Good interview with Brandon Doman on 1280 about BYU

[smokymountainrain]

Can you imagine if Lavell had been around with today's sports boards? Geez.

I'll say one last thing in defense of RN and then we can hopefully move on to more interesting and relevant topics like, I don't know, Taysom and 2013.

The charge that RN wasn't a D1 QB are BS. The guy had a 152 efficiency rating in 2011, which put him just below McMahon's 1981 season and just above Bosco's 1984 season. Yes, you read that right.

http://cougarstats.com/stats.php

You weren't around, but we've gone the rounds on this on the board...schedule, schedule, schedule. I mean, did you see the teams Riley racked up that PER against?

[oxcoug]

Can you imagine if Lavell had been around with today's sports boards? Geez.

I'll say one last thing in defense of RN and then we can hopefully move on to more interesting and relevant topics like, I don't know, Taysom and 2013.

The charge that RN wasn't a D1 QB are BS. The guy had a 152 efficiency rating in 2011, which put him just below McMahon's 1981 season and just above Bosco's 1984 season. Yes, you read that right.

http://cougarstats.com/stats.php

Absolutely no one would claim that he is in the ballpark of those QBs in terms of his legacy. And, yes, his 2012 numbers sucked (PEF: 119, just below Matt Berry's 2002 and just above Bob Jensen's 1987 and Jake Heaps' 2010 numbers). How much his performance suffered from playing injured and how much he was to blame for playing hurt are open to debate. But his 2010 2011 campaign alone demonstrates that if you say he was incapable of playing QB at the D1 level you've got an ax to grind. The numbers don't bear it out.

I don't recall anyone saying that he was "incapable of playing QB at the D1" level - just that he is not physically cut out for a high caliber of play at a position and in a program which demand a high caliber of play. Your citation of 2011 stats fall in the "lies, damn lies and statistics" school of stat-play. He missed the road games at Ole Miss and Texas, didn't face Utah, came in to a USU game against a defense that had gameplanned for a different QB and was able to exploit that, and then feasted on a series of terrible / decimated (Oregon St) defenses for the rest of the year, until he came up against a healthy defense and semi-athletic Tulsa that dared him to throw intermediate and long routes and killed all of his running lanes, thus showcasing the gameplan that exposes Riley as the natural safety he always was.

But to say "he is not a D1 QB" is not to say that he can't take snaps, throw balls and even score points - it's obviously rhetorical and simply means that he doesn't have all the tools to be a complete D1 QB.

[Indy Coug]

You weren't around, but we've gone the rounds on this on the board...schedule, schedule, schedule. I mean, did you see the teams Riley racked up that PER against?

The SOS argument only holds so much water because clearly not just any QB can trot out and rack up a 150+ efficiency against even the dregs of D1 football.

[smokymountainrain]

exposes Riley as the natural safety he always was.

Similar comments have been made on BYU message boards and by BYU fans everywhere since Riley put on the uniform as a BYU QB. Riley Nelson might have been a natural safety at the Jr High level, maybe HS, but he was nowhere near a D1 safety - too slow and too small. He would have made Kellen Fowler look like Ed Reed.

[smokymountainrain]

The SOS argument only holds so much water because clearly not just any QB can trot out and rack up a 150+ efficiency against even the dregs of D1 football.

I should clarify that I'm not necessarily completely on board with that argument, rather my post was more a preemptive strike and sure enough the very next post by Ox harped on exactly that point.

[Harry Tic]

You weren't around, but we've gone the rounds on this on the board...schedule, schedule, schedule. I mean, did you see the teams Riley racked up that PER against?

I don't recall anyone saying that he was "incapable of playing QB at the D1" level - just that he is not physically cut out for a high caliber of play at a position and in a program which demand a high caliber of play. Your citation of 2011 stats fall in the "lies, damn lies and statistics" school of stat-play. He missed the road games at Ole Miss and Texas, didn't face Utah, came in to a USU game against a defense that had gameplanned for a different QB and was able to exploit that, and then feasted on a series of terrible / decimated (Oregon St) defenses for the rest of the year, until he came up against a healthy defense and semi-athletic Tulsa that dared him to throw intermediate and long routes and killed all of his running lanes, thus showcasing the gameplan that exposes Riley as the natural safety he always was.

