ARod takes a lot of criticism on CB and among BYU fans. I suppose it's because the DC is new-ish so it's foolish to criticize Jay Hill at this stage, so any ire must be directly at someone. Some of the criticism is justified, some isn't IMHO.

1) PPG - The most important stat is PPG. Over the course of a season PPG is particularly telling because long fields, short fields, TOs, opponents etc. all come out in the wash.

2020 - ZW - 524 ypg - 43.5 PPG
2021 - Jaren - 452 ypg - 33 PPG
2022 - Jaren - 426.3 ypg - 31.3 PPG
2023 - Slovis - 309.8 ypg - 23.7 PPG
2024 - Jake - 410 ypg - 30.9 PPG

This is really good. Most teams win 80% of their games if they score over 25 PPG.

Keep in mind, 23 and 24 had the hardest schedule BYU has ever played. BYU fans (especially the older ones) don't want to hear this, but pre 2011 we were Boise State. We'd play one good P5 team early in the season and then maybe get tested one other time during the year. The rest of the time we'd be playing nobodies. It's a steady string of Wyoming, CSU and Utah State level competition for 10 weeks. Comparing ARod's competition to Anae's, Detmer's, Doman's, or even the Norm Chow's or other OCs from the 70s and 80s just isn't apples to apples.

2) Game shortening - Clearly one of the core philosophies of this BYU staff is that they want to shorten the game. It's likely because (and this is true) they know that BYU has never, doesn't currently, and likely will never, have the horses to compete in P4 land when the game is long. So shorten it, run as few plays as possible. This year we ran 64 plays per game. That's 112th in the nation. For some context, the teams at the top of the 'plays per game' list are running 80 plays per game. Last year we ran 65 and came in at 109th. The year before that we were in the 120s and ran 62.

Is this the right strategy?

No idea...but I will say this: Anae's GFGH philosophy when we were running between 80 and 100 plays a game, or LaVell's pass-happy offense of the 70s and 80s, were actually created with the same purpose in mind: in the absence of great athletes we need to schematically create an advantage.

In the 70s and 80s no one knew how to defend the pass and so there were holes all over zone defenses and poor CB play when we played against man defense.

In GFGH the defense simply got tired. Listen to Jason Kelce talk about how easy it was to block when DTs were having to defend a play every 9 seconds in Chip Kelly's offense, VS when they switched back to a pro-style and all the lineman had lost 30 pounds to go fast. It was a mess.

And in ARod's slow pace offense, we protect our defense and allow them to stay fresh, NOT get injured, and shorten the game against teams with better talent.

3) No OC is perfect. Even Ben Johnson with Detroit--I thought--called a really bad second half on Thanksgiving. Andy Reid has tried that dumb shovel pass inside the 15 yard line on 6 occasions this year. It hasn't worked yet. Kyle Shanahan is probably the single best offensive mind in the league and he has made dumb QB picks and utterly failed to use Kittle correctly (IMHO).

ARod has his weaknesses. The fade against Kansas is the single play that probably cost us the CCG (even if Jake made the call ARod should get the blame for allowing him to audible to a fade). The first half against ASU was just bad. The lack of aggression against KU on the last drive is haunting.

BUT...he's remarkably good most of the time. It's not easy to win 10 games in a P4 conference. Sadly, it'll get overlooked that this is one of the best BYU teams ever. We averaged over 30 PPG in a P4 and beat the ACC champ in the process. There is zero chance he will (or should) get fired. The play design, the use of trick plays, the focus on running the ball, taking deep shots, it's all really really good.