Cache Cows! Who needs a (General) Conference?

[Coach McGuirk]

Also, that dumb ass pass to Ross Apo, where he is lined up behind Hoffman is terrible. Everyone knows who is getting the ball yet there has never been a play where the QB pump fakes to Apo and throws elsewhere. The QB throws it and Apo gets his 3-5 yards maybe. THIS TO ME is our problem. Good teams will blow that up just about every time.

I agree with this. The play calling is atrocious and you can limit or dumb down the playbook without doing the obvious every play.

None of that excuses riley from being a shitty QB.

[Shaka]

I am judging him against his body of work. Go back to last year when he wasn't hurt and playing against decent to good competition. He struggled mightily against the two teams he faced with winning records turning the ball over by himself 5 times.

One of those teams was TCU who gives every BYU QB fits. I assume the other game you're referring to is Tulsa. In spite of Riley not completing 50% and throwing two INT's he managed to win the game and throw three touchdown passes.

[Guest]

[QUOTE=None of that excuses riley from being a shitty QB.[/QUOTE]

It definitely doesn't excuse Riley from playing like shit but it certainly doesn't help him either.

Alisa was actually having a good game in the Boise State game. If you take out the 20+ yards he lost on the option that was working all game. So Doman actually went away from the runs that were working and instead went option that went no where.

I am sorry but Doman is terrible and he gets bailed out by BYU playing physically inferior teams like Idaho and NMST. When we play teams that can match us athletically our offense gets exposed for what it is. Skyline Football.

[San Juan Sun]

Also, that dumb ass pass to Ross Apo, where he is lined up behind Hoffman is terrible. Everyone knows who is getting the ball yet there has never been a play where the QB pump fakes to Apo and throws elsewhere. The QB throws it and Apo gets his 3-5 yards maybe. THIS TO ME is our problem. Good teams will blow that up just about every time.

If we got 5 yards consistently with this play I'd take it. 5 yards per play is a good thing. Far too often, we get nothing on 1st down, were running Alisa on short field sweeps for 2 yards, and were left with 3 and too many.

The biggest reason we were successful against Hawaii (Other than UH sucking and Famika Anae being a DL seeking missile)? Taysom Hill getting positive yardage on 1st down.

[pelagius]

One of those teams was TCU who gives every BYU QB fits. I assume the other game you're referring to is Tulsa. In spite of Riley not completing 50% and throwing two INT's he managed to win the game and throw three touchdown passes.

I think Riley's a limited quarterback and is below average by BYU historical standards. I also think a healthy Riley should start and an unhealthy Riley (which seems to be the case) should not. But the criticism of Riley for the TCU performance strikes me as unfair. It also isn't a TCU fixed effect. Outside a few exceptions, BYU QBs struggle against that level of competition. Here is a quick look at passing efficiency ratings for BYU QBs from 1985-2000 (so I am excluding Lavell's glory years but there are some good quarterbacks including Detmer in the sample) against competition rank in the 10-30 range (by end of year MOV computer model ... note the average is nearly identical to TCU's year end rank last year):

    variable |      mean       p50
-------------+--------------------
         eff |    126.97    122.79
        rank |     18.80     18.00
      scored |     22.20     21.00
     allowed |     29.87     27.00
----------------------------------

So the median efficiency rating looks a lot like Riley's performance against TCU. His performance was a little below average relative to this benchmark. Add in a nice rushing performance by Riley and it strikes me as at least average over all (also adding in that on the road BYU QBs efficiency rating after controlling for other things drops on average by about 8 points makes it look even better). (The Tulsa game criticism is probably more reasonable but it is just one game).

*Note, this is not meant to be a super rigorous empirical analysis. Just a quick back of the envelope benchmarking. I would change a few things if I was doing ot rigorously.

[kccougar]

If we got 5 yards consistently with this play I'd take it. 5 yards per play is a good thing. Far too often, we get nothing on 1st down, were running Alisa on short field sweeps for 2 yards, and were left with 3 and too many.

The biggest reason we were successful against Hawaii (Other than UH sucking and Famika Anae being a DL seeking missile)? Taysom Hill getting positive yardage on 1st down.

