The Heaps of Goodbyes Thread

[woot]

Like many of you, I don't find the current situation in Provo very reassuring. But for Hsaru and those others who are Heaps' defenders, just a few notes on the situation:

First, Heaps' best outing this year was Ol' Miss, where his pass efficiency rating was 116. In contrast, Riley's performance against TCU was his worst, and was 112 (his next lowest is 160 against Oregon State and San Jose State). And of course, that doesn't include his 84 rushing yards.

In the two games where both quarterbacks saw significant minutes:
Utah State - Heaps 80, Nelson 205.
Idaho State - Heaps 116, Nelson 229.

While running the offense, Heaps has led BYU to 14, 16, 10, 24, and 20 (I extrapolated USU from 13 pts in 40 minutes being equal to 20 pts in 60 minutes). Nelson has led BYU to 42(14 pts in 20 min at USU), 29, 38, 56, and 28 pts. And yes, I do realize the competition has largely taken a dive, but against TCU, he still led the team to more points than Heaps' best performance.

To try to adjust for the competition, I ran a simple statistic that compared BYU's scoring against team A to the average pts given up by team A against other competition. So for example, against Texas, BYU scored 16 pts, but Texas averages giving up 22.3 PPG (with BYU removed). So BYU scored 6.3 pts less than expected in this example. With Heaps in the lineup, BYU averaged scoring 7.1 pts less than expected, while with Nelson, BYU scores 6.4 more than expected - a difference of 13.5 pts. (Note that I didn't include Idaho State in Riley's numbers.)

I hope Jake ends up being a great BYU QB, but there is nothing about an objective look at the numbers to make one assume Jake should be starting ahead of Riley, whether this year or next. Even if Jake outperforms him in spring practice, I'm not sure you go with him, because he did that this past year, and look how that has panned out.

And no, I'm not a true believer in Riley as being a great BYU QB, either.

This! Good god I can't believe anyone is still wishing Heaps would play. His QB rating the last two seasons in a row have hovered either at or near the very worst in all of of the FBS. And he's also immobile, so chances are that the QBs around him are at least getting a few yards on the ground or they wouldn't be playing at all. My only question about Heaps is why he was given so much playing time to begin with. Those calling for more playing time for Heaps are insane. The kid is not just terrible; he's historically terrible. He looked lost against a bad FCS team, for crying out loud.

He needs to redshirt next year, and then be given a chance to compete with Hill and whoever else is around in 2013. If nobody else has enough experience to beat him out, then we'll struggle through a year or two of having a headcase as our QB. Or maybe that redshirt year gives him some perspective and he's able to figure things out and become a good QB. But right now, the kid just can't play at all.

Alternatively, perhaps by 2013 Doman will have figured out how to design plays for a QB that can't improvise or tuck it when the routes don't work. Either way, Heaps objectively shouldn't be playing right now.

[KillerDog]

This! Good god I can't believe anyone is still wishing Heaps would play. His QB rating the last two seasons in a row have hovered either at or near the very worst in all of of the FBS. And he's also immobile, so chances are that the QBs around him are at least getting a few yards on the ground or they wouldn't be playing at all. My only question about Heaps is why he was given so much playing time to begin with. Those calling for more playing time for Heaps are insane. The kid is not just terrible; he's historically terrible. He looked lost against a bad FCS team, for crying out loud.

He needs to redshirt next year, and then be given a chance to compete with Hill and whoever else is around in 2013. If nobody else has enough experience to beat him out, then we'll struggle through a year or two of having a headcase as our QB. Or maybe that redshirt year gives him some perspective and he's able to figure things out and become a good QB. But right now, the kid just can't play at all.

Alternatively, perhaps by 2013 Doman will have figured out how to design plays for a QB that can't improvise or tuck it when the routes don't work. Either way, Heaps objectively shouldn't be playing right now.

I'm on board with this analysis. I don't know what is wrong with Heaps but Heaps didn't do well in Anae's system and he doesn't look good in whatever Doman is trying to do. I'm not impressed and I don't know how anyone else can be.

