-- Climps Hansen is here to save the day. Hopefully.
The coaching search was not immediately fruitful. The rumor board hopefuls all stayed put -- Andy in the NFL, Whitt at Utah, Bevell at Seattle, Leach at Wazzu, LaVell retired, Norm washed up. The Board of Trustees eventually turned to a high school innovator who had improbably led Granger High to back-to-back state titles. Climps Hansen's coaching philosophy was based uniquely on memorization. The more plays we can memorize, the more plays we can run, the more unpredictable we become, the harder we are to defend, the more we score.
His Lancer championship teams ran everything: option, air raid, pro, spread, west coast, and something he called "the Climps package" which consisted of virtually every trick play to ever be filmed. He took it as a personal challenge to break the Atlanta Falcon's streak of 27 consecutive plays without using a repeated formation. In short, he's an offensive guru. He's also completely inexperienced at the college level, which translated into fan meant not what Cougar supporters wanted.
At his introductory press conference a number of questions touched on his lack of exposure at the college level. Hansen responded somewhat pridefully that he expected even better offensive performance in his new role given college players should be able to retain an even larger number of plays than high schoolers.
His hopes for the team were less dramatic, a far cry from Bronco's quests for perfection or talk of BCS bowls. His primary goal every season was to finish in the top 25. His second was to sell out home games by providing entertaining, aggressive football. Fans and media were disappointed to not hear more talk about beating rivals, given the lack of success against Utah, Boise, and TCU, as well as the rise of USU under Gary Anderson.
Ok. STOP. Stop it. What is this wierd fan-fiction crap?
At his introductory press conference a number of questions touched on his lack of exposure at the college level. Hansen responded somewhat pridefully that he expected even better offensive performance in his new role given college players should be able to retain an even larger number of plays than high schoolers.
His hopes for the team were less dramatic, a far cry from Bronco's quests for perfection or talk of BCS bowls. His primary goal every season was to finish in the top 25. His second was to sell out home games by providing entertaining, aggressive football. Fans and media were disappointed to not hear more talk about beating rivals, given the lack of success against Utah, Boise, and TCU, as well as the rise of USU under Gary Anderson.
Ok. STOP. Stop it. What is this wierd fan-fiction crap?
Allow me to explain.
A fellow named Ricky O'Donnell writes a newsletter called Tremendous Upside Potential which covers the fictional exploits of Ricky's attempts to guide the Western Illinois Leathernecks to a NCAA basketball title in NBA 2K8. He does everything except play the games, which are always simulated. This means recruiting, depth charts, assistant coaches, scheduling, and rotations are his duties. The newsletter was so fun to follow and so reminiscent of the dynasty building of my youth that I decided to do the same thing. That is, write about my fictional quest to bring BYU to glory in NCAA Football 2013. (I'm not sure if glory is another NCAA championship or a promotion to the Pac 12, but it'll be something more than just beating Utah for two decades straight.)
I harbor no illusions of garnering the interest Ricky has, nor do I claim any degree of creativity -- this is Ricky's idea, I'm just copying it and applying it to my Cougs.
The version of NCAA football that I own is 2013, which Reddit assured me is the best for recruiting, and from what I've seen so far I fully agree. Our journey begins with the 2012 season where I've made only one change to the schedule -- adding Army in November -- so our big games are against Boise, Utah, Wazzu, Notre Dame, Oregon State, Georgia Tech, and USU. That's a lot of big games!
Our offseason recruiting needs were primarily on the defensive side of the ball where we have to find two CBs, a FS, and a couple LBs. Unfortunately the top prospects interested in BYU are all on the offensive side of the ball:
WR - Dusty Green (5-star out of Farmington - I trail Utah and Ohio State for his services)
WR - John Anderson (5-star out of Arkansas who I'm neck-and-neck with Oregon for. This is a scary one. Anderson's priorities are coaching prestige and conference affiliation. Not exactly my bread and butter.)
RB - Marcus Robinson (4-star out of West Jordan)
QB - Steve Latimer (3-star out of Tremonton who is rated a 76!11. For context, the #1 rated QB in the country is rated a 80. What's more outlandish? A guy rated 76 who is only a 3-star or the idea that a top notch QB could come out of Tremonton? Ranked the #19 QB in the nation.)
Yeah so, not exactly deep in defensive players, but I'm not complaining! Two 5-stars and one 4-star interested in me right off the bat? Don't mind if I do! If I can sign even just one of these big names that would be a great headliner for my first recruiting class. Which I think I'm going to need because I started the season off on two rough notes.
