Roots of Cougars' Struggles

[TheSizzle36]

What are the top three reasons for the Cougars' struggles in football over the last 7 or 8 years? Just curious. Go ahead and pick the top 3 reasons why.

PLEASE DELETE THIS!!!

[Goatnapper'96]

I think it is hard to just take the past 8 years. I think BYU's struggles started when teams began to be able to defend the pass. The change in the game towards speed and athleticism along with the rise of the "cover corner" began to erode BYU's decade and a half advantage of an offense that nobody understood how to defend.

To this trend I believe BYU's coaching staff reacted by endeavoring to recruit more athletic players. In fact I think BYU won more recruiting battles with big time schools in the early 90's when things began to head south. I think that once BYU was forced to try and beat the opposition with more athleticism was the begginning of BYU's march to mediocrity.

Starting in the mid 90's I think the HC attrition of BYU going after more athletic players started a turf war between BYU football and the HC issue. I believe the admin tried to ameliorate this conflict but sometimes their decisions sided with the HC. Throw in the fact that the coaching staff was coming to the end of a very long tenure and I think the stability of the program was threatened. Between attrition and frustration I think the recruiting began to struggle. Throw in BYU playing more difficult schedules and the lack of depth exposed the Y as a struggling program. In years where the key players stayed healthy BYU could be good, like '99 or '01, but once a key player or two was injured BYU did not just fall to being an above average team, that one key player or two was often the difference between very good and bad.

This trend was compounded by Crowton being a poor head coach. His efforts for a quick fix to the issue only set BYU back farther. I think we have rehashed his issues ad nauseum.

I think the future is brighter than the past 6 years, but I don't think BYU will reach where it once was. I think that is an entirely different thread as many of the reasons are out of BYU's control. What BYU can control is putting a product on the field that will maximize its potential as a football program. I don't think it has done that in some time but I think that Bronco's plan is more likely to get the Y there than the direction it was travelling two years ago...and perhaps to be totally honest perhaps Bronco's plan is the first time the ship has realistically been headed in the right direction in about a decade. But that is a real long term perspective and it will be at least 5 years before that can be evaluated.

[TheSizzle36]

Hey Napper, nice response... I was busy working on making it a poll... I woudl like to delete this thread. Go ahead and vote in the poll and post your response there.

Thanks,

Siz