In fact, I don't think we've lost yardage on that play yet. Poor example.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I think Riley's a limited quarterback and is below average by BYU historical standards. I also think a healthy Riley should start and an unhealthy Riley (which seems to be the case) should not. But the criticism of Riley for the TCU performance strikes me as unfair. It also isn't a TCU fixed effect. Outside a few exceptions, BYU QBs struggle against that level of competition. Here is a quick look at passing efficiency ratings for BYU QBs from 1985-2000 (so I am excluding Lavell's glory years but there are some good quarterbacks including Detmer in the sample) against competition rank in the 10-30 range (by end of year MOV computer model ... note the average is nearly identical to TCU's year end rank last year):

    variable |      mean       p50
-------------+--------------------
         eff |    126.97    122.79
        rank |     18.80     18.00
      scored |     22.20     21.00
     allowed |     29.87     27.00
----------------------------------

So the median efficiency rating looks a lot like Riley's performance against TCU. His performance was a little below average relative to this benchmark. Add in a nice rushing performance by Riley and it strikes me as at least average over all.

*Note, this is not meant to be a super rigorous empirical analysis. Just a quick back of the envelope benchmarking. I would change a few things if I was doing ot rigorously.

I attended that game and I would argue that the primary reason for the loss was the worst punting performance by a BYU team that I can recall.

[Shaka]

I think Riley's a limited quarterback and is below average by BYU historical standards. I also think a healthy Riley should start and an unhealthy Riley (which seems to be the case) should not. But the criticism of Riley for the TCU performance strikes me as unfair. It also isn't a TCU fixed effect. Outside a few exceptions, BYU QBs struggle against that level of competition. Here is a quick look at passing efficiency ratings for BYU QBs from 1985-2000 (so I am excluding Lavell's glory years but there are some good quarterbacks including Detmer in the sample) against competition rank in the 10-30 range (by end of year MOV computer model ... note the average is nearly identical to TCU's year end rank last year):

    variable |      mean       p50
-------------+--------------------
         eff |    126.97    122.79
        rank |     18.80     18.00
      scored |     22.20     21.00
     allowed |     29.87     27.00
----------------------------------

So the median efficiency rating looks a lot like Riley's performance against TCU. His performance was a little below average relative to this benchmark. Add in a nice rushing performance by Riley and it strikes me as at least average over all.

*Note, this is not meant to be a super rigorous empirical analysis. Just a quick back of the envelope benchmarking. I would change a few things if I was doing ot rigorously.

I agree with this analysis. I've never thought Riley was the second coming of Jimmie Mac but he can be an effective QB when healthy.

[Shaka]

I attended that game and I would argue that the primary reason for the loss was the worst punting performance by a BYU team that I can recall.

Which was unfortunate considering that our punter is usually nails.

[Joe Public]

And in the meantime, arguably the best defense BYU has ever had comes and goes.

[pelagius]

I attended that game and I would argue that the primary reason for the loss was the worst punting performance by a BYU team that I can recall.

I attended as well. Particularly in person I didn't think Riley was one of the first order liabilities in that game.

[MarkGrace]

I am judging him against his body of work. Go back to last year when he wasn't hurt and playing against decent to good competition. He struggled mightily against the two teams he faced with winning records turning the ball over by himself 5 times.

This. Nobody is ignoring that Riley was hurt against Utah and BSU. Riley is not good, but he's not as bad as he showed in those game. But the real problem was not his injury, it was the fact that he played those games exactly like Tulsa and TCU: replete with bad decisions. Take the TCU or Tulsa game and have their D catch the two to three additional balls right in their hands and you get a lot closer to the negative PER he posted against BSU. Look at Tulsa, TCU, Utah and Boise, and he racked up four turnovers a piece in each of those games all by himself. He was hurt against Utah and BSU, sure, but we have enough to establish a trend. Look at all the teams he's played that finished the season with winning record and the results are pretty much consistent. AF, FSU, TCU, Tulsa, Utah, BSU, etc. On the whole, uniformly awful performances. His only performance against a worthwhile team where I'd give him a solid grade is UW in his first start. Other than that, he is what he is, and that's maxed out against WAC competition.

I laughed all offseason at the "I would have loved to see him against Texas" comments and I just laughed again at whoever mentioned. We have enough evidence to know what he would have done against Texas...abso-freakin'-lutely nothing. Doesn't have the arm or the feet when you up the speed of the game.