Rough Note #1
I decided to redshirt quite a few players who are upperclassmen. The players and fans were not thrilled. The most prominent redshirts include backup QB Josh Britton (Jake Heaps?) rated at 78, RB Peter Young at 83, Ernest Evans a 75-rated WR, and Claude Johnson, a 75-rated TE. All of these players are experienced juniors with the exception of Britton who is a senior. It's a risk to remove these guys but I felt if we could stay healthy we could extend these players' contributions into a difficult 2013 schedule.
A fellow named Ricky O'Donnell writes a newsletter called Tremendous Upside Potential which covers the fictional exploits of Ricky's attempts to guide the Western Illinois Leathernecks to a NCAA basketball title in NBA 2K8. He does everything except play the games, which are always simulated. This means recruiting, depth charts, assistant coaches, scheduling, and rotations are his duties. The newsletter was so fun to follow and so reminiscent of the dynasty building of my youth that I decided to do the same thing. That is, write about my fictional quest to bring BYU to glory in NCAA Football 2013. (I'm not sure if glory is another NCAA championship or a promotion to the Pac 12, but it'll be something more than just beating Utah for two decades straight.)
I harbor no illusions of garnering the interest Ricky has, nor do I claim any degree of creativity -- this is Ricky's idea, I'm just copying it and applying it to my Cougs.
The version of NCAA football that I own is 2013, which Reddit assured me is the best for recruiting, and from what I've seen so far I fully agree. Our journey begins with the 2012 season where I've made only one change to the schedule -- adding Army in November -- so our big games are against Boise, Utah, Wazzu, Notre Dame, Oregon State, Georgia Tech, and USU. That's a lot of big games!
Our offseason recruiting needs were primarily on the defensive side of the ball where we have to find two CBs, a FS, and a couple LBs. Unfortunately the top prospects interested in BYU are all on the offensive side of the ball:
WR - Dusty Green (5-star out of Farmington - I trail Utah and Ohio State for his services)
WR - John Anderson (5-star out of Arkansas who I'm neck-and-neck with Oregon for. This is a scary one. Anderson's priorities are coaching prestige and conference affiliation. Not exactly my bread and butter.)
RB - Marcus Robinson (4-star out of West Jordan)
QB - Steve Latimer (3-star out of Tremonton who is rated a 76!11. For context, the #1 rated QB in the country is rated a 80. What's more outlandish? A guy rated 76 who is only a 3-star or the idea that a top notch QB could come out of Tremonton? Ranked the #19 QB in the nation.)
Yeah so, not exactly deep in defensive players, but I'm not complaining! Two 5-stars and one 4-star interested in me right off the bat? Don't mind if I do! If I can sign even just one of these big names that would be a great headliner for my first recruiting class. Which I think I'm going to need because I started the season off on two rough notes.
Rough Note #1
I decided to redshirt quite a few players who are upperclassmen. The players and fans were not thrilled. The most prominent redshirts include backup QB Josh Britton (Jake Heaps?) rated at 78, RB Peter Young at 83, Ernest Evans a 75-rated WR, and Claude Johnson, a 75-rated TE. All of these players are experienced juniors with the exception of Britton who is a senior. It's a risk to remove these guys but I felt if we could stay healthy we could extend these players' contributions into a difficult 2013 schedule.
I also felt like more redshirts this year might allow me to redshirt more of next year's freshman, which is a major priority for my coaching style. Like BYU of old, I want guys who have been in the system for a year or two before they're deployed.
Rough Note #2
Our season opener against Washington State is a total dud, a 23 to 13 loss. We killed them in the rushing game, holding them to 37 yards on 30 attempts. That's the only good thing that occurred in the game. We drive into the redzone twice and come out with zero TDs. It's not the offensive introduction I was looking for. Did the fans boo me like they did Bronco? Either way I don't take it personally. I will give my life to entertain these fans.
It's not all bad news as recruiting is off to a promising start, aided in part by what looks like the best crop of high schoolers in the history of the state of Utah. We'll cover that and more as we move into Week 2 and beyond in the next installment.
Rough Note #2
Our season opener against Washington State is a total dud, a 23 to 13 loss. We killed them in the rushing game, holding them to 37 yards on 30 attempts. That's the only good thing that occurred in the game. We drive into the redzone twice and come out with zero TDs. It's not the offensive introduction I was looking for. Did the fans boo me like they did Bronco? Either way I don't take it personally. I will give my life to entertain these fans.
It's not all bad news as recruiting is off to a promising start, aided in part by what looks like the best crop of high schoolers in the history of the state of Utah. We'll cover that and more as we move into Week 2 and beyond in the next installment.
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