[Hsaru]

This! Good god I can't believe anyone is still wishing Heaps would play. His QB rating the last two seasons in a row have hovered either at or near the very worst in all of of the FBS. And he's also immobile, so chances are that the QBs around him are at least getting a few yards on the ground or they wouldn't be playing at all. My only question about Heaps is why he was given so much playing time to begin with. Those calling for more playing time for Heaps are insane. The kid is not just terrible; he's historically terrible. He looked lost against a bad FCS team, for crying out loud.

He needs to redshirt next year, and then be given a chance to compete with Hill and whoever else is around in 2013. If nobody else has enough experience to beat him out, then we'll struggle through a year or two of having a headcase as our QB. Or maybe that redshirt year gives him some perspective and he's able to figure things out and become a good QB. But right now, the kid just can't play at all.

Alternatively, perhaps by 2013 Doman will have figured out how to design plays for a QB that can't improvise or tuck it when the routes don't work. Either way, Heaps objectively shouldn't be playing right now.

Yeah a true freshman who in his last 5 games had a qb rating of 165.2, what a fucking bust, why were we excited about this kid.

[Tone Loc]

This! Good god I can't believe anyone is still wishing Heaps would play. His QB rating the last two seasons in a row have hovered either at or near the very worst in all of of the FBS. And he's also immobile, so chances are that the QBs around him are at least getting a few yards on the ground or they wouldn't be playing at all. My only question about Heaps is why he was given so much playing time to begin with. Those calling for more playing time for Heaps are insane. The kid is not just terrible; he's historically terrible. He looked lost against a bad FCS team, for crying out loud.

He needs to redshirt next year, and then be given a chance to compete with Hill and whoever else is around in 2013. If nobody else has enough experience to beat him out, then we'll struggle through a year or two of having a headcase as our QB. Or maybe that redshirt year gives him some perspective and he's able to figure things out and become a good QB. But right now, the kid just can't play at all.

Alternatively, perhaps by 2013 Doman will have figured out how to design plays for a QB that can't improvise or tuck it when the routes don't work. Either way, Heaps objectively shouldn't be playing right now.

Heaps sucks. If you cant beat out Riley Nelson, you shouldnt be allowed to start for any team in college football. And yes, I understand worse QB's are starting right now (namely Utah's), but they shouldn't be. All this talk by Bronco and Doman about him being an NFL QB, child please. We better hope to hell that Taysom Hill is good or BYU football is going to wallow in mediocrity for a long time. I have zero hope for next year, and could give two shats less about the rest of this year. This sucks.

[Hsaru]

Riley Nelson against teams that have a pulse on defense:

Air Force: 8/19 73 yards qb rating 74
Florida St: 1/4 1 yd int -22.4 qb rating(yes minus)
TCU(most stats in garbage time) 15/29 215 yards 1 td 2 int 1 backward pass qb rating 111.6
Utah 2011-fumble six

All hail the Riley Nelson era.

[woot]

Yeah a true freshman who in his last 5 games had a qb rating of 165.2, what a fucking bust, why were we excited about this kid.

Irrelevant. I was also excited about him, and stayed on the Heaps bandwagon way longer than was appropriate. Cautious optimism seemed pretty universal around these parts in the offseason, as Heaps did well against most of the teams in the back half of the season (i.e. the ones with really bad defenses). That seemed good enough. It turns out, however, that it really was about the competition more than about things clicking for him. That has been demonstrated very clearly this year, as he has shat the bed against everybody, including the very bad defenses.

Riley Nelson against teams that have a pulse on defense:

Air Force: 8/19 73 yards qb rating 74
Florida St: 1/4 1 yd int -22.4 qb rating(yes minus)
TCU(most stats in garbage time) 15/29 215 yards 1 td 2 int 1 backward pass qb rating 111.6
Utah 2011-fumble six

All hail the Riley Nelson era.

Do you really want to get into cherry picking individual games? Heaps has had exactly 3 career games with a QB rating better than 137.5, and exactly 4 career games with a rating higher than 116.3 (Riley has 5 games of 159.6 or better, despite having maybe half the number of starts). For reference, 116.3 would put Heaps at #95 this year, which is actually an improvement over where he finished last year, when 116.2 was his final rating and he finished tied for 98th (after spending several weeks in last place). This year, his rating is 98.6, worthy of #112 in the nation. The guy's QB rating is seriously the same as his body temperature. That's embarrassing.

