BYU Cougars and Speed

Mike Hall went to my high school and this dunk made ESPN #1 when it happened, so it gets the honors of being on my blog.

When I was visiting Utah about in late October, I was talking with my brother-in-law about BYU football and their embarrassing loss to TCU.  We agreed that BYU is SOOOOOO slow compared to other teams that we play.  Today, I read an article that essentially said the same thing:  BYU is too slow.  I just don't understand why that is.  Sure, we can chalk up part of it to missions, but that is not enough.  Even older, slightly out-of-shape players can go through conditioning and get faster.  If our team can be so strong, why can't it be fast?

The reason this bothers me is the same reason that Steve Cleveland bothered me as basketball coach.  There is no reason to just assume that Cougars are less athletic that their rivals and should not try to compete on their level.  Cleveland, despite making some progress in realizing that BYU could recruit from outside of Utah, always wanted to play a slow, half-court game.  Why?  For one thing, fast-paced basketball is just more fun.  Also, it makes it really difficult to make a late-game comeback when time is scarce if you have not been running the entire game.  I always remember Cleveland telling the point guard to slow down and it drove me crazy.  Now, to be fair, Pacific High School had a very athletic team and we scored over 100 points numerous times (with only 8 minutes quarters), but come on!  BYU has athletes and we can score if we try.  Thankfully, Dave Rose is doing a MUCH better job at this and BYU scores a lot more points with him.

So, what is football's problem?  We want big linemen, offensive and defensive and we want big backs.  It is nice to have a big offensive line, but mobility also helps protect the quarterback.  Big backs are good some of the time, but sometimes you need some skinny kid with pure speed to get to the outside and pick up some big yardage (like Brathwaite at SDSU a few years back).  And defensively, it makes no sense to be slow when the other team is fast.  All the muscle and size in the world only helps if you can get ahold of the player with the ball.

Oh well, at least if we know BYU is not trying to be fast, we won't be as disappointed when they are not.  Clearly there is a life lesson to learn here:  lower expectations and hope for less and you will be disappointed less often.  I don't expect a good job; I expect to not be a homeless bum with my family sharing a box in the Twin Cities.  Given that, I am sure to be happy with whatever good or bad job I get. See, it works!