Have to agree on the qb thing. I hoped they would start Wilson and start a new era in BYU football even though it meant a 6 and 6 season or perhaps 7-5. I guess it was too hard a thing to do to Mangum though other school would have done it in a heartbeat. I just saw to many flaws in Tanner, from his footwork to his locking on his targets, to his decision making. Arizona is probably 3rd or 4th in the PAC12 south, so if BYU gets walked on, it’s going to be an ugly year. I hope I’m wrong, but I seldom am about BYU athletics. 7-5 would be stellar
After listening to Ben Criddle last night on sportstalk, I am inclined to give Mangum the benefit of the doubt. There was a lot more going on behind the scenes at BYU last year than what has been reported.
The team as a whole quit, pure and simple. There was no competitive spirit in the games.
Ben made an interesting comment, he said what made BYU football great in the past was not necessarily their talent level, but their competitive spirits. Having that type of spirit helps compensate for the lack of talent. They play harder and work harder to win.
Interesting thought.
Good coaches are more important than good players. Over the long run, good coaches can turn average teams into good teams. Eventually good coaches attract good players and the cycle repeats itself. So, if the new coaches are good, Tanner will respond. We will see immediately the fruits of the coaches and the first half will show us if Tanner makes his reads quickly and effectively. We will see if the ball is thrown in rhythm and/or on target. I hope for BYU and Tanners sake that he has dramatically improved his ability to read the defense pre snap. My personal opinion is that some QBs are born with that talent and the ability to know how long they have to get rid of the ball. Tanner is a good practice QB. When there isn’t a lot of real pressure on him he is accurate but my personal opinion is that what sets great coaches apart from their peers is the eye for pure talent and locating “gamers” on their roster. Athletes who turn it up a notch in the game are not always the best practice players. The reverse is also true. So, the only thing that matters most is to find the players who rise to the next level during the games. Personally, I don’t think Tanner is one of those guys. I think it will become evident as the year progresses. But the beauty of it is that it won’t be subjective. Everyone will be able to see his reaults.
So football season is here again. We know very little today about our team as far as how we match up with the rest of the college world, but will be much wiser by end of day tomorrow and I’m sure our comments will flow freely.
I’m really hoping for something around 8-4 or 9-3 and a win against our friends up north would be a nice pre-Christmas present. Watched last nights game ad knew that beginning meant nothing. Weber is a bad offensive team, but Utah does play real good defense. Whitt has that stuff down really well and has the players to stop almost anyone. Don’t think Huntley will lead them to the promised land though. He can make plays but he can also mess up a few. No harm in that accept when they play their hardest games, where I think it will cost them. BYU has to be one of those games.We’ll know what the odds are by tomorrow night.
I buy into what Criddle said. Competitive spirit kept BYU afloat many times. I guess what question I would ask is-if a team quits -who on the coaching staff bears that responsibility? If what Thawk says is true that a great coach can make average players good, then what responsibility does Sitake have for the team quitting?
Good coaches recognize gritty players 
hate to say I told you so… but BYU just beat Arizona…
all the so called experts said they could not Arizona all week long including some posters on this site.
Was it pretty? No! but I saw things I never saw last year, passion, competing from start to end…
hopefully the team can build on it.
I will say, BYU defense is not as good as I originally thought.
One win, but my predicted floor should now seem more reachable, even to the naysayers. With a 1-0 record, my predicted probable–and even the best–may still occur. 
[quote=“BoiseCougar, post:13, topic:8036, full:true”]
Best of course is 12-0. Probable is 10-2. The floor is 8-4.
Anything below that is a disaster, even though 6-6 saves Kalani’s job.
[/quote]
This Az win tells me several things. Grimes IS a lineman genius. Grimes is a very good OC at calling the right play. The only gripe I have about the entire night was with 6 minutes to go in the game, instead of calling a up the middle behind El Bakri, we ran the fly sweep…….twice and got nowhere near the 3 yards.
I have thought all along we had the talent at important positions. raising my predictions to 8-4.
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And on the previous drive we had 3rd and three and instead of running for the easy first down, we watched Magnum throw it into the dirt at the receiver’s feet on both 3d and 4th down. I was VERY impressed with both our OL and DL! Not impressed AT ALL with our secondary or with Tuiaki’s soft prevent defense in the entire 4th quarter that allowed Zona to make it interesting.
This game showed some positive, hopeful things but also some that were disheartening.
The third quarter was the best football BYU has played in a long time. Energy was high, execution was on target - just fun to watch and showed potential.
Offensive line play for most of the game was also far better than anything we saw last year and defensive line also held their ground well.
Not so good, again, were the following:
Defense back field, although making some plays, broke down often and as so often, struggled on deep balls letting guys get behind them. This has to be cleaned up.
Although overall the play calling was much improved over last year, there were decisions made in the fourth quarter that could have easily turned this game into a defeat. Those third and fourth down calls when we only needed three yards to keep driving on their side of the field were absolutely bad. Our line was creating 3-4 yard rushes almost every play and instead of sticking with power football Grimes got cute. Really hope he learned a lesson from that.
And the decision in the fourth to “play if safe” and just hold on to the lead was also lousy. Bronco used to do that and it never worked out well. Don’t play to protect a lead unless it’s in the last few minutes. Dialing it down for a whole quarter and playing “chicken” ball is not the way to win games. Play the same way that got you there and keep the pressure high on defense. That three man rush was very ineffective and we don’t have guys than can cover for 5-10 seconds. Again, I hope that is something that won’t happen again.
Enough positive though to bring hope. Yea, it appears that Tanner can’t throw an on target deep ball but the positive was that guys did get open deep - he just missed them. His short game looked fine. Running game looked good, blocking looked excellent for much of the game, and general position play was not bad. A few really dumb penalties, but all in all, better than I had feared.
You are exactly right and I don’t think you hate to tell me “I told you so”
I though Warner was supposed to be really good but he looked slow reacting. I hope he improves. The defensive line and linebackers did well stopping the run. Wasn’t that bad.
I think you have to give Warner a little time, last year and most of his high school time was played as a DB, not a safety.
I think he will grow into it as the season progresses.
Also, I’m reserving judgement on the line until we play a few teams that have a decent to strong line. Arizona’s is flimsy and we knew going into the game. I was impressed with them in certain aspects but I’m not buying it until I see them challenged.
I liked the play calling for the most part. Too many end arounds. And, when we have a team down, we have to continue with the normal offense and not just try to run the time out.
I agree, play calling was good most of the time. There were a few times I didn’t agree with it but it might not have been called that way.
Honestly, I feel good about us beating the teams we’re supposed to beat now. This looks like a conservative strategy.
But I don’t think this will give us any chance against teams that are a little better than us, not to mention Wisconsin. I’m ok with that for now. Just get back on your feet you know?
I think the problem will come when we can’t dominate the line. When that day comes, we’ll need to see them spread out the formation or we’ll get rolled.
I would love to see a formation that attacks wide a TE bunch that threatens to block or pass on the edge.
Overall the game was way better than any performance last season. So I give a lot of credit to the coaches. Good coaching can cover up a lot of weaknesses. Tanner did better than I thought he would and Canada was a different RB thanl last year. The OL is much improved and other than sitting on the lead and being too conservative in the 4th Q we didn’t do a bad job.
The DB group needs to study tape and get way better at learning technique on defending the deep ball. But for starters … this was a good first step in the right direction.
Floyd - so far so good on these predictions
here is a must read on Grimes