But to say "he is not a D1 QB" is not to say that he can't take snaps, throw balls and even score points - it's obviously rhetorical and simply means that he doesn't have all the tools to be a complete D1 QB.

Good grief. Don't move the goalposts. The argument, repeated endlessly, was that he wasn't a D1 QB. That's certainly not the case, although he wasn't necessarily of the caliber we have come to expect at BYU. And, as Indy noted, you need to be very careful with the SOS argument. My guess is that you could take a lot of cherished, albeit 2nd tier BYU QBs from the good ol' WAC days and systematically show how their PER was inflated by virtue of the lame competition as well. There are lots of contextual factors that determine a QB's performance, of which the SOS is one. Presumably broken backs and inept OCs are also factors. Who knows what contexual factors are most germane?

The SOS argument only holds so much water because clearly not just any QB can trot out and rack up a 150+ efficiency against even the dregs of D1 football.

The 10-3 and 8-5 "train wrecks" that were RN are over now. I think we can agree that he gave us plenty of memorable moments, some for the right reasons, some for the wrong ones. I just don't get the fixation on demonizing the kid. There were a lot of reasons we underperformed those years: he is one of them. But to make him out to be the devil incarnate is to look for a simple explanation where there isn't one.

[creekster]

There were a lot of reasons we underperformed those years: he is one of them. But to make him out to be the devil incarnate is to look for a simple explanation where there isn't one.

OK, now just wait a cotton pickin' minute. Mayeb somebody somewhere in this thread or on this board said he wasnt a D-1 QB, but I really dont think anyone said he was the devil incarnate.

[Harry Tic]

OK, now just wait a cotton pickin' minute. Mayeb somebody somewhere in this thread or on this board said he wasnt a D-1 QB, but I really dont think anyone said he was the devil incarnate.

"Devil incarnate" = primary reason why BYU football 'sucked.'

Ok, so I'm taking poetic license. Or maybe I was confusing CS with CB. That happens sometimes whenever the names "Heaps" or "Nelson" are invoked.

[Sizzle]

The SOS argument only holds so much water because clearly not just any QB can trot out and rack up a 150+ efficiency against even the dregs of D1 football.

PER by QB performance by game for 2010 and 2011. Teams in "Bold" finished the year ranked, teams in italics came from AQ conferences (I did not include TCU/Utah in 2010, but did in 2011, for reference).

@Colorado St – Heaps – 242.64
Idaho St -- Nelson -- 229.18
Utah State -- Nelson -- 204.97
@Hawaii -- Nelson -- 176.74
Idaho -- Heaps -- 175.70
UTEP – Heaps – 171.69 (Bowl)
Idaho -- Nelson -- 171.49
Washington – Nelson – 168.26
UNLV – Heaps – 162.25
@Oregon State -- Nelson -- 159.73
SJSU -- Nelson -- 159.57
New Mexico St -- Heaps -- 144.98
New Mexico – Heaps – 137.51


@Ole Miss -- Heaps -- 116.32
Idaho St -- Heaps -- 116.28
@Utah – Heaps – 114.74
@TCU -- Nelson -- 111.59
Tulsa -- Nelson -- 109.75 (Bowl)
Utah -- Heaps -- 107.84
SDSU – Heaps – 107.20
Washington – Heaps – 104.37
Utah -- Nelson -- 103.20
@Texas -- Heaps -- 98.49
Nevada – Heaps – 96.08
@Florida State – Heaps – 89.92
@Utah State – Heaps – 84.59
Utah State -- Heaps -- 79.95
@Air Force – Nelson – 74.38
UCF -- Heaps -- 74.04
@TCU – Heaps – 58.81
@Air Force – Heaps – 21.00
@Florida State – Nelson -- -22.9

Could you almost draw a line between Ole Miss and New Mexico and look at the top half and say "weaker SOS" and the lower half and say "stronger SOS"?

Edit: Looking at home v. away, that also appears to be another key factor. Few road games were good, and few home games were bad.

[Donuthole]

His Spanish is arguably worse than his quarterbacking. Much like I don't fault his coaches for his sub-par QB skills, I don't fault his professors for his sub-par Spanish.

It's the elephant in the forum, but somebody had to say it.

