unbalanced as it ever got. Usually it was closer to 55-45 or even 50-50. The west-coast style attack has plenty of variation built-in to allow it to be used in today's college football climate. And, it's certainly possible, as Ty is doing, to inject ideas from other schemes into the overall system without losing the program's identity.

I will say that although I understood the desire to run a read-option attack when you have a superior athlete like Taysom to run the show, I was worried that BYU would lose a bit of it's identity, built over the course of decades. Identity is important. It matters. It makes it easier to recruit, makes it easier to fund-raise, and leverages institutional knowledge that helps maintain performance year-in and year-out. Our identity also attracts people like ESPN, who have seen our program perform over decades and want to be a part of it. Our identity used to bring a lot of eyeballs to the TV set. It means money, and reputation. That identity had been messed with over the past decade and a half, starting under Crowton, and then again later in Bronco's time.

It is a truth that this BYU football program we love so much was built on that west-coast style attack. It was built on great QB play, and sophisticated offense. It wasn't that the air was filled with footballs, necessarily. We didn't run the run-and-shoot and we didn't run the air-raid. It was much more pro-style, where the stars were the o-line, tight ends, and QBs (with some great running backs and receivers along the way, but generally we got by with journeyman-type players at those positions). It's still a great system, although we don't have to follow the exact formula we followed in times past. Plenty room for modernization and customization.

Whatever system we're going to run, it's important to stick with it with the long-term in mind. I'm in favor of the current direction, and believe the results will show on the field. Exactly when we're going to be proficient and successful with this system, I'm not sure. But we've run a similar system successfully before, and we can do it again. To me, it makes sense given our recruiting strengths and weaknesses.