...seemingly imperceptible to a coach. Things change from year to year with players coming and going and then it's added to when teams in our conference have similar changes (and how they impact upon our changes). Trends take time to play out and manifest themselves so a down year might just seem like that, a down year. But after a few seasons that aren't as good as the high point and then you start to recognize the watershed moment and when things started to change.
Having good assistant coaches who have a variety of experiences can help. If all your assistants are BYU lifers who haven't been anywhere else and experienced a lot, it makes it even easier to miss signs that a course correction is necessary.
The ebb and flow is almost the same thing we see nationally with our economy. Is it the beginning of a trend or just a slow quarter? Do we overreact now to head off a disaster or let the economy correct itself? It's hard to know when to act and when to avoid knee jerk responses to something that has the potential of being a red flag.