Time to look seriously at getting rid of Anae

Gunk wrote:
The talent Anae had around him covered for many of his lackings. BYU could run the same plays over and over and still get results because we had the players. When more talented or equally talented teams showed up, we suffered. We can't do that now. Our guys aren't there yet.



Not only can Anae not admit he made a mistake, it appears from his perspective a mistake wasn't even made. That's crazy talk. We get blown out by AFA after squashing them 6 years in a row and he'd do the same thing! I'm no football expert, nor do I claim to be, but that's backwards.



Also, don't OCs usually only stay in one spot for about 3 or so years and then move on? Again, if BYU wants to compete on a national stage, a new OC is needed.



Lastly, I don't want to watch a QB tuck it and run every other play. That's boring. If this becomes the Nelson tuck-and-run-show I'm done watching until a more entertaining QB actually gets a chance to play.

I disagree that Anae wouldn't change a thing. You guys really need to listen to the entire interviews before you start attributing opinions/ideas to the coaches that they expressly disaffirm. His comment was that he would still go with Nelson after the half in lieu of Heaps. His comment about doing the exact same thing was: ""We just felt that with Air Force, every (unconverted) third down put our team in jeopardy, so that's the reason we went with the more experienced quarterback with a heavy run game. We weren't able to connect in the pass game so it really probably backfired, but looking back on it, we'd do the exact same thing. If we've got a slug-out with an opponent, you lean on the veteran there." That's a far cry from saying no mistakes were made. He points to the inability to connect in the pass game as the reason it backfired. In the other parts of the interview Wrubbell hasn't written out for you, Anae acknowledges mistakes and things that need to change. The "exact same" comment was in reference to one decision--Nelson over Heaps with the way things were going at the half. Anae acknowledges that there were mistakes made in how things were run from that point on.

Get rid of Anae? One bad game early this season and the boo birds want to dump a guy that is responsible for the offense that has won 50 games in 5+ seasons? Unbelievable.





Anae may have his weaknesses, but his strengths far outweigh them.

Gunk wrote:

Lastly, I don't want to watch a QB tuck it and run every other play. That's boring. If this becomes the Nelson tuck-and-run-show I'm done watching until a more entertaining QB actually gets a chance to play.

I haven't weighed in on this QB situation too much, though I have my opinions, but I could not pass this one up.



Turn in your fan card, Gunk. No real hardcore fan in his right mind would ever say something like this.



I hope you aren't serious when you say that your fanhood is based solely on the entertainment value of a given team/season.

frdbtr wrote:
Ok, you took one statement out of a 2 minute answer to the question of why they pulled Heaps and are now saying that Anae should be fired. I listened to the interview and the answer he gave made good football sense and that is why he said that they wouldn't change it if they had to do it over. In retrospect, what they tried didn't work but it was a sound football decision from what he said. I will paraphrase.



Wrubell said 'why did you go with Nelson in the second half"



Anae said (I am paraphrasing, if you want to hear it for yourselves, go to ksl and download it): We realized we were in a fistfight, we thought that the best option for our offense was to go with the running game and try to keep it close (translation, we wanted to shorten the game with the running game and keep an offense that we weren't stopping off the field). He goes on....Heaps was not able to pick up first downs and Riley was with his running....what we did didn't work as well as we had hoped but in retrospect if we had to do it over we would have done the same thing. Meaning that it makes good football sense to try to shorten the game and keep the offense that your defense can't stop off the field.



Oh My! lets fire the guy for this type of thinking! :bug: :roll:

You are giving the guy way too much credit.



1) Your "translation" is complete BS. Your opinion isn't BS - just your "translation." You have no way of proving that's what he meant, and to be honest, it's a bit of a shaky stab at what his meaning might have been.



2) Giving you the major benefit of the doubt and assuming your "translation" is indeed what he meant - it makes zero sense to "keep the game close" when you're down 3 touchdowns... at that point, it's not close anymore - you need to pass.



