I read the article and I chased down some stats on Roger French looking at YPR and Sacks per dropback and.
The article states it’s extremely hard for the QB to master (implying excusing Detmer?). We need systems that increase our relative depth and efficiency as an underdog. If it takes forever for a QB to master it, and if there are relatively fewer QBs in the high school ranks that can run it, then we will have a problem with depth. Also, it will take up a lot of time in practice to master and manage. I’m not saying the pro-style is itself a bad system. It’s a beautiful machine. But there is no one perfect strategy, only the situation and the objective, and everything else must adapt to them. You only have 4 years part-time in college, and in reality, at BYU less than that to master a system, preferably as freshman and sophomores so you can actually use them. Some programs can pull it off, but those are top line schools like Alabama and Wisconsin.
I looked into Roger French and some of his stats. I contest that sending more O linemen to the draft than QBs is the same as being a dominant O line as a unit first off. Secondly, unless you can point me to a specific example, I’m not seeing any statistical evidence that they were particularly dominant. From what I can see, they beat up on the WAC for the more part and struggled to control the line against teams with talent.
Again, we’re an underdog. We can’t overpower teams like Wisconsin, or looking ahead: Washington, stanford and USC. and when they have a good d line, the Utes. So instead of overpowering them, we need to ask our lineman to do less and spread the defense out to better isolate specific weaknesses we can exploit. We might part ways on this point, but in my mind, I want my system designed to give me the best chance to beat the best teams on my schedule. Over time in the pro-style we could develop into a team that mauls the likes of Hawaii, Utah state, Fresno, and san diego state. That’s great, but I’m not interested. Do what it takes to increase win % over top teams.
The offensive line this year performed ok. But they have a lot of experienced players. And again, they struggled against better teams.
Here are the averages and sacks against good teams this year:
LSU: -.4 Yards per carry 3 Sacks
Utah: 2.6 / 3
Wisc: 3.1 / 2
Miss st: 1.7 / 1
Boise: 2.9 / 1
UMASS: 1.6/ 7
And remember this is at a slow pace of play where theoretically the line should do better and this doesn’t account for sacks per dropback attempt which is probably relatively high.
Now I’m not saying we do GFGH. I think a slow pace with larger lineman suits us. But it would suit us better in a spread tailored to fit our recruiting: namely Large TE and WRs and a few speedy slot backs. No need to turn away recruits on the O line. Those guys can do what that would require of them.