Nelson Bandwagon

[Color Me Badd Fan]

So lets get lark some reps against the shitty back half of the season.

I think it's not a matter of if but when Nelson either gets hurt or gets his limitations exposed. Heaps is going to have another opportunity this season and he needs to respond to the benching by working harder. Last night was Hypes's 15th start, I think the coaches have been plenty patient. Some guys respond well to the benching, others do not.

Of course, with that said I'm not sure if it's a matter of hard work or not with Hypes. The almost complete lack of production in the middle of the field and on any 3rd down longer than 5-6 yards is extremely troubling. This indicates to me that he may not have the split second decision making ability that's required of a good division 1 QB. Someone posted last year that the variance between a 3-4 year starters' stats from his first and third or fourth years isn't as dramatic as you'd think when looking at a number a college QBs.

[SoCalCoug]

Can we knock it off with the childish nicknames? I've never understood why internet forum users love so much to do that.

Sure thing, woot.

[TheAzzuri]

Honestly, I was calling for lark last night. Last night when abs came in, it was a perfect setup to have what happened happen. Now we have half a fan base that buys the legend of riley. I hope he is great, but I still don't see it. Worse case scenario for heaps happened last night, getting pulled right as the competition becomes cream puff. Hopefully the coaches realize Jake is the future even if he is pulled for a game or two.

RN still needs to see the field. Sure he can't throw, but did you see him (I know you did) bowl his way over defenders for a first down. I believe the majority of the reason the D pulled their heads out and got those stops was because they started believing in the offense.

He's not the solution at QB, but get him the freaking ball and let him be a leader. I like the idea of Lark playing but working Riley in on O at situations, occassionally at QB, and occassionally in the slot or whatever.

[smokymountainrain]

RN still needs to see the field. Sure he can't throw, but did you see him (I know you did) bowl his way over defenders for a first down. I believe the majority of the reason the D pulled their heads out and got those stops was because they started believing in the offense.

He's not the solution at QB, but get him the freaking ball and let him be a leader. I like the idea of Lark playing but working Riley in on O at situations, occassionally at QB, and occassionally in the slot or whatever.

I agree with this. I'd use him often in short yardage situations (3rd and 3 or less) and in the red zone.

[Green Monstah]

I agree with this. I'd use him often in short yardage situations (3rd and 3 or less) and in the red zone.

Shoudnt we actuallt wait to see Lark Play before calling for him to play over Heaps?

[smokymountainrain]

Shoudnt we actuallt wait to see Lark Play before calling for him to play over Heaps?

Oh, I was talking about Nelson. Sorry for the confusion.

[cougjunkie]

Not sure how many of you were there but every other play BYU had guys streaking wide open down the field when Riley was in the game and Riley would look them off because he can't make throw down field. The throw to Jacobsen was pure luck.

If teams prepare and spy him he will not be nearly effective. He is a situational quarterback at best.

Heaps clearly needs to figure some stuff out but he is still the most talented QB in the program and the future of this team. The sad thing is all Heaps had to do was survive this game as the starter and then he would pad his stats on cupcakes the rest of the season.

The TD catch by Hoffman was no more difficult than the one Jake threw down the field that he had two hands on and dropped. The catches Matthews made while getting drilled by defenders were harder than the one Jake threw to Matthews on 3rd down that hit him square in his hands to keep a drive alive. Mckay has dropped numerous balls all year and some how makes this great catch for Riley. I just don't see them keeping this up and if you rewatch the game Riley was very wayward on his passes and his receivers made him look damn good specifically Hoffman.

[MarkGrace]

Despite being the bandwagon starter (), I'm still not horribly impressed with Riley's ability. The planets sure aligned for him last night, because he made as many bad throws as good ones out there, and I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this outing. I don't think it was markedly different than what he did last year (he did do some nice things last year), and I think playing him would take us down the same road we've already been down. That said, I say why not play him for now, because he made things happen and at least deserves a chance to go down that road again.

Even though I doubt him as a real solution at QB, when I do play devil's advocate with myself and say "why not Riley?," these are my thoughts (and sorry if a number are regurgitated from other peeps).