3) On your whole "keeping their offense off the field b/c we couldn't stop them" theory. Don't get me wrong, our defense struggled, but 35 points is not THAT bad. College teams score that much and more all the time. When you consider how many 3-and-outs and turnovers we had, you realize that our defense was on the field a LOT, which didn't help them. If our offense had been able to get things going, Air Force scores no more than 21-28 points.



4) "Heaps was not able to get first downs." And Riley was? :skeptic:

CannonCougar85 wrote:

Lastly, I don't want to watch a QB tuck it and run every other play. That's boring. If this becomes the Nelson tuck-and-run-show I'm done watching until a more entertaining QB actually gets a chance to play.

I haven't weighed in on this QB situation too much, though I have my opinions, but I could not pass this one up.



Turn in your fan card, Gunk. No real hardcore fan in his right mind would ever say something like this.



I hope you aren't serious when you say that your fanhood is based solely on the entertainment value of a given team/season.

Where were you when craigo said he'd never give another dollar to BYU football, and be "done" with them if they went Independent instead of taking concessions from the MWC? I'm not saying that Gunk or Craigo are or aren't "true" fans, I'm just saying that it seems like certain fans get away with making stupid "I'll give up on BYU" statements, while others don't.

Italics wrote:

Ok, you took one statement out of a 2 minute answer to the question of why they pulled Heaps and are now saying that Anae should be fired. I listened to the interview and the answer he gave made good football sense and that is why he said that they wouldn't change it if they had to do it over. In retrospect, what they tried didn't work but it was a sound football decision from what he said. I will paraphrase.



Wrubell said 'why did you go with Nelson in the second half"



Anae said (I am paraphrasing, if you want to hear it for yourselves, go to ksl and download it): We realized we were in a fistfight, we thought that the best option for our offense was to go with the running game and try to keep it close (translation, we wanted to shorten the game with the running game and keep an offense that we weren't stopping off the field). He goes on....Heaps was not able to pick up first downs and Riley was with his running....what we did didn't work as well as we had hoped but in retrospect if we had to do it over we would have done the same thing. Meaning that it makes good football sense to try to shorten the game and keep the offense that your defense can't stop off the field.



Oh My! lets fire the guy for this type of thinking! :bug: :roll:

You are giving the guy way too much credit.



1) Your "translation" is complete BS. Your opinion isn't BS - just your "translation." You have no way of proving that's what he meant, and to be honest, it's a bit of a shaky stab at what his meaning was.



2) Giving you the major benefit of the doubt and assuming your "translation" is indeed what he meant - it makes zero sense to "keep the game close" when you're down 3 touchdowns... at that point, it's not close anymore - you need to pass.



3) On your whole "keeping their offense off the field b/c we couldn't stop them" theory. Don't get me wrong, our defense struggled, but 35 points is not THAT bad. College teams score that much and more all the time. When you consider how many 3-and-outs and turnovers we had, you realize that our defense was on the field a LOT, which didn't help them. If our offense had been able to get things going, Air Force scores no more than 21-28 points.



4) "Heaps was not able to get first downs." And Riley was? :skeptic:

Yet another ignorant post from someone who hasn't bothered to listen to the entire interview. He was paraphrasing, not translating, and if you bother to listen to Anae himself, frdbtr pretty much followed exactly what he said.



Anae saying "I'd do the exact same thing" refers only to the decision at half time to go with Nelson and sit Heaps. That comment had nothing to do with later decisions e.g. when the score was different.

snoscythe wrote:



Yet another ignorant post from someone who hasn't bothered to listen to the entire interview. He was paraphrasing, not translating, and if you bother to listen to Anae himself, frdbtr pretty much followed exactly what he said.



Anae saying "I'd do the exact same thing" refers only to the decision at half time to go with Nelson and sit Heaps. That comment had nothing to do with later decisions e.g. when the score was different.

