”I love this place. It would take something extra special for me to leave.”
— Jay Hill, old Weber State head coach/new BYU defensive coordinator.
The ebb and flow of a football program is sometimes difficult to figure.
Toughest among them might be BYU.
Since Kalani Sitake took over before the 2016 season, the Cougars were up (9-4), down (4-9), mediocre (7-6), mediocre (7-6), up (11-1), up, except for an embarrassing loss to UAB in the Independence Bowl, (10-3), and mediocre (7-5), with a game coming against SMU in the New Mexico Bowl.
Questions swirl, then, as to what will happen next, as the Cougars play their final game as an independent on Dec. 17 and then move into the Big 12.
Some inside and out of BYU football are optimistic, some … well, not so much.
Like every program, the Cougars are losing a few significant players who are stepping into the transfer portal, looking for pastures that are greener, and that may or may not be a literal reference to NIL benefits. Or maybe they’re looking for an environment and opportunity that suits them better. In the current free-agent world of college football, BYU is likely to gain a few transfers, too.
Hill, who transformed Weber State football as its head coach, is bound to help a defense that badly needs it, not just in what happens on the field, but in what happens in the living rooms of high school recruits here, there, everywhere. It’s something at which he excels. Development of players is critical once they get into a program, but — and Hill knows this — getting the right players with the right talent in the right places is even more important.
And BYU has had holes in its defense at critical positions, as was evidenced this season in too many games. If a team can’t stop the run, it is dead in the water and if it can’t pressure a quarterback without utilizing all its defensive resources to do so, let’s just call it … weak, vulnerable.
That’s what the Cougars were too often this season and the numbers underscore that discomforting truth. They ranked 93rd in total defense, 94th in red zone defense, 120th in third down conversion percentage defense, 84th in fourth down conversion percentage defense, 98th in rushing defense, 85th in passing yards allowed, 100th in scoring defense, 130th in team sacks, 129th in team tackles for loss.
It was that bad.
And now, while the dollar figures are inexact, it is whispered that Hill will be paid more as a defensive coordinator — in the ballpark of a million bucks — than any DC, any coordinator of any kind, BYU has ever had.
He will have to earn whatever that dollar figure is, starting with getting better athletes and then shaping them into what the Cougars are lacking: run stoppers, defensive linemen who can pressure the passer. Linebackers are always in demand, as well as speed in the back end. That about covers it. Oh, and depth, too, since injuries have a way of plaguing BYU almost every season.
Hill loved coaching at Weber, and he won there, boosting a program that went from two wins in his first season to a perennial FCS power, making a habit of going to the playoffs. If he needed something extra special to leave, he’ll get an extra special challenge and, by BYU standards, an extra special paycheck.
What precisely is Hill’s coaching attitude? Let’s look at what he said and what he did as Weber’s head coach in recent years.
What he said: “Football should be fun. I sure don’t want to go out to practice every day and have it feel like I’m prodding cattle. If you want it to be fun, you have to act that way. …”
And then he added the most important part of that.
“… Going out and getting your butt kicked is not fun.”
As a former defensive back and coach at Utah, Hill has been guided by a slew of mentors, foremost among them Ron McBride, Urban Meyer, Kyle Whittingham, Sitake, and Morgan Scalley, among them. Defense has always been his primary swing thought before every season, every game. In Ogden, he was not only the head coach, but also the defensive coordinator, demonstrating the influence Whittingham had on him, his lean being toward slamming the heavy door on opposing offenses.
Hill put it to me this way during his tenure at Weber: “There are recipes for success. You can chuck it all over the field for 500 yards, but you end up 6-6. You win championships by playing defense, not turning the ball over, running the ball. I don’t mind throwing it, though. We build our success on the talents of our players. Each year is a little different. That’s deep in my roots.”
It’s all built off of recruiting, he said: “It always starts with the players.”
He’s wrong about that. It always starts with the coaches being able to draw in the players.
“If we’re good at building relationships and trust,” he said, “that we have something to offer, we’re selling all those things to young kids.”
When Hill gets them, his coaching philosophy is, as once described in a word by Brent Myers, a top assistant at Weber: “Attack!”
“Jay is super-bright, super-detailed, super-organized,” said Myers.
And super-aggressive.
That’s happy news to Sitake, and to his players at BYU, both present and future, because most defensive dudes are not of the mindset of sitting back and absorbing shots, being patient, falling into a shell, which is what too many Cougar defenses in recent seasons have done.
Not anymore. Not if Hill gets the recruits he wants.
His planned defense will not be sloppy, not undisciplined. It will be violent, hostile.
“We play hard,” he said. “We get after it. We win.”
As any worthwhile group of defenders will tell you, that’s football made fun.
