1. Their offense is based heavily on statistics, to the point where they’ve jumped the shark. Studies have shown that if your outside hitters hit better than the other team’s outsides, you will win the game. To me, that means you set your outsides the most, but you still need to run a balanced offense. In the past, BYU has substituted their quick attack with the middle for a BIC (the quick backrock attack) to the outside. This year, we don’t have the setters or hitters to run it very well, leaving us with only the pins.

2. We’ve relied too much on really good outsides in the past. Sander, Sander, Langlois were all awesome. We don’t have that talent this year, and we’re not sure what to do without it. Gardini is solid, but not on that level. I think Lincoln has the potential to be there, but he came to BYU as a setter. Cyrus was a setter his whole life until his JC. We don’t have the horses on the outside to beat the teams that do (Hawaii, LBSU).

3. We’re on our third string setter. Will goes down, Cyrus switched back from outside to setter (which is way harder than people think), and then we have Brodie. Brodie has done really, really well, especially considering his situation. He got brought in for depth. He was at UVU during the preseason. UVU is one of the better club teams in the country, but the jump from club to D1 is insane. I’ve talked to guys who have done it, and they say it’s just an unreal jump. For Brodie to come in and win games for us (I still can’t believe that he came in down 0-2 to UCLA and won. Unreal). Considering all that, we still need a really good setter. I still think Cyrus can be that guy, but it might take longer than I expected to get back his hands. But right now, I’m not sure we have the setters to run a more dynamic offense.

4. As others have stated, it’s a rebuilding year. We were never going to compete for a NC this year, and that’s ok.

Everyone uses the phrase “trust the process,” and I think it’s a great phrase, as long as their’s actually a plan. I don’t know if this next part is true, but I’m really hoping our offense this year is just laying the foundation for our young guys. If we’re laying a foundation that we can build on, we’ll be ok. If this vanilla, basic offense is our gameplan for the next few years, we’re in trouble. Just my $.02.