Detmer is a smart/cerebral guy, which is why he was so successful in his college and pro careers with his limited physical attributes.

In his role as offensive coordinator, he was handicapped as follows:

(1) With a mentally challenged QB in Tanner Mangum that couldn’t make a defensive read if life depended on it. This formerly mentioned BYU QB (above comment) explained to me once that the passing game’s success requires a QB to make key reads depending on the passing play called and that Mangum was unable to make those reads no matter how much a frustrated Detmer worked with him.
(2) He was not permitted to change to a QB with the mental acumen to learn/run his offense (i.e. hamstringed on personnel decisions by head coach).
(3) The head coach interjected his own play calls and offensive scheme (run heavy, predictable, conservative style) over-ruling the OC, and tying Detmer’s hands. The OC’s authority was severely restricted - then Detmer was blamed for the failured offensive production by the same head coach that was the true source of the problem.

There isn’t an argument that Detmer’s metrics were poor, the REAL problem was he wasn’t given the opportunity to run the offense with his personnel and his schemes.

Right after Kalani Sitaki was hired, I played a round of golf with a close friend (cousin) of Kenneth Va'a Niumatalolo and he told me that when he was offered the BYU head coaching job, it was conditional upon Detmer being the OC and NOT running the triple option offense.
Niumatalolo declined. Sitaki was then offered the job with the same condition of Detmer as the OC. Sitaki was not happy about not being able to instill his own people on the offensive side of the ball and proceeded to remedy that problem and any competition for his head coaching job down the road by torpedoing Detmer from the get-go.

THAT as Paul Harvey used to say - “is the rest of the story”. Unfortunately for Detmer, he will be very unlikely to be given a chance to redeem himself with the freedom to run his own show without Sitaki type restrictions!