As a few others have pointed out, QBs that will eventually be great usually don't start out nearly as bad as Heaps has. Improvement over the 4 years is usually incremental.
So here's the reason why (besides the hype, the HS track record, and the lack of reps due to the Nelson fiasco) I think Heaps might eventually be great, despite his lackluster performance so far:
Many schools do a better job of tailoring their offense for what a QB is actually capable of.
For example, Denard Robinson is starting at Michigan because he's a big threat to make things happen, not because he understands the offense very well. Nevertheless, he's been extremely successful throwing the ball. Because he's such a great running threat, most teams are forced to play a cautious zone against Michigan's offense (You don't want your DBs' backs turned), so the pass plays called for Denard generally involve sending two guys into the zone of one defender, one deep and more short, making that defender choose between two receivers, and throwing it to the one the defender didn't choose. That is seriously the vast majority of Michigan's downfield passing strategy right now, with swings and screens (easy throws for a young QB to make) making up the remainder. Even so, Denard has struggled at times with his tendency to get rid of the ball too early, before the defender has made his choice. This still often results in a completion because of his rocket arm and good accuracy, but it has resulted in some extremely big hits on his WRs, and obviously it doesn't give his receivers much opportunity for YAC.
Urban Meyer had a similar scheme with Alex Smith. The WRs would very often run option routes, where they break to the direction opposite of the DBs shade. It's a simple read and a simple throw.
I don't see a lot of this in BYU's offense. What worked so well last year is that Pitta would find the gaps in the zone and sit down, which eventually caused the LBs to adjust, which allowed more room on the outside for the WRs. MJ's TD against OU last year is an extreme example of this. It's a simple read: throw it to Pitta if he's open, throw it MJ over the top if he's not. This year we don't have anybody the defense has to worry about, so that strategy doesn't work, but I don't see where we've adjusted to create a different kind of 1-2 read for our young QB.
Granted, I haven't studied BYU's offense much this year, and I haven't found any source on the net where BYU's strategies are broken down well at all (the FSU guy did a better job than any BYU source I've seen, and that FSU guy really didn't do a very good job compared to lots of stuff I've seen for other teams). So, maybe BYU actually has made adjustments and our offense is just that bad.
I suspect that these adjustments haven't been made, and that what is happening is that Heaps is being thrown a great deal of material all at once, and that eventually, probably the middle of next year or so, things will click for him, the game will slow down, his receivers will have matured to the point that they'll be able to get open and the timing will be worked out between them and Heaps, and Heaps will be good.
This has generally been the trend with BYU QBs, who seems to improve over their careers much more than QBs at other schools, or perhaps we should say that they seem to be much worse relative to their potential in the early years than QBs from other schools. This seems to be what happened for Beck and Hall, with Hall picking things up a bit faster than Beck, perhaps because of his greater experience before becoming the starter.
So, that's why I think Heaps still might eventually be great. I just don't think it'll happen this year.
And if anybody knows a decent source for BYU Xs and Os, I'd love to see one.
So here's the reason why (besides the hype, the HS track record, and the lack of reps due to the Nelson fiasco) I think Heaps might eventually be great, despite his lackluster performance so far:
Many schools do a better job of tailoring their offense for what a QB is actually capable of.
For example, Denard Robinson is starting at Michigan because he's a big threat to make things happen, not because he understands the offense very well. Nevertheless, he's been extremely successful throwing the ball. Because he's such a great running threat, most teams are forced to play a cautious zone against Michigan's offense (You don't want your DBs' backs turned), so the pass plays called for Denard generally involve sending two guys into the zone of one defender, one deep and more short, making that defender choose between two receivers, and throwing it to the one the defender didn't choose. That is seriously the vast majority of Michigan's downfield passing strategy right now, with swings and screens (easy throws for a young QB to make) making up the remainder. Even so, Denard has struggled at times with his tendency to get rid of the ball too early, before the defender has made his choice. This still often results in a completion because of his rocket arm and good accuracy, but it has resulted in some extremely big hits on his WRs, and obviously it doesn't give his receivers much opportunity for YAC.
Urban Meyer had a similar scheme with Alex Smith. The WRs would very often run option routes, where they break to the direction opposite of the DBs shade. It's a simple read and a simple throw.
I don't see a lot of this in BYU's offense. What worked so well last year is that Pitta would find the gaps in the zone and sit down, which eventually caused the LBs to adjust, which allowed more room on the outside for the WRs. MJ's TD against OU last year is an extreme example of this. It's a simple read: throw it to Pitta if he's open, throw it MJ over the top if he's not. This year we don't have anybody the defense has to worry about, so that strategy doesn't work, but I don't see where we've adjusted to create a different kind of 1-2 read for our young QB.
Granted, I haven't studied BYU's offense much this year, and I haven't found any source on the net where BYU's strategies are broken down well at all (the FSU guy did a better job than any BYU source I've seen, and that FSU guy really didn't do a very good job compared to lots of stuff I've seen for other teams). So, maybe BYU actually has made adjustments and our offense is just that bad.
I suspect that these adjustments haven't been made, and that what is happening is that Heaps is being thrown a great deal of material all at once, and that eventually, probably the middle of next year or so, things will click for him, the game will slow down, his receivers will have matured to the point that they'll be able to get open and the timing will be worked out between them and Heaps, and Heaps will be good.
This has generally been the trend with BYU QBs, who seems to improve over their careers much more than QBs at other schools, or perhaps we should say that they seem to be much worse relative to their potential in the early years than QBs from other schools. This seems to be what happened for Beck and Hall, with Hall picking things up a bit faster than Beck, perhaps because of his greater experience before becoming the starter.
So, that's why I think Heaps still might eventually be great. I just don't think it'll happen this year.
And if anybody knows a decent source for BYU Xs and Os, I'd love to see one.
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