Weird, most people on this forum seem to reflect my feelings on this. Are you going to call everyone else ignorant, too... or just continue implying it?



I didn't even refer to the "I'd do the exact same thing" quote, so I'm not sure where you're pulling that from.



All four of my points apply to the situation fine. You're trying too hard to win an imaginary battle here that only you seem to care about. Is it because I stopped responding to your PM's? Give it up.

snoscythe wrote:

frdbtr wrote:
Ok, you took one statement out of a 2 minute answer to the question of why they pulled Heaps and are now saying that Anae should be fired. I listened to the interview and the answer he gave made good football sense and that is why he said that they wouldn't change it if they had to do it over. In retrospect, what they tried didn't work but it was a sound football decision from what he said. I will paraphrase.



Wrubell said 'why did you go with Nelson in the second half"



Anae said (I am paraphrasing, if you want to hear it for yourselves, go to ksl and download it): We realized we were in a fistfight, we thought that the best option for our offense was to go with the running game and try to keep it close (translation, we wanted to shorten the game with the running game and keep an offense that we weren't stopping off the field). He goes on....Heaps was not able to pick up first downs and Riley was with his running....what we did didn't work as well as we had hoped but in retrospect if we had to do it over we would have done the same thing. Meaning that it makes good football sense to try to shorten the game and keep the offense that your defense can't stop off the field.



Oh My! lets fire the guy for this type of thinking! :bug: :roll:

You are giving the guy way too much credit.



1) Your "translation" is complete BS. Your opinion isn't BS - just your "translation." You have no way of proving that's what he meant, and to be honest, it's a bit of a shaky stab at what his meaning was.



2) Giving you the major benefit of the doubt and assuming your "translation" is indeed what he meant - it makes zero sense to "keep the game close" when you're down 3 touchdowns... at that point, it's not close anymore - you need to pass.



3) On your whole "keeping their offense off the field b/c we couldn't stop them" theory. Don't get me wrong, our defense struggled, but 35 points is not THAT bad. College teams score that much and more all the time. When you consider how many 3-and-outs and turnovers we had, you realize that our defense was on the field a LOT, which didn't help them. If our offense had been able to get things going, Air Force scores no more than 21-28 points.



4) "Heaps was not able to get first downs." And Riley was? :skeptic:

Yet another ignorant post from someone who hasn't bothered to listen to the entire interview. He was paraphrasing, not translating, and if you bother to listen to Anae himself, frdbtr pretty much followed exactly what he said.



Anae saying "I'd do the exact same thing" refers only to the decision at half time to go with Nelson and sit Heaps. That comment had nothing to do with later decisions e.g. when the score was different.

Thanks for the clarification. I think I am about to quit reading the board until BYU wins again. I get too upset reading the negativity that is spawned after a loss. I get sick of defending our coaches and players against Ignorance. I am not calling any of you dumb or stupid, just ignorant. There is a difference. Ignorance is spouting an opinion without knowing the facts. Any of you calling me stupid for my assesment of what Anae said without listening to the interview are ignorant. I am done with this conversation.

Disagree. The body of Anae's work does not support this. AF was a total team/coaching breakdown. Anae has performed very well for us. One bad loss does not define a career.

frdbtr wrote:



Thanks for the clarification. I think I am about to quit reading the board until BYU wins again. I get too upset reading the negativity that is spawned after a loss. I get sick of defending our coaches and players against Ignorance. I am not calling any of you dumb or stupid, just ignorant. There is a difference. Ignorance is spouting an opinion without knowing the facts. Any of you calling me stupid for my assesment of what Anae said without listening to the interview are ignorant. I am done with this conversation.

Someone called you stupid? I haven't read the whole thread, but from the good chunk I have read, I didn't see anyone call you that. In fact, you're the first poster I've seen on this thread name-calling. Sno comes in at a close second place with his "yet ANOTHER ignorant post from someone" comment. Pot, meet kettle.



