-- The long night is upon us
Welp, it happened.
If the picture looks blurry that's because I was crying while I took it. I've been fired by the team I love. My heart is broken. My heart is furious.
I'm pissed. I was in the process of building BYU into a complete juggernaut. My success in recruiting had risen our championship contention ranking all the way to a B. When I took over we were a D-! We were poised to have our strongest team by far of my coaching tenure. A 90+ rated QB in Latimer, a 90+ rated RB in Gates, a strong offensive line, a completely revitalized defensive line, and our strongest CB freshman of all-time. And I get booted.
To rub salt in the wound, both BYU's offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator signed extensions. Are you kidding me? Our defense gave up like 5 losses in the final minutes the last two years. Notre Dame nearly scored 100 on us.
What went wrong? A few things come to mind.
- I stunk up my last 32 games, posting only 14 wins against 18 losses
- I scheduled a bit too aggressively
- I paid too little attention to defensive recruiting in my first two years
- I fell victim to the curse of the unlucky #13 in my first season
- I lost some very close games
- I lost Riley Nelson (aka Reggie Nelson in this game) to a season-ending injury my first year, which probably cost us a 10-win season
- I didn't take advantage of my job security trump card during my first recruiting year
- I faced unrealistic expectations, like having a goal to beat 50% of the top-25 teams I face or finish in the top 10 in one of my seasons (but then BYU is saddled with enormous expectations so I guess that's accurate)
What did I do right? Or rather, what do my career numbers look like?
- 27 wins, 24 losses
- Averaged 27.8 points per game scored on offense
- Averaged 27.8 points per game surrendered on defense (wut? I'm even steven)
- 1 and 2 in bowl games
- 16 and 18 in big games
- 6 and 14 against P5s
- 7 and 2 against Utah, Boise, and USU (terrific!)
- A spectacular 10-3 against rivals if you count Virginia (because of Bronco) and UNLV (because the game does)
I was absolute garbage against ranked opponents: 1 win, 9 losses. In my defense, 6 of those teams were top-ten, 4 were top-five, two won the title, and one was a runner up in the championship game. Those were not wimpy top-25 teams.
What's next for me? I'm not like the rest of BYU's coaches who quit football the moment they leave BYU. I'm a Spartan now; in desperation I took a job as the offensive coordinator of San Jose State. My goals have changed, from coaching BYU to glory ... to simply coaching again at BYU.
I don't know what the future of this blogging project holds. I might keep simulating for a couple of years just to see from afar what my BYU core can accomplish while I'm away. I might move all the difficulty levels to their easiest level in the hopes it will turn my career around and make me attractive to BYU once more.
I shall write again, once the plan is set.
No comments:
Post a Comment