changes and a player/coach argument during halftime of the Cal game? Would anyone with a few connections care to comment/hint/tell us exactly what is going on?

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=1662814
http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=1673030

Is our punter bipolar? Dude can kick the crap out of the ball sometimes but seems to biff and shank more often than not. The kicker is even less consistent.

Also, is the poster on CB known as Rachel the mother of the Marquardts? She had a great post about the problems with the defense. The post was poorly received by some angry guy but seemed right on to my simple football eyes. While I don't believe Bronco is ignorant or immature I do think that he is stubborn. His effort mantra definitely leads to overpursuit and he may favor the kid that works hardest over the kid that gives you the best chance to win. Does effort trumps talent and skill in the Mendenhall way?

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=1666771

I have been a little concerned since before
 

the season started that BM will favor effort over talent.

Favoring effort is better in the long run
 

If he stays true to his convictions. The players will come to recognize his consistency and honesty. They will respect that and react positively to it. It takes time to change attitudes.

However, I find much of what Rachel says as troubling. I agree that the best approach is the best athletes we can accomplish all trained to the best of their ability.

I think Bronco is endeavoring to imbue an attitude on the program about effort. The best players giving their all are better than the best players only giving 90%. Part of what she writes could be, from a homer perspective, that right now Bronco is more concerned with facilitating an attitude over developing individual skills. When he feels that the attitude is consistent perhaps then he can focus moreson on individual skills.

I am not a staunch advocate of the 3-3-5 "system." However, there was nothing about this years defense that is the evidence of my issues. This defense would have sucked hind tiddy no matter what the system was. The personel was that bad. I think the transfer of Mike Marquardt is more of an indictment of the 3-3-5 than the piss poor performance, in that I believe Mike transferred because he feels the system is not a good fit for rush DEs. I don't like Rachel's negative tone about Bronco either. She is fairly level headed and I believe for her to be that jaded toward the dude she is probably hearing some grumblings from two parties. That is a point of concern, IMO.

I don't advocate the 3-3-5 because kids want to play in a style that will showcase their NFL skills in systems the NFL will use. The advantages of the 3-3-5 are somewhat negated by BYU's consistent inability to recruit and keep the db playmakers that offers competitive advantages. I also think there is legitimacy to the notion that BYU's best defensive players, based upon its recruiting base demographics, are consistently going to be LBs and DL.

Regardless it is Bronco's program and I believe that the expectations of the fanbase and administration are not commensurrate to the supporting environment. I have made peace with the reality that going to a Bowl Game is a good year for BYU football and I don't expect a heck of a whole lot more. Regardless of my expectations, it will not pacify the natives and Bronco will likely not make it past year 5 or 6, but I doubt I will be one calling for changes again. The biggest mistake he made was accepting the job.

I think Bronco needs to hire a D coordinator. I also don't think he played a true 3 3 5 scheme this season. The D often showed a 4 man front and I think that is very encouraging when you consider that he seemed more than willing to adapt his defense to his available talent per oponant.

It can not be called encouraging until Bronco demands the defense understands the fundamentals of tackling.

I have noticed that BYU seems to be terrible at tackling. I realize the fundamentals of tackling have gone across the board, but BYU just seems to be worse than most. It is like every BYU player imagines himself as some sort of human missile and just launches himself at the player with the ball and does not wrap up.

Yes there was a heated exchange between a defensive coach and a kicker at halftimeI will avoid names, but one of these was left in tears as he walked out of the locker room.

BTW....I agree with Rachel 100%.

I share Indy's sentiments. I too believe that the expectations of many fans exceed what the personnel that we are able to put on the field are capable of. The only way that BYU will ever become a national power is to rescind the honor code. And we all know the chances of that happening.

A bowl game each year is feasible. We should manage 6-7 wins. I just wonder how many of these types of seasons we are afforded before the remaining luster of what was once an attractive opponent to many teams wears off.

I also wonder how long before the administration comes to this realization as well. Are we going to push Bronco out the door like they did GC? I mean the goals are to win the MWC. Does anyone honestly believe that BYU can do this in the next 2-3 years? TCU has this conference on lockdown and I expect Utah to compete also. I wonder if Bronco has been given a timetable. I honestly don't think we got a better coach in Bronco. He and GC are a push. Take away the honor code violations and I believe that GC is here for at least this season and at the very least manages a 6-6 record if not better.

I do think Rachel's posts have legitimacy and that Cougars should be concerned.

I know for a fact that they don't TEACH fundamental tackling in practices.

In fact as strange as this sounds most school practices don't. They kind of follow the approcah that if you play at this level you should already know how to tackle.

I guess they missed out on our players not only learning how to wrap up, but being in position to wrap up to begin with. There were so many times this year that our Safeties/Cat/Cougarback...whatever you call them were out of position or took a wrong angle that I wanted to pull my hair.

The safeties were as equallly disapointing in their execution this year as the corners were. All around a really bad secondary.

Unless there is at least SOME improvement made talent wise back there then even with all the talent and experience returning on offense...in a 12 game season, we won't win more than 7 games.

Maybe that is part of the Ricks College problem. When I went to Ricks, we spent plenty of time working on the basics. Coach Ron would drill it in to our heads. BYU has always had a problem with this and it would seem from Rocky's comment that they need to watch the film a little closer. See the fundemental mistakes and correct them before worrying about the scheme mistakes.