The 2010 Brigham Young Cougars...What If?

With BYU actually looking like BYU the past couple of weeks, it's hard not to think about the "what ifs".

What if Jake Heaps had been given the starting job coming out of spring camp, as was advocated here since last April?

What if Bronco Mendenhall had realized that the defense needed his leadership from the beginning?

Odds are the Cougars would be sporting a much better record than their current 5-5 mark.

BYU is on track to salvage its season (Denver Post/David Zalubowski)

During Saturday's broadcast, Mountain West Network's play-by-play man Ari Wolfe suggested that this season may represent Mendenhall's best coaching job.

The truth is, it's been his best and his worst.

Mendenhall's biggest mistake was allowing the creation of the two-quarterback rotation.

It was obvious from the day that Jake Heaps stepped on the practice field that the kid was the next great BYU quarterback.

It was also plain to see that Riley Nelson was not a Division I passing quarterback. He's definitely a Division I football player, it's just that his natural talents are not suited to him being successful as a BYU quarterback.

After Saturday's game Heaps made a statement that seemed to indicate that the freshman believes that he should have been the man from the beginning.

"This isn't a shock to me," Jake said of his performance against Colorado State. "We could have been doing this since week one, so it has taken us a little while to get there."

Heaps is correct.

Forcing the freshman to split reps with Nelson through summer, fall and into the football schedule was a huge mistake. As everyone has now witnessed, Jake has all the talent in the world. All he needed was massive repetitions and a little game experience with play calling that was suited to his talents.

It's hard to know exactly how much quicker Heaps would have gotten into his groove and played with the same confidence that he is now demonstrating, but it's safe to say that it wouldn't haven taken until the ninth or tenth game of the season.

To the coaches' credit though, they certainly made as good of use of a bye week as any staff ever has. Though late to the party, they have been hugely successful in revamping the offensive schemes and tailoring the offense and play calling to their young signal caller.

The result has been nothing short of miraculous.

Bronco's second-biggest mistake was his failure to recognize that he had a defensive coordinator that was not buying into the way things are done at BYU.

Jamie Hill was not on board with Mendenhall's gospel-centered, family-first approach to football.

You can’t fault Jamie for thinking and believing like every other college football coach out there, unless you were to say that if you don’t agree with the philosophy or direction of a program then you should be true to yourself and the organization and find another place to work.

Bronco made the move that Hill should have made himself after 2009.

Jamie Hill is a good secondary coach, however the evidence seems to suggest that he was a below-average defensive coordinator. Some guys are great position coaches, but not great coordinators, just like some guys are great coordinators but not great head coaches.

Pundits in the local Utah media, some of which were former Cougar players, claimed that BYU didn’t have much Division I talent on the defensive side of the ball. Based on what Bronco has done with the existing talent, those pundits seemed to have been off-base in their evaluations.

If a group of players are not allowed play to their strengths and show what they can do on the field, who is to blame if those athletes fail to perform to their potential?

It should be obvious at this point that the problem with BYU's defense was far more of a problem with coaching than it was the ability or talent of its players.

I'm not sure sure that I have ever seen a turnaround quite like the one the Cougar defense made this season. It has gone from one of the worst in the nation under Hill to statistically one of the best under Bronco's direction.

It would be interesting to see this current BYU team take on the five teams that it lost to earlier this season. Would the Cougars lose games to Utah State and Air Force now? How about Nevada? The game against Florida State would be much more interesting too.

Perhaps the only game in which this team would still be considered a significant  underdog would be a rematch with TCU.

Of course, all of this is shoulda, coulda, woulda.

At least the Cougars are now standing on the threshold of salvaging the 2010 season, and the future of the program looks very promising. What a difference a couple of weeks and a couple of coaching adjustments can make.