1. Despite Shaka pointing it out every time Riley throws the ball 40 yards, I don't think that is an indicator of any significant arm strength. I went to the Utah game 2 hours early to watch the team and saw guys at about every position on the field throwing the ball that far when they just heave it up. I'm guessing we have at least a dozen guys, if not more, that can throw the ball 40 yards on the roster. HOWEVER, after watching some QB's with pretty pathetic arms/throwing mechanics (like Wynn, who looks awful throwing the ball, to be sure) outperform our Golden Gun, I'm questioning how much arm strength you really need to have to get it done in college football. With Riley's ability to run, I don't know that he really needs to be competent throwing it much beyond 10-15 yards to make this thing work. And he can do that. Also note that I agree his throwing looked improved from last year, and there was actually an intermediate route across the middle that despite being a horribly off target throw actually had some decent zip to it.

2. This dates back to last year, but with a fairly untalented backfield in terms of D1 standards (seriously, Utah freaking St. has at least two guys better than anyone we have), I wonder how much it loosens up the running game if teams are worried about the QB taking off?

3. Similar to the above, I wonder how much it loosens up early short routes for our receivers.

4. We all say that when spied on and gameplanned for Riley will be easy to stop, but we gameplan for running QB's all the time and still get trounced by them. The fact of the matter is it's just a hell of a lot more difficult to contain a dude that can take off. All those 3rd and 5's or 6's that Jake is whiffing on right now, we'll Nelson can chew those up because when he drops back and everyone is in pass coverage, 5 yards is easy for him to pick up when he takes off. And those are back breakers that keep drives alive and the momentum rolling.

5. All the back breaking plays against us have come because of the QB's feet. Wynn, Keeton, et al, have all stymied our defense because they can move around a bit (even if they're not necessarily running) and the defense can't contain forever. Seriously, almost every critical passing play has this year has happened this way. It's not a dropback, read, and then throw. It's a drop back, wait, move around, oh, somebody's finally open! And clearly Riley gives us that.

6. Does he throw a more catchable ball than Jake because of a lack of velocity? There were at least 3-4 incredible catches that guys came up with from Riley that they blew from Jake on similar tosses. And of course, this is another thing that extends back to last year. Our guys have rarely dropped passes from Riley, but even up to last night they're still constantly dropping passes from Jake. I don't buy the "guys want to play for him line," at least in respect to catching the football. I don't think guys can turn on/off the ability to make a great catch (they can do that with their effort level, obviously, but that's not what I'm talking about). But I do wonder if it's just easier to catch a ball from Riley because it's not coming in as hot.

7. Dude is reckless, but like Kirilenko, his recklessness, which makes him unpredictable, is his effectiveness. You take that away from him and he's not going to be the same player.

Anyway, some random thoughts from a dolt. I will say that I agree with ERCougar and it was something I said last week, but I think the game is a lot more difficult when you're a Jake-type QB. In my very unprofessional opinion, the game just seems a lot harder to me when you're lead-footed pure dropback guy. Everything about having success is reads and progressions, and that's just something young QBs don't do well. I keep saying that I feel like I'm watching a repeat of Beck, and again, I see the same thing in this regard. It took Beck a long time to learn how to do this (and thinking back to a guy like Tom Brady, I wonder how similar he was in this respect -- super slow, great arm, and maybe it just took him all the way the NFL to learn how to process the position), but by the time he did, our offense was almost unstoppable. I think that's the upside with Jake (though I do question how talented we really are at the skill positions on offense right now compared to some of the talent that has recently come through the program), but clearly the floor with Jake is a lot lower than with Riley as well. We keep saying that Riley might come in and perform against the patsies now, but last night was a supposed one of those patsies, and we were headed for an easy loss with Jake and would have won by three scores with Riley.

Also, crazy how often Utah St. seems to mark a shift for our program. Not only with the Jaime Hill thing last year and the QB questions this year, but every time we play Utah St. I always think back to Ols*n's freshman year and wonder how different things would have turned out for him/the program if the course of that Utah St. game was altered. Internet/legend rumor has it that he was slated to drop his RS and start up at Utah St. his freshman year, but Crowton got cold feet and kept Engemann as the starter. Then, when we got down big at half, Crowton supposedly was giving Engemann the first drive out of the half, and if he didn't produce, the frosh was coming in after that. Of course the rest is history, but I do always wonder what happens in an alternate universe.

[Uncle Ted]

I'm on board whatever train will get Jake Heaps ready to step up to BIG TWAYELVE FOOTBALL! I really don't care much about the rest of this season. We'll beat up on some cupcakes, lose to TCU, probably lose to Hawaii and play Directional U in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. That will happen with either QB at the helm. If sitting on the bench a bit will knock some fire into Jake, then let's do that. If he needs the reps, then let's do that. Simply put, I'm for whatever needs to happen for our Big 12 talent QB to grow into that role.

