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Salt Lake Tribune: BYU offensive coordinator is under fire

TopFrog

TopFrog

Lifelong Frog
Salt Lake Tribune: BYU offensive coordinator is under fire

By Jay Drew
The Salt Lake Tribune

Provo • Only one college football team in the country has a worse passing efficiency rating than the BYU Cougars.

The 3-3 UCLA Bruins, with offensive coordinator Norm Chow calling the plays, just can’t seem to get anything going through the air, either.

Chow, of course, was considered an offensive whiz at BYU under LaVell Edwards from 1982-99, but fell out of favor when the offense grew stagnant. He left the program, probably never to return.

No question, the heat has now been turned up on Robert Anae.

The current BYU offensive coordinator oversees one of the nation’s worst units, one that sputtered, gasped and was without direction in the Cougars’ 31-3 loss at TCU on Saturday. BYU had just 13 yards and one first down at halftime, and finished with 147 yards against a very good TCU defense that pretty much shuts down everybody, but not to that extent. ...
 
Cougar/Frog

Cougar/Frog

Active Member
BYU fans have been all over Anae for years. They are begging to go with the I formation and give up on the spread. Anae (who played for Edwards at BYU and coached under Leach at Tech) does not seem to be the best game day coach and is poor at making adjustments.

In 2008, BYU was down by 4 in the 4th quarter at Utah when Anae gave up on the run and Max Hall threw 4 INTs as the Utes blew the game open very quickly. And that was when BYU was able to run the ball consistently.

Of course, all fans have concerns over their offenses (all but Oregon and Boise, of course), BYU needs to adjust its offense in order to win and score.
 
An-Cap Frog

An-Cap Frog

Member
At some point in time BYU will have to realize that their coaches were just fine and their struggles have more to do with not having talent or as much of it...
 
byuhog

byuhog

New Member
I thought the play calling was generally horrible.

Heaps was born to throw the football. If you have a howitzer for an arm, then yes. Not hand it off to Kariya and Co. 50 times a game and throw dinky 5 yard passes all day long. There may be a lack of talent in spots, but Heaps is not lacking talent. Wish the receiving corp would step up and catch something already.
 
Duquesne Frog

Duquesne Frog

Member
byuhog said:
I thought the play calling was generally horrible.

Heaps was born to throw the football. If you have a howitzer for an arm, then yes. Not hand it off to Kariya and Co. 50 times a game and throw dinky 5 yard passes all day long. There may be a lack of talent in spots, but Heaps is not lacking talent. Wish the receiving corp would step up and catch something already.
Click to expand...

Kariya was pretty effective against us, I thought (4.8 YPC). Including the three sacks, BYU called 33 passing plays out of 57, more than 50% passes. I didn't see Heaps having a hell of a lot of time in the pocket to wait for deep passes to develop ...
 
oldscribe

oldscribe

Member
byuhog said:
I thought the play calling was generally horrible.

Heaps was born to throw the football. If you have a howitzer for an arm, then yes. Not hand it off to Kariya and Co. 50 times a game and throw dinky 5 yard passes all day long. There may be a lack of talent in spots, but Heaps is not lacking talent. Wish the receiving corp would step up and catch something already.
Click to expand...
If heaps threw it 60 times against TCU, he might have gotten one TD, but also 4-5 interceptions. A lot of the problem is that the Frogs had more talent and one of the best defenses the MWC ever has seen. It wasn't Heaps, or Anae...it was TCU.
 
G

guidoc

Member
George F. Will said:
At some point in time BYU will have to realize that their coaches were just fine and their struggles have more to do with not having talent or as much of it...
Click to expand...

I thought they were slower and the second part...how well do freshman or first year starting qb's do against our Defense? Everytime, we run into a first year starting qb...'win.' We can make a first year qb go home to cry in the dorm. It is shear domination.
 
Cougar/Frog

Cougar/Frog

Active Member
oldscribe said:
If heaps threw it 60 times against TCU, he might have gotten one TD, but also 4-5 interceptions. A lot of the problem is that the Frogs had more talent and one of the best defenses the MWC ever has seen. It wasn't Heaps, or Anae...it was TCU.
Click to expand...

Except this is almost exactly what the BYU offense did against Utah State, one of the worst defenses in FBS. The BYU offense has real, real problems and BYU fans have criticized the OC for years. The BYU offense worked best in recent years with a strong running attack (Unga, anyone....)
 
O

Olmec

New Member
BYU was not going to defeat TCU Saturday as TCU is better.

The coaches appeared to make common mistakes for coaches developing young QB's.

Currently, Anae is asking young players to use two many plays and two many formations. Remember, BYU is about execution, not about athleticism. Do 25 plays well, not 75 badly.

BYU's offense moved the ball quite well when a play came from the sidelines that was either a 24 or 25 power out of the I formation, or a play action, wherein Heap's fakes the run, then step, step, hitch and throw to a RB out of the backfield.

BYU's offense stalled when Heap's was asked to go through his progression reads.

As we know, each offense uses a different read system, but basically it's read third level "the secondary," to second level, "the linebackers" to outlet, which is commonly the RB. The problem occurs when a defense rolls its coverage from a two deep to a three deep or vice versa, or when a defense rolls into 1/4's, and loops it's four lineman. There are all sorts of variations of this, but those are the basics. The bottom line is any freshman QB becomes easily confused and holds onto the ball too long, and/or will simply hitch-step and throw into coverage.

Because nothing is working, a common mistake by offensive coordinators such as Anae is to keep trying something different, when in reality, if he would simply stay within the base offense, his offense will put together some nice drives. In doing so, the repetition from practice allows the offense to experience success, and it eventually wears out a defense such as against SDSU.

Against TCU, Anae ran the shotgun, in a two-back set, something that hasn't been successful all year.

Another criticism of Anae is he hasn't used his offensive weapons to their strengths, hoping instead that the weapons he has, become like past players---another common O-coordinator mistake.

A few examples: JJ DiLuigi isn't a power-back, therefore why run a 22 trap out of the twin set? Do that out of the I-formation with Hague. Use Karria out of the I-formation when calling a 24 or 25 power. Use J.J on a 26 or 27 counter; the Counter looks like a power, but the pulling tackle will kick out the filling linebacker and DiLuigi can work best on the edge, instead of spending time dancing in the backfield.

Muehlman is the best T.E. Use him in play action, going from left to right between the seems. Anae has done this. the bottom line is the play-calling needs to be "without" reads and more out of design. When, however, Heap's shows progress, then have him read just one guy, say the corner's hips, or the Safety's coverage, or the outside linebacker's steps. Young Quarterbacks simply are not able to read a collegiate defense.

Where Offensive Coordinators make mistakes is when they fall in love with their expansive play books.
 
byuhog

byuhog

New Member
some good commentary here.

I think Anae could be trying to do too much and maybe BYU should focus on bread and butter and not a big old steak... :) 10 plays done masterfully are better than 1,000 plays that are kinda expirimental or don't work very well...

And Heaps didn't have much time to get some deep passes downfield-true, however I would have liked to seen him throw some more intermediate throws at least.

BYU's offense is inexperienced and out of balance. Unga would've given them that better balance which can do a lot for your offense, but hey-time to move on...

If BYU can't beat Wyoming, their ain't gonna be no bowl game. Period.
 

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