BYU Football: Bronco Reveals the Secret

So what has been the secret to the Cougars’ recent dramatic increase in offensive production?

In his weekly press conference on Monday, BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall revealed the key element to the Cougars’ improvement.

For the last few weeks, the Cougars have been spending less time preparing against their scout teams and more time going first-team offense vs. first-team defense.

The result was that Jake Heaps and the rest of the offense was given an opportunity to get more reps and practice in at game-like speed.

“We made a decision about five weeks ago in practice that really has generated momentum,” Bronco explained. “Where every single day we’re throwing the football against each other offensively and defensively. Either in seven-on-seven, which is pass skeletons, certainly one-on-one’s, two-minute situations, so unlike past years with a more experienced quarterback, where we moved away from that at the end of fall camp—which we did this year—in retrospect that was a mistake I made from an organizational standpoint."

“So we added back in most of the competitive elements of throwing and catching the football against our own defense. That in a very short amount of time has led to better decisions, more accuracy and more success on the practice field than what our offense was having prior to (that)."

“That success on the practice field has now generated some confidence at an increased level going into the game, and I think more accuracy and precision of the routes being run, the protection being given, and where the ball is being delivered, and how—because it’s having to be done at a higher level when we play against each other in practice."

“So we sacrifice preparation for the opponent in terms of scheme, to gain the competitive element and execution against each other."

“Again in the past years we hadn’t done that, but this year it was an oversight on my part, maybe thinking that we were a little bit farther head than maybe where we would have been, and kind of had to retrace and go back…"

“Again we did that against each other to hopefully increase the speed, execution and have the game thereby slow down. And I think that’s really what’s happening with Jake and our offense now. The game is slowing down because they’re seeing fast looks in practice, even though there not identical looks, they’re seeing fast players and a competitive atmosphere and that isn’t now such a surprise when they hit Saturday.”

The results of this approach have been very evident on the field of play in the Cougars’ last two blowout wins. There is no question that the game has slowed down significantly for Jake Heaps in his last two outings and the offense has had a chance to get in sync.

It was a gutsy move to give up prep time for your opponent’s schemes on both sides of the ball to get your offense up to speed, but it was a move that has paid big dividends.