Meanwhile, the 58 attempts Riley had in your 4 cherry-picked games (two of which he barely played in), his rating was 89.3, but he also had 185 rushing yards. If you throw those in, his rating is right up at 116 (I know that's not how it works). When Riley's worst games ever aren't significantly worse than Heaps' career stats, (and are arguably better than Heaps' season totals for this year) it might be time to stop trying. In addition to having a much higher career QB rating than Heaps, Riley averages another 70 yards or so on the ground compared to Heaps' career total of -157. You really need to stop trying.

Nobody is saying Riley is amazing. But Heaps is an unmitigated disaster.

[Pelado]

Riley Nelson against teams that have a pulse on defense:

Air Force: 8/19 73 yards qb rating 74
Florida St: 1/4 1 yd int -22.4 qb rating(yes minus)
TCU(most stats in garbage time) 15/29 215 yards 1 td 2 int 1 backward pass qb rating 111.6
Utah 2011-fumble six

All hail the Riley Nelson era.

Jake vs the same teams:

AF: 2/6, 15 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, 21 rating; 0 yards rushing
FSU: 15/31, 114 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 89.9 rating; -61 yards rushing
Utah: 27/50, 305 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 107.8 rating; -29 yards rushing (two fumbles)

In other words, Heaps' best passer-rated game against a defense with a pulse was a game in which he had two fumbles and negative rushing yards. Riley had a similar passer rating against TCU, but also added 84 yards of positive rushing.

Look, I'm hopeful that Heaps will rebound and fulfill the potential that we've all been hearing about for the last three years or so. I was pretty disappointed with his performance against Idaho State, because he was still making bad mistakes even though it was the worst competition of the year. I wanted Jake to play last year since Riley looked like garbage. But Riley has certainly improved, and Jake seems to have regressed.

[Hsaru]

Irrelevant. I was also excited about him, and stayed on the Heaps bandwagon way longer than was appropriate. Cautious optimism seemed pretty universal around these parts in the offseason, as Heaps did well against most of the teams in the back half of the season (i.e. the ones with really bad defenses). That seemed good enough. It turns out, however, that it really was about the competition more than about things clicking for him. That has been demonstrated very clearly this year, as he has shat the bed against everybody, including the very bad defenses.



Do you really want to get into cherry picking individual games? Heaps has had exactly 3 career games with a QB rating better than 137.5, and exactly 4 career games with a rating higher than 116.3 (Riley has 5 games of 159.6 or better, despite having maybe half the number of starts). For reference, 116.3 would put Heaps at #95 this year, which is actually an improvement over where he finished last year, when 116.2 was his final rating and he finished tied for 98th (after spending several weeks in last place). This year, his rating is 98.6, worthy of #112 in the nation. The guy's QB rating is seriously the same as his body temperature. That's embarrassing.

Meanwhile, the 58 attempts Riley had in your 4 cherry-picked games (two of which he barely played in), his rating was 89.3, but he also had 185 rushing yards. If you throw those in, his rating is right up at 116 (I know that's not how it works). When Riley's worst games ever aren't significantly worse than Heaps' career stats, (and are arguably better than Heaps' season totals for this year) it might be time to stop trying. In addition to having a much higher career QB rating than Heaps, Riley averages another 70 yards or so on the ground compared to Heaps' career total of -157. You really need to stop trying.

Nobody is saying Riley is amazing. But Heaps is an unmitigated disaster.

No I'm just showing how ridiculous that everyone throws out Heaps big games against bad teams last year but are now ready to exalt Nelson for doing the same thing, when he has shown nothing. At least in Heap's big games he was showing he can throw the ball to all parts of the field with zip and accuracy. In Nelson's big games all we learned is he can improvise and make some gritty plays, nothing to show the ability he can be a great passer.

[Goatnapper'96]

Riley Nelson against teams that have a pulse on defense:

Air Force: 8/19 73 yards qb rating 74
Florida St: 1/4 1 yd int -22.4 qb rating(yes minus)
TCU(most stats in garbage time) 15/29 215 yards 1 td 2 int 1 backward pass qb rating 111.6
Utah 2011-fumble six

All hail the Riley Nelson era.

