I am tired of reading how I should be 100% pleased with everything BYU football is in 2009 because Max is the winningest QB in school history and Bronco has an awesome winning percentage since he became the head coach. "10-win seasons abound, so shut your yapper!" is the message I get.
I just fail to see how anyone who experienced 2007 can feel great about this 2009 team. In 2007 BYU won 11 games with young skill players. The future was bright. How good could these guys be one or two years down the road?
The answer? Not all that much better.
These same players are now seniors (okay, Harvey is a junior) and we've seen little to no offensive improvement. BYU's defense is going to be suspect more often than not, but with this amount of experience at the helm of the offense in 2009, and considering the successes of 2007 and 2008, was it entirely unreasonable to expect BYU could score enough to hang with anyone they played?
The dissatisfaction comes from the complete inability of the offense to keep up with Florida State or TCU. If these were shootout type games, and BYU lost after scoring 40 or 50 points, then so be it. BYU fans are used to that type of thing. But to turn the ball over and fail to convert third downs time and time again is unexpected.
After taking a closer look at that 2007 team, all of the big wins can be credited to the defense.
BYU beat TCU after the defense held the Frogs to 22 points. They beat Utah after the defense held them to 10 points. And then a win over UCLA in the Vegas Bowl where the Bruins scored only 16 points.
This year the defense can't come anywhere near that level, and as a result, these games are losses.
In short, these offensive skill players are not elite. Not the best we've ever seen. I reserve the right to be dissatisfied with this season. And if the wheels come off against Utah again this year, you'd better believe I'll be complaining.
1 comment:
I like Bronco for the most part but I've realized that it's kind of arrogant of him to always be saying, sure we don't have the best athletes but we have to make up for it with better preparation and execution. That basically amounts to saying, our players aren't as good but we'll make up for it by being better coaches than the other guys. Well, Utah and TCU appear to have better players and better coaches. You can't make an argument that you're a superior coach if your team does not get up for big home games. So that's been kind of annoying to me. And I agree that they should at least be in these games.
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