Anyone else worried that Riley Nelson might be the QB next year?

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

My opinion has not changed:

You'll be happy if we get a 8 game season of good QBing in his senior year out of Heaps? You have much lower aspirations than many.

[MarkGrace]

I just don't get what is going on with the quarterbacks. From the first time Riley threw the ball as BYU quarterback you could see he just didn't have the arm for this offense. Then we go through spring ball, and even at that point everyone was saying Riley just can't get it done with his arm and Jake is the guy. That was how many months ago? Since then we've spent countless hours and reps trying to prep a kid that just clearly wasn't ever going to be able to get us anywhere on the football field.

Seriously, almost universally everyone who watched spring and fall camps said the same thing, but for some reason our coach (as I think this is primarily Bronco's doing) just couldn't get over the fact that he's in love with players like himself and the other kid happens to be a true freshman. There are certainly positive attributes there, but at some point it just doesn't really matter how hard a kid plays and how many life experiences he has if the kid playing behind him is just more talented and better. At LB'er or on the line or whatever, maybe you can get away with it a little bit; but it's just not happening at QB.

Riley's arm and passing ability are terrible, pathetic, end of story. I just read that Riley completed two passes to our receivers yesterday. TWO! We heard all camp about how the only passes he could complete were to the TE's and RB out of the backfield, and that's basically what we're getting now. At one point deep into the quarterback competition, almost 40% of his passing yards had come in situations where he was taking the 1st team offense against the 3rd team defense. Even in fall camp he was again showing that he just couldn't get it done against starting level defenses, but, hey, the other kid's a freshman so we can't possibly think about starting him, because we're fucking BYU, and that's just not what we do.

And DiLuigi is out there getting 15 ypc, and who's running the ball 3x as often as him? Our quarterback, of course. It just couldn't have been fun to be an offensive football player out on the field with him yesterday, which is probably why we saw one of the most inept halves of offensive football that we've seen from BYU in at least 7-8 years.

This thing is just not working, and I'm not about to buy the "we've got to protect Jake's confidence" thing. Watching this is like watching Milt Palacio play ahead of Deron Williams all over again and seeing Deron's confidence get crushed his rookie season. Was it crushed because veteran players repeatedly scored on him? No, it was because he had a coach he felt didn't believe in him and he sat there on the bench wondering what was wrong with himself if that guy was playing ahead of him.

This whole thing just blows.

[Surfah]

You'll be happy if we get a 8 game season of good QBing in his senior year out of Heaps? You have much lower aspirations than many.

I'll be happy if Heaps is still here his senior year.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I'll be happy if Heaps is still here his senior year.

I don't think he'll transfer.

[Surfah]

I don't think he'll transfer.

I am not worried about him transferring.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I am not worried about him transferring.

I don't think he'll have a career ending injury either. So you have nothing else to worry about.

[CardiacCoug]

I just don't get what is going on with the quarterbacks. From the first time Riley threw the ball as BYU quarterback you could see he just didn't have the arm for this offense. Then we go through spring ball, and even at that point everyone was saying Riley just can't get it done with his arm and Jake is the guy. That was how many months ago? Since then we've spent countless hours and reps trying to prep a kid that just clearly wasn't ever going to be able to get us anywhere on the football field.

Seriously, almost universally everyone who watched spring and fall camps said the same thing, but for some reason our coach (as I think this is primarily Bronco's doing) just couldn't get over the fact that he's in love with players like himself and the other kid happens to be a true freshman. There are certainly positive attributes there, but at some point it just doesn't really matter how hard a kid plays and how many life experiences he has if the kid playing behind him is just more talented and better. At LB'er or on the line or whatever, maybe you can get away with it a little bit; but it's just not happening at QB.

Riley's arm and passing ability are terrible, pathetic, end of story. I just read that Riley completed two passes to our receivers yesterday. TWO! We heard all camp about how the only passes he could complete were to the TE's and RB out of the backfield, and that's basically what we're getting now. At one point deep into the quarterback competition, almost 40% of his passing yards had come in situations where he was taking the 1st team offense against the 3rd team defense. Even in fall camp he was again showing that he just couldn't get it done against starting level defenses, but, hey, the other kid's a freshman so we can't possibly think about starting him, because we're fucking BYU, and that's just not what we do.

And DiLuigi is out there getting 15 ypc, and who's running the ball 3x as often as him? Our quarterback, of course. It just couldn't have been fun to be an offensive football player out on the field with him yesterday, which is probably why we saw one of the most inept halves of offensive football that we've seen from BYU in at least 7-8 years.

This thing is just not working, and I'm not about to buy the "we've got to protect Jake's confidence" thing. Watching this is like watching Milt Palacio play ahead of Deron Williams all over again and seeing Deron's confidence get crushed his rookie season. Was it crushed because veteran players repeatedly scored on him? No, it was because he had a coach he felt didn't believe in him and he sat there on the bench wondering what was wrong with himself if that guy was playing ahead of him.

This whole thing just blows.

Good post. I agree completely.

The entire offense breaks down if you have a QB who can't get the ball to the WRs. The run game doesn't work either if the WRs can be single-covered by the CBs and there are 8 defenders in the box.

I'm sure Riley is a great kid, and he should be scoring TDs for BYU this year out of the wildcat. But he shouldn't be the main QB.