You are really an annoying dickhead about this. Riley Nelson is likely an above average D1 qb at best. Stop and reread what I just said before you start telling everyone that Riley is not great. Now stop again and reread a 3rd time. The point is nobody thinks Riley Nelson is that great. Stop and reread the previous sentence a couple times before you start hyperventilating to let us know that Riley is not that great - the world can see that he is not. However, he is playing much better than Jake Heaps did this year. He gives BYU the better chance to win games. Why did Riley move the ball better and score more points against USU in half the time? All your weak ass responses about rookie oc, whyohio's whining, system never run before at BYU blahblahblah, and Utah Dan's vagina hurting are crap. Stop it as you are convincing nobody. You really just look silly and stupid continuing to beat this drum about the two. In one game against the same competition with the same OC and with whyOhio whining like a bitch, Riley Nelson did significantly better. In the game against TCU Riley looked better than Jake Heaps has at any point this year for a full game. Now before you begin hyperventilating to tell the world how poorly Riley played against TCU stop and read the following sentence no less than 7 times: Riley was not that good against TCU and his game was still better than any game Jake Heaps played this year. The issue is who is the better qb for BYU this season.

Now if your issue is that there are reasons why Jake Heaps is not reaching his potential. Have at it. Make arguments that the coaches suck or some anti-mormon at iggy's spiked his edgy Arnold Palmer way back when. However, stop trying to argue that Jake Heaps was as impressive playing qb as Riley Nelson was this year by pointing out that Riley isn't that great. It gets tiring and annoying.

[Hsaru]

Jake vs the same teams:

AF: 2/6, 15 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, 21 rating; 0 yards rushing
FSU: 15/31, 114 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 89.9 rating; -61 yards rushing
Utah: 27/50, 305 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 107.8 rating; -29 yards rushing (two fumbles)

In other words, Heaps' best passer-rated game against a defense with a pulse was a game in which he had two fumbles and negative rushing yards. Riley had a similar passer rating against TCU, but also added 84 yards of positive rushing.

Look, I'm hopeful that Heaps will rebound and fulfill the potential that we've all been hearing about for the last three years or so. I was pretty disappointed with his performance against Idaho State, because he was still making bad mistakes even though it was the worst competition of the year. I wanted Jake to play last year since Riley looked like garbage. But Riley has certainly improved, and Jake seems to have regressed.

Going into 2012 without a knockout drag out QB competition between Nelson/Heaps/Lark and just defaulting the qb spot to Nelson would be a travesty of a coaching decision. Thats all I ask, if Nelson can rightfully earn a fricking starting job once in his BYU career over two other players in the offseason than power to him. But I think Bronco/Doman know that Nelson can't do that, and won't let it happen.

[Tone Loc]

Irrelevant. I was also excited about him, and stayed on the Heaps bandwagon way longer than was appropriate. Cautious optimism seemed pretty universal around these parts in the offseason, as Heaps did well against most of the teams in the back half of the season (i.e. the ones with really bad defenses). That seemed good enough. It turns out, however, that it really was about the competition more than about things clicking for him. That has been demonstrated very clearly this year, as he has shat the bed against everybody, including the very bad defenses.



Do you really want to get into cherry picking individual games? Heaps has had exactly 3 career games with a QB rating better than 137.5, and exactly 4 career games with a rating higher than 116.3 (Riley has 5 games of 159.6 or better, despite having maybe half the number of starts). For reference, 116.3 would put Heaps at #95 this year, which is actually an improvement over where he finished last year, when 116.2 was his final rating and he finished tied for 98th (after spending several weeks in last place). This year, his rating is 98.6, worthy of #112 in the nation. The guy's QB rating is seriously the same as his body temperature. That's embarrassing.

Meanwhile, the 58 attempts Riley had in your 4 cherry-picked games (two of which he barely played in), his rating was 89.3, but he also had 185 rushing yards. If you throw those in, his rating is right up at 116 (I know that's not how it works). When Riley's worst games ever aren't significantly worse than Heaps' career stats, (and are arguably better than Heaps' season totals for this year) it might be time to stop trying. In addition to having a much higher career QB rating than Heaps, Riley averages another 70 yards or so on the ground compared to Heaps' career total of -157. You really need to stop trying.