And the "facts" are that BYU is a passing team, that we were expecting to get different results from the same offense the entire second half, and that continuing to play a wildcat quarterback when your're down 21 points in the 4th quarter is an ineffective way to try and win the game. I'm seeing a profound LACK of ignorance in most of the posts on this thread.

Here comes the mob that drove Chow out of town...



"Grab Your Torch and Pitchfork!"

33311710 wrote:
Here comes the mob that drove Chow out of town...



"Grab Your Torch and Pitchfork!"

I actually think BYU fans are too NICE to coaches.



Most fanbases practically tar and feather their coaches when they aren't pleased with them (not literally, of course). Most prestigious BCS school's coaching positions are constantly on the hot seat. I do think that sometimes it gets ridiculous how quickly coaches in AQ conferences are fired, but it just goes to prove my original point that BYU's fans and BYU itself are too kind to their coaches. Some on this forum constantly cry out in anguish about how unfair, unforgiving, and impatient our fanbase is with our coaches, but the fact of the matter is that that's just not the case.

Italics wrote:

Here comes the mob that drove Chow out of town...



"Grab Your Torch and Pitchfork!"

I actually think BYU fans are too NICE to coaches.



Most fanbases practically tar and feather their coaches when they aren't pleased with them (not literally, of course). Most prestigious BCS school's coaching positions are constantly on the hot seat. I do think that sometimes it gets ridiculous how quickly coaches in AQ conferences are fired, but it just goes to prove my original point that BYU's fans and BYU itself are too kind to their coaches. Some on this forum constantly cry out in anguish about how unfair, unforgiving, and impatient our fanbase is with our coaches, but the fact of the matter is that that's just not the case.

This may be true, but at the same time, the last time we ran an OC out of town, it was Chow. Who is widely regarded as the best OC in CFB. Of course, his UCLA offense looks pretty pathetic.

Italics wrote:
I actually think BYU fans are too NICE to coaches.



Most fanbases practically tar and feather their coaches when they aren't pleased with them (not literally, of course). Most prestigious BCS school's coaching positions are constantly on the hot seat. I do think that sometimes it gets ridiculous how quickly coaches in AQ conferences are fired, but it just goes to prove my original point that BYU's fans and BYU itself are too kind to their coaches. Some on this forum constantly cry out in anguish about how unfair, unforgiving, and impatient our fanbase is with our coaches, but the fact of the matter is that that's just not the case.

I agree with Italics, to a point, in that I feel BYU is nicer to it's coaches than most other universities, but I think it has gotten us some benefits too, sometimes that extra time has given our staff a chance to come together and improve that a normal BCS schools staff wouldn't have, making for a better long term product at a slight short term cost.



But, if nothing else, BYU's hiring pool is severely limited. BCS schools can fire their coaches every year and have dozens of applicants to fill their jobs, but at BYU there is an incredibly small pool of possible replacements.

Italics wrote:

Yet another ignorant post from someone who hasn't bothered to listen to the entire interview. He was paraphrasing, not translating, and if you bother to listen to Anae himself, frdbtr pretty much followed exactly what he said.



Anae saying "I'd do the exact same thing" refers only to the decision at half time to go with Nelson and sit Heaps. That comment had nothing to do with later decisions e.g. when the score was different.

Weird, most people on this forum seem to reflect my feelings on this. Are you going to call everyone else ignorant, too... or just continue implying it?



I didn't even refer to the "I'd do the exact same thing" quote, so I'm not sure where you're pulling that from.



All four of my points apply to the situation fine. You're trying too hard to win an imaginary battle here that only you seem to care about. Is it because I stopped responding to your PM's? Give it up.

I called no one ignorant. I called your post ignorant, which it was--it was ignorant of the actual interview it sought to characterize. Had you listened to the interview before trying to interpret it, your post wouldn't have been ignorant.



