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PROVO — BYU is the school that produced Jim McMahon, Steve Young and Heisman trophy winner Ty Detmer.
It's the school where the pass game in college football was revolutionized under LaVell Edwards and Doug Scovil in the late 70's and early 80's.
There is an expectation and a reputation of throwing the football and throwing it well. It has been the identity of BYU for four decades. From Gary Scheide to Max Hall the Cougars have had quarterbacks who could rack up crazy passing numbers and do it efficiently.
So what happened?
We all just watched a game last Saturday where a BYU quarterback completed just 18 of 48 passes. The game before that there was only 9 of 26 passes completed and somehow the Cougars won and won big.
BYU currently ranks dead last in the country in pass efficiency. Starting quarterback Taysom Hill has only completed 35 percent of his pass attempts.
This is not the brand of BYU football that fans fell in love with.
It has left many frustrated in the wake of a 1-2 start, a 4th straight defeat to Utah and three-plus years of mediocre offensive production. It hurts even more to see some of the best, if not the best, defense ever played at BYU wasted because the offense can't score points. Some are even wondering if Taysom Hill should be benched for backup Ammon Olsen.
While there is reason for concern its way to early to label go fast, go hard a failure. In fact, we should have all seen this coming.
The offensive coaching staff is completely new. Robert Anae was hired to fix the offense and is trying to implement not only a new style of offense but a philosophy as well. Culture change takes time.
BYU has a sophomore quarterback in Taysom Hill who is coming off a serious knee injury and only had two starts, none on the road, before this season.
Hill is working with a relatively inexperienced receiving corps and the veterans have all been slowed by injury. Cody Hoffman spent spring football recovering from shoulder surgery and has missed time so far this season with a hamstring issue. Ross Apo has always struggled with inconsistency and now a shoulder injury is keeping him out of action. It's very difficult for a quarterback to develop chemistry with receivers who are limited due to injury.
Then there is the offensive line which only brought back one starter from a group that struggled last season. This years group is a mix of inexperienced returners and juco players all trying to adapt to a go fast, go hard approach which is more taxing on offensive linemen than any other position.
Now take all these factors into consideration and speed up the offense to a frenetic pace and you have the results you are seeing now.
"Guys are really trying," says Anae. "The execution is not there."
There lies the problem. When you snap the ball nearly 100 times a game and push the tempo that fast you sacrifice execution. A quarterback has far less time to make a pre-snap read at the line of scrimmage and it becomes more difficult to make reads once the ball is snapped.
It all brings up an interesting debate. Should BYU slow down?
What I'm encouraging more than anything is for the pace to remain the same and the execution to catch up with it.
–Bronco Mendenhall
Fans, media and even former BYU players have said it might be best to slow things down. Bronco Mendenhall doesn't see it that way.
"What I'm encouraging more than anything is for the pace to remain the same and the execution to catch up with it," Mendenhall said. "What I've seen is opponents substituting seven or eight (defensive) guys at a time and having a hard time getting on and off the field. When we execute with that tempo, that's the vision I see of our program."
For Mendenhall a 1-2 start seems to be less of a concern than what he sees is best for the long term interest of his program.
Mendenhall has been criticized for bringing up national championships as a goal for BYU. He realizes to reach that type of lofty goal he must take certain risks to get the program where he wants it to go.
"I think we're one of the best in the country, if you consider top 25 consistently," Mendenhall said. "I think we all acknowledge we've been here before at 1-2; I'm not sending any flares off, nor hitting the panic button. We've been 1-4 before, and we've yet to be excluded from a bowl game. We always just find a way to be resilient and win, because that's who our players are. We're a consistent winner; we're a program and a head coach that is expanding scheme and strategy with hope to be better than we've been."
Mendenhall and Anae have a plan and they are sticking to it. They are staking their jobs and reputation on it.
We saw what this offense is capable of against Texas. If the execution, specifically in the pass game, can improve then they may have something but it will require patience for all involved.