Nobody is saying Riley is amazing. But Heaps is an unmitigated disaster.

This might be the worst rebuttal ever. You should have just responded with the bolded part and it would have been a beautiful response. And for that matter, Lark and Munns are obviously even greater failures than Heaps. They ride the pine behind that unmitigated disaster!

Like I said, BYU football=meh.

[Blueintheface]

Going into 2012 without a knockout drag out QB competition between Nelson/Heaps/Lark and just defaulting the qb spot to Nelson would be a travesty of a coaching decision. Thats all I ask, if Nelson can rightfully earn a fricking starting job once in his BYU career over two other players in the offseason than power to him. But I think Bronco/Doman know that Nelson can't do that, and won't let it happen.

Mr Heaps, you and your wife need to stop posting on chatboards and instead begin looking for work in the next town your son will be playing in.

[Goatnapper'96]

Going into 2012 without a knockout drag out QB competition between Nelson/Heaps/Lark and just defaulting the qb spot to Nelson would be a travesty of a coaching decision. Thats all I ask, if Nelson can rightfully earn a fricking starting job once in his BYU career over two other players in the offseason than power to him. But I think Bronco/Doman know that Nelson can't do that, and won't let it happen.

So you believe the quarterback most likely to give BYU the best chance to win games would be decided in a spring season? Since Riley would not win it the coaches are going to purposely avoid competition to ensure Riley wins because they rather lose or I know, Bronco has some bizzaro psychotic father-son relationship with Riley, right?

Look, point out Bronco's a mediocre HC when BYU loses games it should or that he is plateuing because he seems unable to gain traction on programs he once competed with quite well. However, don't make a silly argument about them not wanting the best qb on the field. Especially when all game evidence indicates that even if Riley isn't that good (have I mentioned your need to perhaps reread the previous statement ad nauseum yet- don't ad nauseum pointless statements get irritating after a while?) but is still the qb most likely to lead the team to finishing games with more points under BYU than the opponent on the scoreboard.

[woot]

Just for fun, here are Heaps' worst 4 games:
AF last year: 2/6 15 0 1
TCU last year: 14/30 91 0 2
UCF this year: 16/34 133 0 1
USU this year: 11/25 107 0 0
Total QB rating: 67.4

For those scoring at home, that's significantly worse than Riley's rating in the 4 games that Hsaru chose. In case you're wondering, Heaps had -26 yards rushing, compared to Riley's 185 in his worst 4.

And for a bit more fun, here are Heaps' stats in the very 4 games Hsaru chose to demonstrate how bad Riley is:

AF last year: 2/6 15 0 1
FSU last year: 15/31 114 1 0
Utah this year: 27/50 305 1 1 (his best of the bunch, but still only 107.8 QB rating)
TCU this year: DNP
Total QB rating: 95.5, a full 6.2 points better than Riley against the very same defenses. Rushing yards in those games, in which Riley had 185: -90.

So, in Riley's worst 4 games at QB ever, he still played better than Heaps.

I see Pelado beat me to the second part. but still, damn.

[Pelado]

Going into 2012 without a knockout drag out QB competition between Nelson/Heaps/Lark and just defaulting the qb spot to Nelson would be a travesty of a coaching decision. Thats all I ask, if Nelson can rightfully earn a fricking starting job once in his BYU career over two other players in the offseason than power to him. But I think Bronco/Doman know that Nelson can't do that, and won't let it happen.

OK, so are you acknowledging now that Riley has performed better in games this year than Heaps?

If so, let's move on to this latest post.

just defaulting the qb spot to Nelson would be a travesty of a coaching decision

What, like they did for Heaps this year?

I believe the coaches will do what they feel gives their team the best chance to win games. I'm not necessarily convinced that they will properly evaluate the players and their potential, but I don't think they are implementing some grand scheme to ensure that Riley is crowned the starter next season. What would be their motivation to stick with a starter they feel is inferior?