Alright, let's hear your Heaps assessments

[SoCalCoug]

I actually agreed with the call to be honest. Payne had been money all game. You were looking at a 37 yard fg before you ran your third down play. If Heaps is sacked on 3rd down you are looking at a 50 yard fg. So you go conservative the problem was you do not expect Kariya to lose 5 yards. Regardless if they kick a 19 yard fg Burton blocks it with how fast he was in there.

So why not try to move the ball a little bit on 1st and 2nd? Particularly when you've just driven the ball down the field and have the Utes on their heels a little bit?

[SoCalCoug]

I get confused. Wasn't the Doman/Reynolds offense the smash mouth that disrespected Heaps and Anae's was the spread that let Heaps wing it with abandon? Or was it just the Doman/Reynolds offense was anything that worked (applied retroactively) and Anae's was anything that didn't?

I'll make it easy. All you have to do is compare the Wyoming game with UNLV.

[Goatnapper'96]

He mostly knows what he's doing. But why, over and over, do we see play calls at critical times that leave us scratching our heads? If you're fine with that, I guess you can live with mediocrity. A lot of people have been frustrated with Anae for several years. Not because he completely sucks but because BYU can do better.

I think the point many of his defenders make are thus:

The results have not been mediocre. The results have been far better than mediocre. I can understand your point that they haven't been spectacular, but to call it mediocre strikes me as either having way too high of expectations or hyperbole. Not that I am opposed to enhancing anything to make a point!

There is also a concern that BYU could also do worse, perhaps much worse than Robert Anae. I am not of that camp. I doubt BYU would do worse if the offense were turned over to Brandon Doman, but I am not so confident it would be better. I guess I am in the camp that just cannot see a real compelling reason to send him down the road if the reason is while things have been pretty good, we think they could be better!

[jay santos]

Here's what you're not understanding about this: Anae doesn't completely suck. In fact, he's a pretty good OC. But if we want to be more than a pretty good offensive team, particularly with the limitations BYU has, we've got to have an even better OC. Again, if the rumors are true, we've got someone on staff who has the potential to be better than Anae.

He mostly knows what he's doing. But why, over and over, do we see play calls at critical times that leave us scratching our heads? If you're fine with that, I guess you can live with mediocrity. A lot of people have been frustrated with Anae for several years. Not because he completely sucks but because BYU can do better.

The thing I think the fire Anae crowd is missing is that you have 10 key plays in a game maybe and you're pointing to a couple that are "obvious" bad calls, but there are probably a few of those ten that completely blew your mind that worked. You can't look at one or two play calls after the fact and say they're obviously bad.

[Goatnapper'96]

So why not try to move the ball a little bit on 1st and 2nd? Particularly when you've just driven the ball down the field and have the Utes on their heels a little bit?

Things get congested and it is easier to defend once in the redzone? You are a point where it is likely you are going to win, milk the clock and win it. It just didn't work out the way we hoped. Sad face.

[mtnbiker]

Re: Heaps - Great arm. Wish he'd not had to share time in camp & start of season so he & receivers could have been on same page earlier. Last few games were much better. I really think he nailed down the starting qb spot, and would hate to see Nelson get any of Heaps' time. I liked Marshall (?) in the wildcat a couple of times, but wouldn't want anyone to get too carried away with that. Heaps seemed a little slow of foot, but a couple of times when scrambling seemed to have enough speed to get it done.

Re: end of game play calling, I was hoping to keep it aggressive instead of settling for the fg. Fake the fb up the gut and roll out, any kind of misdirection, even a flea flicker, etc. Nothing like icing your own team when they're on a roll.

[smokymountainrain]

One other thing...for some reason, since the missed FG even until now, this loss doesn't hurt as much as it seems it should. And I think the reason is Jake Heaps - Heaps was clutch and I believe he would have won that game for BYU had the coaches allowed him to do so. Sure BYU lost, but they have Heaps for 3 more years. That alone makes any loss easier to take.

[BlueHair]

I think Heaps is going to be very good, but we still haven't seen him perform really well against really good competition. Utah was a step up from UNLV, New Mexico, and SDSU, but they aren't that good. I'm very hopeful, but I'm going to hold off calling him great until we see him play great against great teams.

