Before this holiday month runs out of days, there will be new faces walking the halls of BYU’s football office making plans for a regime change.
Of all the fashionable football things the presence of this new crew can do to improve BYU football in coming months, what is one item that could make an immediate impact?
What is your one thing? Whether the new guy is Kyle Whittingham, Ken Niumatalolo, Kalani Sitake or Kris Kringle, name just one thing. There is no wrong answer.
What would you write on the chalkboard or put on a sticky note that would be the most important little square on the big wall? Double digit wins, defeating a rival, a packed stadium or winning over alarmists on Internet message boards?
You could take your pick from myriad things. When coaching staffs turn over, there are changes, new personalities, different approaches. While some things remain similar, other things evolve.
If I were to pick just one thing that could make a difference, it would be a simple word: Recruit.
Call it an enhanced ability to deliver two, four or even six recruits a year with LDS ties that are considered elite and are signing elsewhere.
Just that one thing of many things on a whiteboard desired by the new staff, just a tweaking of that one thing, would make a difference for this independent program.
BYU’s recruiting pool is small. It is selective. It is centered on getting myriad LDS talent from different corners of the country, Travis Tuiloma from Kansas, Tanner Mangum from Idaho or Fred Warner from California.
But it is failing — in some respects just like the Pac-12’s Utah — at keeping Utah talent or LDS talent, a growing trend. Now before folks get all grumpy over an assertion BYU is expected to get every top LDS football player, that’s not the argument here. The point is, just get more of those who are getting away.
You do that by early identification, prompt attention, heightened personal relationships, deeper and more efficient recon and intense and passionate leadership from the top.
Recruiting is 80 percent of college football. The rest is practice, game plans and execution.
Frankly, BYU shouldn’t have lost Timpview High’s Britain Covey or Stanford starting safety Dallas Lloyd from Pleasant Grove. Lloyd wanted to go to BYU. He is bigger and faster than any safety on the Cougar roster, but as a prep quarterback, he couldn’t find a scholarship at BYU.
Same with former Utah star linebacker Trevor Riley, who was asked to walk on with the Cougars because of the lack of a scholarship. Same with the NCAA’s former No. 2 tackler, Uani U’nga, now in the NFL who eventually did get a BYU scholarship but only after going to Oregon State.
This kind of list is growing, anecdotes abound.
So is the other trend.
If this new staff somehow made an effective pivot from losing two or three top LDS elite players a year, it would have a big impact.
Credit Bronco Mendenhall’s departing staff for doing just that with Troy Warner, brother of Fred Warner, one of the top prep players in Southern California this season.
The challenge is huge, but doable.
Right now you have 2016 Brighton receiver Simi Fehoko committed to Stanford. Ula Tolutau, a running back from East High’s class of 2014, was Mr. Utah Football for 2013 and committed to Stanford. Salem Hills linebacker Porter Gustin played for USC as a freshman this year. Timpview’s 2015 linebacker and tight end Gabe Reid signed with Stanford.
On USC’s roster is O-lineman Damien Mama, a tremendous talent with LDS ties. And who can forget Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, who, for myriad reasons, never ended up in Provo.
Without breaking down the individual cases of each of these players, and many more, the point is this, yes, BYU is never going to get all the top LDS high school football talent.
And this isn’t meant to knock Mendenhall’s regime. It is just an exercise in pointing to one solitary breakout objective that could immediately enhance BYU football when the press conference is over.
If this new staff somehow creates a new energy, a new perspective with different faces and relationships, that effectively just hikes the success rate by, say, 10 to 15 percent, it would be one single thing that could end up paying huge dividends for the Cougars.
How does that get done, one may ask?
By hiring a man kids love, who is trustworthy and passionate. It would help if he’s a charismatic guy with the right touch who can ring the bell in a 17- or 18-year-old. The school hires a man who can present a compelling case, deliver an argument, win the war of words and close a sale.
There is no better instrument in college football than a passionate recruiter with an electric personality who owns a fat Rolodex.
In this hire, if Holmoe gets that one single trait in his man, and that new guy assembles staff members who are clones with that solitary trait, he belts a home run.
“I have to get it right,” Holmoe said a week ago. “It may be the last time while I’m here to do it.”
Yes, he does need to nail this one.
EMAIL: dharmon@deseretnews.com.
TWITTER: Harmonwrites