Navy's Ken Niumatalolo will be in Utah today, "talking" to the Brigham Young people about its football job. He has made clear the job has not been offered, and at the same time it would be his dream job if offered. Two boys played football there, they recruit heavily with their missionary work, and he is a devout Mormon. He has now won more games than anybody at Navy, including his mentor, Paul Johnson, and is career and ought 8-0, against Army. He apparently would leave a stable situation and an apparently suitable replacement in Ivin Jasper, now his OC. Jasper himself makes clear he is ready and will snap up the Navy job if asked. (He apparently was a candidate at Georgia Southern when Fritz was hired two years ago, but withdrew for unexplained reasons.) Good reasons all for going.
Except for one thing, maybe. Is Brigham Young up to the task of accepting his spread option offense and running the ball 80% of the time? It is a school that has traditionally aired it out with such luminaries as Steve Young and Jim McMahon. (Who was subsequently to demonstrate decidedly un-Mormon like tendencies.)
And it seems regardless of what Johnson and Niumatalolo have done with the offense on the big stage, a lot of people just don't like option football, or at least from under center, and its complexities make it very difficult to sell to the fan. (Telling people it combines the spread option with the run-and-shoot draws quizzical looks, because most of us know little of either. )
So, if they are not willing to offer if he is not willing to change, does anyone think in order to get that dream position he would change his offense and hire the appropriate OC to install it? The entire dynamic interests me. (And I might be making a mistake by assuming that BYU is very serious if they bring him in. It would be a classless move otherwise, though it is done with tenure track teaching positions all the time, a really shameful practice.