[creekster]

"Devil incarnate" = primary reason why BYU football 'sucked.'

Ok, so I'm taking poetic license. Or maybe I was confusing CS with CB. That happens sometimes whenever the names "Heaps" or "Nelson" are invoked.

I am glad you clarified becasue everybody knows the devil throws a very nice, tight spiral.

[Pheidippides]

His Spanish is arguably worse than his quarterbacking. Much like I don't fault his coaches for his sub-par QB skills, I don't fault his professors for his sub-par Spanish.

It's the elephant in the forum, but somebody had to say it.

Not being able to speak a lick of Spanish, I wouldn't know the difference. Is his grammar all messed up, or is it his accent, or is it both?

[Donuthole]

Not being able to speak a lick of Spanish, I wouldn't know the difference. Is his grammar all messed up, or is it his accent, or is it both?

His grammar is nothing to write home about--plenty of awkward English-to-Spanish direct translation going on--but it's not as offensive to me as his accent. He has a classic case of what I call "RM nativo" accent, which is essentially a RM who has learned to flip his "R"s and soften his "D"s and thinks that makes for a native accent. However, someone with with an "RM nativo" accent generally hasn't picked up on the fact that there are a dozen or more other things just as important if you really want to sound like a native speaker (e.g. eliminating the astringent English "N" at the end of words by adding a guttural (more throatal if that is a word) "ng" sound to the words that end in "en" or "an"--just one example).

In all reality, he is probably in the 50-55th percentile of RM Spanish speakers. But as in most things, that percentile is probably just good enough for someone to avoid the realization that he's not nearly as good as he thinks he is. In other words, you are a functional speaker, and good enough to have some people (like this interviewer) blow some smoke up your ass about well you speak. But in reality, you don't really know enough about the subtleties or complexities of the language to know where you can improve. And rather than continue to develop your language skill set, you take what you know, put your head down, and run with it.

So I guess his QB skills and his lingual skills are probably pretty comparable.

[Pheidippides]

His grammar is nothing to write home about--plenty of awkward English-to-Spanish direct translation going on--but it's not as offensive to me as his accent. He has a classic case of what I call "RM nativo" accent, which is essentially a RM who has learned to flip his "R"s and soften his "D"s and thinks that makes for a native accent. However, someone with with an "RM nativo" accent generally hasn't picked up on the fact that there are a dozen or more other things just as important if you really want to sound like a native speaker (e.g. eliminating the astringent English "N" at the end of words by adding a guttural (more throatal if that is a word) "ng" sound to the words that end in "en" or "an"--just one example).

In all reality, he is probably in the 50-55th percentile of RM Spanish speakers. But as in most things, that percentile is probably just good enough for someone to avoid the realization that he's not nearly as good as he thinks he is. In other words, you are a functional speaker, and good enough to have some people (like this interviewer) blow some smoke up your ass about well you speak. But in reality, you don't really know enough about the subtleties or complexities of the language to know where you can improve. And rather than continue to develop your language skill set, you take what you know, put your head down, and run with it.

So I guess his QB skills and his lingual skills are probably pretty comparable.

It's funny that Japanese RMs are the same that way. Most Japanese RMs have similar issues, where they have learned to flap their psuedo-R sounds, but otherwise keep pronouncing things as they are written in romanized form, when the truth is that the romanization is only the best approximation, and the phonemes are independent of the letters. So they don't ever get the nasals down right, they can't tell the difference between kon'yaku, konnyaku and konyaku, and they have really awkward idioms and grammar patterns that are straight out of English.

Teaching the new RM class in Japanese was fun, but sometimes it was really frustrating because they thought they knew everything.

[oxcoug]

Good grief. Don't move the goalposts. The argument, repeated endlessly, was that he wasn't a D1 QB.

"Is not a D1 QB" is rhetorical, always has been, and obviously so given that Nelson was, in every literal sense.... a D1 QB. I.e. playing football for a D1 program as a QB, on the roster as a QB, starting as a QB - therefore a "D1 QB" - clearly no one who used that phrase meant that he was literally not a QB in a D1 program.

It means and always has meant that he doesn't have the physical tools that enable a D1 QB to perform consistently against quality D1 defenses in a pass-first offense.