[Shaka]

I said it in another thread but I am beyond the cautiously optimistic phase with Heaps. At the bare minimum he will be as good as Max. By that I mean he will be good for a ten win season or two. I think he has the tools and will have the supporting cast to do even better. Time will tell.

[SoCalCoug]

Things get congested and it is easier to defend once in the redzone? You are a point where it is likely you are going to win, milk the clock and win it. It just didn't work out the way we hoped. Sad face.

They weren't in the redzone. If they were in the redzone I'd have felt much better about running it up the gut 3 times. They were around the 30. Had they gotten to the 20 it would have been a maximum of 37-yard field goal. Payne is much more accurate under 40 yards.

[myboynoah]

They weren't in the redzone. If they were in the redzone I'd have felt much better about running it up the gut 3 times. They were around the 30. Had they gotten to the 20 it would have been a maximum of 37-yard field goal. Payne is much more accurate under 40 yards.

I agree. I wish they had at least tried to move the ball further down the field. As you said, the Utes were on their heels. The threat of more passing might have opened up the run game some more, if that was the intent. I think they went conservative for fear of a Freshman QB making some kind of mistake and losing the game.

Anyway, I'm not going to fret over this too much. Overall, I'm happy with the trajectory of this team. After a crazy bad bounce and call, we still had a chance to win.

[cougjunkie]

They weren't in the redzone. If they were in the redzone I'd have felt much better about running it up the gut 3 times. They were around the 30. Had they gotten to the 20 it would have been a maximum of 37-yard field goal. Payne is much more accurate under 40 yards.

Actually before that last run by Kariya for a 5 yard loss they were at the 20.

[oxcoug]

Actually before that last run by Kariya for a 5 yard loss they were at the 20.

If I recall correctly -

they were at the 20 on 1st down.

The 1st run was stopped for no gain. Utah correctly anticipated that BYU was giving up on trying to move the ball and practically went into goal line D.

2nd run consequently lost 1-2 yards.

3rd run lost 3-4.

Both 2nd and 3rd down were play action gifts from God.

[jay santos]

If I recall correctly -

they were at the 20 on 1st down.

The 1st run was stopped for no gain. Utah correctly anticipated that BYU was giving up on trying to move the ball and practically went into goal line D.

2nd run consequently lost 1-2 yards.

3rd run lost 3-4.

Both 2nd and 3rd down were play action gifts from God.

Looking in the rear view mirror, yep. But maybe the OL makes their blocks and Kariya goes 8 yards. Maybe if we call pass, the OL jumps gets nervous to pass protect and jumps offsides, or maybe Heaps gets sacked or throws an INT, or throws two incompletions we make the FG with 1:00 to go and Wynn comes back and gets another FG or TD and we still lose. Maybe, maybe, maybe. You guys really don't remember Detmer vs Iowa?

I don't know if it was the right call. It certainly wasn't an idiotic, no-brainer, fire the coach for it call.



Passing in that situation was not a no-brainer.

[Sizzle]

Looking in the rear view mirror, yep. But maybe the OL makes their blocks and Kariya goes 8 yards. Maybe if we call pass, the OL jumps gets nervous to pass protect and jumps offsides, or maybe Heaps gets sacked or throws an INT, or throws two incompletions we make the FG with 1:00 to go and Wynn comes back and gets another FG or TD and we still lose. Maybe, maybe, maybe. You guys really don't remember Detmer vs Iowa?

I don't know if it was the right call. It certainly wasn't an idiotic, no-brainer, fire the coach for it call.



Passing in that situation was not a no-brainer.

Exactly. The series before we ran play action and got stuffed for a 12-yard loss. The degree of difficulty increases DRAMATICALLY from a 42 to a 54-yard FG. On top of the chances that Heaps throws an INT or gets hit and fumbles and the game is over.

Plus like Jay said, you throw the ball and it is incomplete, and you stop the clock. Utah saves a timeout and basically has enough time to then try and get the ball in FG range. The way Bronco played it you basically cut the game and say we have faith in our guys that we can make a 40-ish yard FG to win with no time left on the clock. Had the kick gone in, there is absolutely nothing to complain about.