Never be elite with Arod.

The complaint/grievance against Arod should not be that he sucks. The issue with Arod is that when the most important play calls need to be made (game is on the line), or when the chess match of adjustments needs to be made, A-rod routinely out-thinks himself/tries to get too cute with some poor decisions at the most critical times.

I liken him to Kyle Shanahan. When playing an inferior opponent, or if we catch early momentum and the lead, he is pretty good and wide open. But when things get too tight or pressure ramps up, you can always count on some sort of bonehead decision that the kids have to overcome. And that is difficult to do when the opponent is as good or better than you are.


This is the same with Sitake. Great rah rah guy, and great leader. Exactly the type of guy that should be a the head of this program. But you you can always count on poor clock management, a few headscratcher calls, and a healthy dose of gambling (going for it, fake punts, etc) The kids have to do extra to overcome this liability.

(I could start a whole long list of such decisions, from throwing the ball on on 1st and goal vs Oklahoma returned for a pick6, to passing on 3rd and 2 vs Baylor when we are trying to run the clock down, resulting in an int....there is a long list of "holy crap how could a call like that even be contemplated" situations.)


The players alway have to overcome at least one of these two liabilities (Sitake or Arod), and often both. To be honest, we have overachieved a bunch this year. And that is mostly due to our defense. But even that is an amazing punch up. Think about it, half our defense is from the FCS. Imagine what Jay Hill's defense would be if we had yewtah's D-line.


And that leads me to the last point, life is much more chill and easy going when you accept who BYU is. We are good, with occasional great breakthrough top 10- 15 ranking every 15 years or so. BYU will rarely (if ever) be elite. But they will never be elite with Arod (as mentioned above). And since Arod is good enough, he won't be fired if we are still good enough to win 7+ games a season. We don't fire people like an SEC team would. That is not our culture (See Tuiaki)


After our 5th game, I had said that if this year we had any of our defenses from the past 8 years, we would be 2-3. After game 12, I think we would be either 4-8 or 5-7 if we had any of the previous 8 year's defenses.


So sit back, accept who we are, and enjoy it. It is a game. If you told me we would have at least 6 wins and beat yewtah this year, I would have been thrilled. Everything else is just gravy. This is one of those great every 10-15 year type seasons previously mentioned. Sit back and enjoy.