[MarkGrace]

I think Riley's a limited quarterback and is below average by BYU historical standards. I also think a healthy Riley should start and an unhealthy Riley (which seems to be the case) should not. But the criticism of Riley for the TCU performance strikes me as unfair. It also isn't a TCU fixed effect. Outside a few exceptions, BYU QBs struggle against that level of competition. Here is a quick look at passing efficiency ratings for BYU QBs from 1985-2000 (so I am excluding Lavell's glory years but there are some good quarterbacks including Detmer in the sample) against competition rank in the 10-30 range (by end of year MOV computer model ... note the average is nearly identical to TCU's year end rank last year):

    variable |      mean       p50
-------------+--------------------
         eff |    126.97    122.79
        rank |     18.80     18.00
      scored |     22.20     21.00
     allowed |     29.87     27.00
----------------------------------

So the median efficiency rating looks a lot like Riley's performance against TCU. His performance was a little below average relative to this benchmark. Add in a nice rushing performance by Riley and it strikes me as at least average over all (also adding in that on the road BYU QBs efficiency rating after controlling for other things drops on average by about 8 points makes it look even better). (The Tulsa game criticism is probably more reasonable but it is just one game).

*Note, this is not meant to be a super rigorous empirical analysis. Just a quick back of the envelope benchmarking. I would change a few things if I was doing ot rigorously.

Why would you base it on end of the year rank instead of some type of defensive rank? It's very possible to end up in the 15-30 range and not be all that great defensively. BYU's probably done it several times. TCU had a good team last year, but that defense didn't look like some of the year's prior (though I get that your comparison is not against TCU, but couldn't you do something that take their defensive rank last year and then do a comparison of BYU QB's against teams in a similar grouping?)

Of course I still have my problem with simply relying on PER. Riley had what, 3 picks in that one? He had another 3 balls thrown right at defenders that could have easily been picked. What are the odds that a defense is always going to drop all 3? Can't be high. Sooner or later teams start catching those and you end up with a BSU game. Jay kept busting my chops last year for my random eyeball test of quarterbacks, but this is what I was referring to. I mean sure it was great that his PER was within the average for a BYU QB in these games or whatever, but was his actual play? Or is he simply sliding by with the golder horseshoe that seemed stuck up his ass most of last year? And then when he doesn't turn out as lucky this year (Utah, BSU) we say it's injury instead of simply being consistent with the kind of decisions/performance. But we bury those performances based on the fact that in some instances the resulting numbers were better.

Also, you can't give credit to his running in those games without mentioning that he seems to cough up a fumble in every single one. But maybe other QB's have averaged a fumble a game in those situations as well. I don't really know.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Why would you based it on end of the year rank instead of some type of defensive rank? TCU had a good team last year, but that defense didn't look like some of the year's prior (though I get that your comparison is not against TCU, but couldn't you do something that take their defensive rank last year and then do a comparison of BYU QB's against teams in a similar grouping?)

Of course I still have my problem with simply relying on PER. Riley had what, 3 picks in that one? He had another 3 balls thrown right at defenders that could have easily been picked. What are the odds that a defense is always going to drop all 3? Can't be high. Sooner or later teams start catching those and you end up with a BSU game. Jay kept busting my chops last year for my random eyeball test of quarterbacks, but this is what I was referring to. I mean sure it was great that his PER was within the average for a BYU QB in these games or whatever, but was his actual play? Or is he simply sliding by with the golder horseshoe that seemed stuck up his ass most of last year? And those when he doesn't turn out as lucky this year (Utah, BSU) we say it's injury instead of simply being consistent with the kind of decisions/performance we saw out of him last year despite the fact that in some instances the resulting numbers were better.

Also, you can't give credit to his running in those games without mentioning that he seems to cough up a fumble in every single one. But maybe other QB's have averaged a fumble a game in those situations as well. I don't know.

Ha. That's very funny that you would respond to a pelagius post by referencing some magic power of luck.

[kccougar]

I attended that game and I would argue that the primary reason for the loss was the worst punting performance by a BYU team that I can recall.

Agreed. That game was a special teams loss.