Bronco vs. Whittingham

[Clark Addison]

My point may not be valid, as I don't pay that much attention to Utah (I always need to look him up to see if his name is Whittington or Whittingham), but the Utah-Wyoming game demonstrated to me a big difference between Bronco and Whittingham. Bronco is very internal focused. Everything is about the team, and how they execute. In almost every press conference he gives, he talks about how they are not focused on how the opponent will do, but on how BYU will execute. This never changes, whether the opponent is Eastern Washington or Utah.

Whittingham, on the other hand, seems to like to use the opponent to motivate and create an “us vs. them” mentality more than even your typical football coach, which is already quite a bit. Much of what he does seems to be saying to his team, “we’ll show them”. The way he talks about BYU, the way he takes slights, perceived or real, and turns them into motivational fodder, all are consistent with this.

I prefer Bronco’s method (though of course I am biased), but each seems to have its benefits. Bronco gets his team to be more consistent, and very execution focused. Not since the SDSU game in 2005 has there been a clearly inferior team beat us just because we stunk up the joint. Whittingham, on the other hand, seems to have one or two games a year (UNLV, UNM, WY, SDSU) where they are clearly the superior team, but get beat. On the other hand, he is able to get his teams up for big games (BYU, UCLA, bowl games) in a way that Bronco hasn’t.

Aside from his strengths or weaknesses on the football field, Bronco’s style is certainly a better fit for BYU’s culture, both among the fans and administration