801 372 - 0819 <mailto:hbarnett@fiber.net> hbarnett@fiber.net 1391 West 800 South - Orem, Utah 84058 Vol. 36, Issue 21 - December 28, 2015 Click Here To Order or Renew Your Subscriptions <http://cougarclicks.com/product/Order-Cougar-Sportsline?ID=3173> Detmer Still a Darling Sitake's Staff Starting to Take Shape Don't know if Kalani Sitake has any Hollywood film making experience on his resume, but he has shown that he knows how to make a block buster for BYU. You start with star power and then worry about the script later. BYU got their Hans Solo back on the BYU big screen when Sitake and Tom Holmoe announced the signing of Ty Detmer as BYU's new offensive coordinator. If you want to sell tickets at the box office on the big screen or in the big field of LaVell Edwards stadium, you need to give the fans and audience a Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise or George Clooney. Hey, for all we know, Detmer may opt to run the triple option but just his name makes that more appealing than Ken Niumatalolo wanting to do the same. What we do know is that while Detmer is still BYU's darling, his St. Andrews Episcopal School's schedule is a far cry from BYU's 2016 schedule. St. Andrews Schedule: Faith Academy - 49-0 win, Fort Worth Country Day - 24-12 loss, Regents - 41-14 win, Savio - 47-14 win, San Marcos Academy - 48-7 win, Lee Academy of Science and Engineering - 55-12 win, Cooper - 62-7 win, St. Mary's Hall - 49-0 win, St. Stephen's Episcopal - 28-14 win. BYU's 2016 schedule - Arizona, Utah, UCLA, West Virginia, Toledo, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Boise State, Cincinnati, Southern Utah, UMass, Utah State. With that kind of schedule looming, now is the best time to pump and puff up BYU's recent football hires. Nobody does pump and puff better than BYU so here are the links to the latest three hires. Ty Detmer and Ilaisa Tuiaki <http://byucougars.com/m-football/sitake-announces-hiring-coordinators-ty-de tmer-and-ilaisa-tuiaki> Ed Lamb <http://byucougars.com/m-football/sitake-announces-hiring-ed-lamb-assistant- head-coach> Detmer Hire is a Win-Win, Lose-Lose or Win-Lose Situation I'm as euphoric as the next guy when it comes to the hiring of Ty Detmer as the new BYU football offensive coordinator. After 30-plus years of writing this letter, I've also learned to temper euphoria with a little pragmatism. In my opinion, there are three potential outcomes of the Detmer hire. Here they are. Win-Win.The living legend comes home with his NFL background and BYU starts to light up the scoreboard.Scovil style. You have to be older than 50 to remember Doug Scovil and what he did with Marc Wilson and Jim McMahon. Scovil put up points faster than a pin-ball machine. BYU wins early and often with Detmer running the offense and continues to win for several more seasons. Lose-Lose.Detmer is still a genius, but without an offensive line, BYU loses and continues to lose. That also means that some of the luster is lost on the Detmer legend. Win-Lose.This is my most dreaded scenario. BYU wins immediately with Detmer and the offense is awesome. He stays with BYU two years or until Tanner Mangum opts to leave early for the NFL. Speaking of the NFL, Detmer's offensive production doesn't go unnoticed by the Pros or those Power 5 conference athletic directors who are looking to infuse some offense and excitement in their struggling programs. After just two seasons of great offensive production, Detmer is given a multi-million and multi-year offer to become head coach of a Power 5 school in Texas. If you think this scenario is farfetched, you need to google Gus Malzahn, the current head coach at Auburn. He went from high school coach to the big time in just a few short years. My wife and I may be on an LDS mission and it may be the best two years of our lives, but having Detmer as OC for BYU hopefully also won't be the best two years of our BYU football life and then gone with the wind or money of a power 5 conference. Can't blame Bronco for taking the money and won't blame Detmer either if or when it occurs. Speaking of Money. Nobody will spill the beans or the payroll ledger, but it is very obvious to me that BYU and Tom Holmoe have upped the ante when it comes to paying football coaches. Bronco Mendenhall made some remarks in his departure about how BYU had to pay more for coaches if they wanted to play with the big boys. Either his words were heeded by Holmoe or he just waited until he could get the guys he wanted before upping the payroll. Again, nobody will say exactly what BYU is paying their football coaches, but based on logic and past paystubs, I doubt seriously that anybody that has been hired so far by Holmoe is taking a pay cut. Kalani Sitake was making $730,008 per annum as Oregon State's defensive coordinator this past year. That put him in the top twenty of remunerated assistant coaches. The year before he was making $500,000 at Utah. Gary Anderson, his boss at Oregon State is making $2.45 million with a $100,000 per year upgrade in salary for the length of the 6-year contract. At Wisconsin he made $2.29 million. You can rest assured that Sitake is not making those numbers at BYU, but my bet is that he is making more than Mendenhall did. Again, it's only a guess, but I would say he is making at least $1.5 million at BYU. I would also venture to say that Ty Detmer is not coming to BYU for anything less than $400-500,000 per year. He could easily get that in the NFL and there is no reason for him to come for any other reason if the money isn't that good. Again, my opinion only, but it is a new age for BYU football. Now to prove my new age in pay theory for BYU football, I would almost guarantee that no BYU assistant football coach has ever made as much as $250,000 per year. I can almost guarantee that Ilaisa Tuiaki, the new defensive coordinator hired by Sitake, is not coming for a pay cut. I also think he might be closer to my presumed Detmer numbers. At Oregon State, Tuiaki was making $250,008 per annum. If Sitake tries to hire Chad Kauhaahaa away from Oregon State, it will take