I agree. Y'all have your love affair with Riley for now but let's get for the next level. Maybe BYU needs to remember where they got their best QB from. It wasn't Pac-whatever country.

[YOUTUBE]weS8U5zLXHs[/YOUTUBE]

[FN Phat]

Not sure how many of you were there but every other play BYU had guys streaking wide open down the field when Riley was in the game and Riley would look them off because he can't make throw down field. The throw to Jacobsen was pure luck.

If teams prepare and spy him he will not be nearly effective. He is a situational quarterback at best.

Heaps clearly needs to figure some stuff out but he is still the most talented QB in the program and the future of this team. The sad thing is all Heaps had to do was survive this game as the starter and then he would pad his stats on cupcakes the rest of the season.

The TD catch by Hoffman was no more difficult than the one Jake threw down the field that he had two hands on and dropped. The catches Matthews made while getting drilled by defenders were harder than the one Jake threw to Matthews on 3rd down that hit him square in his hands to keep a drive alive. Mckay has dropped numerous balls all year and some how makes this great catch for Riley. I just don't see them keeping this up and if you rewatch the game Riley was very wayward on his passes and his receivers made him look damn good specifically Hoffman.

Last night was the first game I have watched of BYUs this year (I only caught the 2nd half after a daddy/daughter dance ). I know this is based of 1/2 of 1 game but Hoffman was a stud. That dude made play after play.

[woot]

1. Despite Shaka pointing it out every time Riley throws the ball 40 yards, I don't think that is an indicator of any significant arm strength. I went to the Utah game 2 hours early to watch the team and saw guys at about every position on the field throwing the ball far when they just heave it up. I'm guessing we have at least a dozen guys that can throw the ball 40 yards on the roster. HOWEVER, after watching some QB's with pretty pathetic arms/throwing mechanics (like Wynn, who looks awful throwing the ball, to be sure) outperform our Golden Gun, I'm questioning how much arm strength you really need to have to get it done in college football. With Riley's ability to run, I don't know that he really needs to be competent throwing it much beyond 10-15 yards to make this thing work. And he can do that. Also note that I agree his throwing looked improved from last year, and there was actually an intermediate route across the middle that despite being a horribly off target throw actually had some decent zip to it.

I would hope there are about 85. Throwing a football 40 yards is not difficult.

[creekster]

So it seems everyone agrees Nelson lacks Heaps physical skills. It seems everyone also agrees that Heaps Lacks Nelsons toughness and aggressive mindset. It also seems clear tat the team played harder for Nelson; I could even see the change on TV. So how do you evaluate that? How does a coach decide who to use? what are the riteria that should be applied?

[kccougar]

I'm really happy for Nelson and thrilled the Cougars pulled out the win. I still don't think everything can be laid at Heaps' feet. Our new OC still isn't calling a good game, and fortunately for BYU last night, Riley has the ability to improvise when the play doesn't go as planned. Heaps can't do that.

I still think Heaps should start next week, but I'm glad we have Riley on the team.

[tooblue]

So it seems everyone agrees Nelson lacks Heaps physical skills. It seems everyone also agrees that Heaps Lacks Nelsons toughness and aggressive mindset. It also seems clear tat the team played harder for Nelson; I could even see the change on TV. So how do you evaluate that? How does a coach decide who to use? what are the riteria that should be applied?

That's the problem—it's a difficult reality to have to deal with. BYU has two known commodities in Heaps and Nelson. The best choice at this point may well be to play the third stringer and see what he can do. If not, you have no choice but to go back to Heaps with the hope the benching lit a fire under him. I'm not confident it did.

Heaps is more concerned with self preservation—speaking of his physical self and future, NFL potential self—than he is with doing what needs to be done in the here and now to win. Aside from the fact he is struggling to work through his progressions, he is also locked in on Apo in some weird pinky swear pact. I hate to say it but, he reminds me of Jim Everett.

Nelson is good enough to inspire a team for a short while, until next week when a team has several days to prepare for him. It's time to see what Lark can do and divide and conquer the various QB factions in the locker room in the process.

[tooblue]

I'm really happy for Nelson and thrilled the Cougars pulled out the win. I still don't think everything can be laid at Heaps' feet. Our new OC still isn't calling a good game, and fortunately for BYU last night, Riley has the ability to improvise when the play doesn't go as planned. Heaps can't do that.

I still think Heaps should start next week, but I'm glad we have Riley on the team.

I think the bolded above is the most difficult reality to contend with. Doman has shown me little to inspire any kind of confidence in his ability as an OC. It's a very frustrating time to be a fan of the Cougars.