Since it is boring and Jay Santos has his voice on this site....

[Goatnapper'96]

What was Gary Crowton's biggest coaching fuax pas?

I know this is meanspirited yadda yadda, but I am not a warm and cuddly guy.

What comes to my mind:
Flying into Reno the day of the game and how that reflected how prepared the Y was to play.
HOT OFF THE AP WIRE: BYU goes for it again against AF on 4th down and the Falcons score another TD!!
Not recruiting a JC QB after the 2002 QB debacle.
The 2002 QB debacle.
2002 in general. In hindsight that was a piss poor season, amazing what a good year before can soothe the wounds.
Having John Beck roll out and throw the ball, which was intercepted, against Stanford in 2003. That was the straw that stirred my drink.
The amount of carries for Curtis Brown against UNLV in 2004.
Hiring IndyCoug to defend him to the death.

I think I would say the largest game day faux pas was the Reno game. Followed closely by ignoring Curtis Brown against UNLV.

The worst call I say was the one with Beck against Stanford in 2003.

The worst position management was the handling of qb spanning all of 2002 and into 2003. It ended when he picked Beck as his starter after spring ball in 2004, but by then too much damage was done and he was relying upon a kid not prepared for the schedule ahead.

Great guy and I could not be happier for his success at Oregon, but I am much happier with the state of things now.

[Indy Coug]

1. QB handling in 2002.
2. Madcap 4th down down attempts in 2002.

Far and away the 2 biggest mistakes.

[MikeWaters]

Hiring a coach who pitted one half of the team against the other?

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Hiring a coach who pitted one half of the team against the other?

He was only able to pit one half against the other because the division already existed

[Goatnapper'96]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Hiring a coach who pitted one half of the team against the other?

Or more accurately stated...lacking the requisite leadership skills to be a head coach.

However, as the sands pass through the hourglass that hire is looking better and better to me.

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

1. QB handling in 2002.
2. Madcap 4th down down attempts in 2002.

Far and away the 2 biggest mistakes.

I agree with those.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Goatnapper'96

Or more accurately stated...lacking the requisite leadership skills to be a head coach.

However, as the sands pass through the hourglass that hire is looking better and better to me.

I was being provocative for kicks.

I was one of the biggest anti-Crowtonites on cougarboard. Leading to about 30 ignores or so. But now, after the passage of time, I kind of miss him. I miss what he could have been.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Goatnapper'96

What was Gary Crowton's biggest coaching fuax pas?

I know this is meanspirited yadda yadda, but I am not a warm and cuddly guy.

What comes to my mind:
Flying into Reno the day of the game and how that reflected how prepared the Y was to play.
HOT OFF THE AP WIRE: BYU goes for it again against AF on 4th down and the Falcons score another TD!!
Not recruiting a JC QB after the 2002 QB debacle.
The 2002 QB debacle.
2002 in general. In hindsight that was a piss poor season, amazing what a good year before can soothe the wounds.
Having John Beck roll out and throw the ball, which was intercepted, against Stanford in 2003. That was the straw that stirred my drink.
The amount of carries for Curtis Brown against UNLV in 2004.
Hiring IndyCoug to defend him to the death.

I think I would say the largest game day faux pas was the Reno game. Followed closely by ignoring Curtis Brown against UNLV.

The worst call I say was the one with Beck against Stanford in 2003.

The worst position management was the handling of qb spanning all of 2002 and into 2003. It ended when he picked Beck as his starter after spring ball in 2004, but by then too much damage was done and he was relying upon a kid not prepared for the schedule ahead.

Great guy and I could not be happier for his success at Oregon, but I am much happier with the state of things now.

The QB carousel was horrible. Going for it on 4th down, no matter how ridiculous of a situation they were in, also annoyed me. "It's 4th and 37 from the BYU 6 and... they are going for it??? Kirk, have you ever seen anything like this?" To which the other announcer would say something like, "Well, Crowton is a genius. You can't question a football genius."

The WORST, though, for me was Stanford. "I wanted to win by 9 instead of just 2."

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Goatnapper'96

What was Gary Crowton's biggest coaching fuax pas?

I know this is meanspirited yadda yadda, but I am not a warm and cuddly guy.

What comes to my mind:
Flying into Reno the day of the game and how that reflected how prepared the Y was to play.
HOT OFF THE AP WIRE: BYU goes for it again against AF on 4th down and the Falcons score another TD!!
Not recruiting a JC QB after the 2002 QB debacle.
The 2002 QB debacle.
2002 in general. In hindsight that was a piss poor season, amazing what a good year before can soothe the wounds.
Having John Beck roll out and throw the ball, which was intercepted, against Stanford in 2003. That was the straw that stirred my drink.
The amount of carries for Curtis Brown against UNLV in 2004.
Hiring IndyCoug to defend him to the death.

I think I would say the largest game day faux pas was the Reno game. Followed closely by ignoring Curtis Brown against UNLV.

The worst call I say was the one with Beck against Stanford in 2003.

The worst position management was the handling of qb spanning all of 2002 and into 2003. It ended when he picked Beck as his starter after spring ball in 2004, but by then too much damage was done and he was relying upon a kid not prepared for the schedule ahead.

Great guy and I could not be happier for his success at Oregon, but I am much happier with the state of things now.

Looking back, these are the key points, which have been hashed and rehashed.

1. Changed the passing offense from being balanced between WR/TE/fullback/running back to a WR based system too quickly with no WR talent to do it. The Chow offense was predicated on timing and route running. The Crowton offense was based on offensive threats and matchups. We didn't have the talent in the system to make that switch.

2. Failure to use JC quick fixes at key positions, especially OL.

3. Failure to utilize Norm Chow holdovers Reynolds, Bosco, etc to help him acclimate to BYU and help him ease into things slowly and not change too much too fast. Success in 2001 probably did him in there.

4. Lack of QB development. Probably not all his fault, because he didn't have the most to work with, but the biggest mistake was going from Engemann to Berry. Engemann to Olson would have been OK, but Engemann to Berry was a nightmare decision.

5. Not going conservative in 2003 and running with Braithwaite, Whalen, and Vakapuna when the passing game is not there and run and playing defense will win you the game. i.e. Stanford, AFA, Wyoming 2003 and 2004 UNLV

6. Pissing off fans by continually making excuses for everything.

7. Hiring Bronco instead of KW. A good defense in 2004 probably would have gotten him a winning record and kept his job.


Things that weren't his fault.

1. Recruiting thugs. Nobody set out to recruit thugs and the guys that got in trouble all promised to sign the Honor Code, and most of them were perceived to be good character guys.
2. Making sure his kids kept the Honor Code.

I don't think the HC scapegoat thing was fair for Crowton--or for Hale.

[SteelBlue]

I was a Crowtonite. I'm happy to see him doing well at Oregon. As far as biggest mistakes the three that bothered me most were:

1) The Stanford interception.
2) Ditching Engemann when we had nothing better than him on the bench.
3) Losing to UNR


I think a lot of the anti's gave GC more blame than he deserved. Especially considering that there weren't many other options at the time. Part of me wishes we could have seen what GC would have done with last year's schedule but oh well. I'm beginning to believe that Bronco may take this program to a good place.