more than the $250,008 he was making per year. Ed Lamb, the former coach at Southern Utah is also not taking a demotion from head coach to assistant head coach for less money that he was making at the Cedar City school. His base salary at SUU was $131, 625. I think you can at least suppose that his salary will double at BYU. Justin Ena is a former BYU linebacker and a first year linebacker coach at Utah where he made $150,000 this past season. He had two previous gigs as an assistant coach at SUU where he made $31,000 per year and at Weber State where he pulled down $51,000 per annum. He might be a guy that Sitake can convince to come to Provo for a pay raise. If Sitake opts to retain either Guy Holliday, Steve Kaufusi or Paul Tidwell, it will be interesting to see if they get pay upgrades, based on what is being paid the new assistants. I still look for Halliday to be on the staff. Also there is word on the street that Sitake has hired Nu'u Tafisi to be BYU's strength and conditioning coach for football. He has held assistant titles at both Utah and USC. He was hired by Steve Sarkisian at USC and Sitake's contact with him probably comes from their time together at Utah. Here is a semi-bio of the former East HS in Salt Lake graduate. Click here <http://www.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/stories/102306afu.html> . Again, to play with the big boys you eventually have to pay big boy salaries. Especially if BYU ever gets an invite to a big boy conference. That possibility was suggested in this recent article by a reputable Sports Illustrated reporter. Click Here <http://www.campusrush.com/big-12-conference-questions-future-expansion-1528 668401.html> for his story. Gaels 10-1 on Year Role Reversal at Saint Mary's BYU fans remember Brad Waldow from the past few seasons. He was the 6-10, 270 pound post player for Saint Mary's that made a living and made life difficult for BYU butting his way to the basket for easy post scores. He would start from the left or right side of the key about 15 feet from the basket and just hump and bump with his butt all the way to the hoop. Waldow is now gone to ply his patootie play with the Port of Antwerp Giants in Euope. This Thursday, the roles will be reversed when BYU and Saint Mary's hook up in WCC play in Moraga. Now it will be Kyle Davis' turn to butt his way to the basket and hopefully give BYU a post scoring presence. That's something the Cougars haven't had in the last three seasons. Davis' modus operandi is the same as Waldow, except he is 3 inches shorter and 45 pounds lighter in the caboose but close in the stat columns. Waldow averaged 19 points per game last season for the Gaels and had 9.1 rebounds per game. Davis is currently averaging 13.5 points per outing and 10.6 rebounds per game. Davis will be the key. If BYU has a legitimate presence in the post, they have a chance to knock of the Gaels, who currently are 10-1 on the season with the lone loss a 3-point setback to Cal at Berkeley. They also opened WCC play last week with 2 wins, one on the road against Santa Clara and the other at home against San Francisco. If Davis has to be doubled teamed like he was last week in Hawaii by Northern Iowa, that means that BYU's perimeter players will get plenty of space to do what they do best.heave it up from beyond the arc. The best BYU has at it is Zac Seljaas. He is currently 23-37 for a .622 success rate. Nick Emery is shooting the three at a .357 rate (30-84) Chase Fisher is showing he is a volume scorer from beyond the arc. He has put up 113 attempts and made 40 of them for a .354 average. BYU will have to hit the long ball on the road if they expect to win and improve their current 9-4 record. That conclusion is based on the three point shooting stats from the four defeats. Against Long Beach State the Cougars were 5-20 from distance for just .250. Utah was a little better with BYU going 8-21 from beyond the arc for a percentage of .381. At Colorado BYU was 9-29 for a .310 shooting percentage. And against Harvard, BYU hit just 3 of 13 three point attempts for a .231 shooting percentage. I like BYU's chances at Saint Mary's with a post presence, but I don't like BYU's chances for shooting the ball from distance on the road. I call the Gaels extending their current league leading record to 3-0 and BYU falling to 0-1 in conference play. History tells me so. In Dave Rose's first 4 seasons in the WCC, he is 1-3 against Randy Bennett in Moraga. Of course three of those season Bennett had Matthew Dellavedova. Now Rose has Kyle Collinsworth and a post player in Davis. On second thought. I change my mind and call it BYU for the win on the road in the league opener. BYU will finish out their WCC road trip with a Saturday game at Pacific. The Tigers are currently 2-9 on the year and playing with self-imposed sanctions released on Dec. 17. Here is the schools statement: University of the Pacific announced today that it is imposing several penalties on its men's basketball program as it continues a cooperative investigation with the NCAA stemming from allegations of academic misconduct within Athletics. The self-imposed sanctions are: * Withholding the men's basketball team from post-season competition this season, which will include the West Coast Conference tournament in March. * Reducing the number of basketball scholarships by a total of six for a period of three years. (The NCAA allows 13 athletes on the men's basketball team to be on scholarship in a given year. The number of scholarships will be reduced by an average of two per year for the three-year period.) * Limiting recruiting efforts in other areas. Television Timetable BYU vs. Saint Mary's (M Basketball) Thursday, December 31 at Moraga Tipoff: 9:00 pm MST TV: ESPNU BYU vs. Saint Mary's (W Basketball) Thursday, December 31 at Provo Tipoff: 1:00 pm MST TV: BYUtv BYU vs. Pacific (M Basketball) Saturday, Jan 2, at Stockton Tipoff: 4:00 pm MST TV: Root NW, Root RM (maybe) TWC (Time Warner Cable) North and South BYU vs. Pacific (W Basketball) Saturday, Jan 2, at Provo Tipoff: 2:00 pm MST TV: BYUtv