A smart person (e.g. Bronco) can make dumb decisions. That does not make him dumb. To call his decision dumb isn't calling him dumb. So it is with posts--calling your post ignorant is not calling you ignorant. Listen to Anae's interview, and then come back and reread your four points. You'll likely agree.

I think Chow left because he was promised the HC job when Lavell retired and the hired Crowton instead.



A few years ago on Cougar Blue I mentioned that I thought Anae should be canned. I was all but lynched by people on the board. A few years later, Anae still is making the same stupid mistakes and refuses to swallow his pride.



Several years ago we lost to UCLA. The only real success we had in that game came from the passing attack. UCLA couldn't stop the passing attack, Anae decided he needed to stick to the game plan and run the ball as much as possible. Unfortunately UCLA killed the running game and Anae kept running the ball. Utah the next week shredded the UCLA defense with a heavy pass attack. At least Anae got to stick to his gameplan even though I would have rather had the win.



Then there was the Tulsa game. We were running all over Tulsa. Every run went for at least 5 yards. Enter Anae strategic play calling where he kept passing the ball. We ended up losing that game too.



Then there was the Utah game. We were running all over Utah... once again here comes Anae play calling. Didn't Max hall complete more passes to the Ute defensive backs than our receivers. Sure enough the next series Anae starts calling passes. Even though the Utes never shut down the running game, the didn't have to because Anae did it for him.



Fast forward to AFA last week. Riley threw for a measly 73 yards. Why????? Where is the OC when this is going on? There were a bunch of drunk gamblers in Vegas who were calling the plays before they even happened. Sure enough they guessed the plays with an 80% accuracy. If the OC keeps calling Rileys number then the OC is an idiot. Drunk people in Vegas could predict a Riley scramble and Anae expects that AFA DC can't figure it out. If Riley was calling his own number then Anae should have pulled him and put someone in that has the desire and talent to throw the ball.



Average OC's make great gameplans. Good OC's know when to change and abandon a gameplan. Great OC's will change and abandon gameplans several times in a game. Anae is only Average. If BYU wants to succeed long term they need to get rid of Anae he is making the same mistakes he was making 5 years ago.

ByuIvie wrote:
I think Chow left because he was promised the HC job when Lavell retired and the hired Crowton instead.

Chow left before LaVell retired.

Today's Norm Chow isn't the same Norm Chow that coached here at BYU. Watch football once in a while, people.



Here at BYU, he ran a very conservative predictable offense.



As his playcalling has expanded and become much more varied, he has had a lot more success to his repertoire.



Imagine that. Norm didn't want to change a thing, and left. Then had a couple hard years before he realized it the hard way. Anae doesn't want to to change now, and that is scary. BlueIVIE is right on in the gamecalls. We would have had more close games, but we have much better teams. Now we don't, and it is coming down to coaching this year. We'll see...

My point refined a bit more: when a coach seems to indicate that giving his team a chance to win in both the short- and the long-term is subordinate to some other principle (other than things like not cheating, selling soul to satan, etc.) then it's time that his superiors take a long, hard look at him and either set him straight or cut him loose.



That Anae, with the benefit of hindsight, would've still stuck with Nelson knowing that his type of offense couldn't get it done instead of giving Jake a chance to sling it around is flat out mind boggling and indicative that Anae might have other things he's interested other than winning in the short- and long-term.

byutx wrote:
My point refined a bit more: when a coach seems to indicate that giving his team a chance to win in both the short- and the long-term is subordinate to some other principle (other than things like not cheating, selling soul to satan, etc.) then it's time that his superiors take a long, hard look at him and either set him straight or cut him loose.



That Anae, with the benefit of hindsight, would've still stuck with Nelson knowing that his type of offense couldn't get it done instead of giving Jake a chance to sling it around is flat out mind boggling and indicative that Anae might have other things he's interested other than winning in the short- and long-term.

the irony of it is that if they're going to sacrifice wins in order to accomplish something, it should be to give heaps more reps and experience. Lo and behold, it's the exact opposite



the u