QB Controversy? Give me a break

Time to talk some BYU football.  After the game against USU where Nelson came in for an ineffective Jake Heaps and "won" the game there has been some questions as to who should start next game.  As usual, BYU fans are being irrational and not seeing things through, so I would like to explain why this whole "QB controversy" should be put to rest.  As a disclaimer, I feel that I should explain that I have always been a big fan of Jake Heaps and I feel that Riley Nelson should have never come to BYU.  With that being said, I am going to try to remain completely unbiased and base my opinions totally on football and not personal opinions while I explain why Heaps should remain the starter.

First off, I can't stand Riley's long hair.  He's got this "I'm from Utah but I grew out my hair to look like I'm from California" look going.  I am not a stickler for the dress and grooming standards at BYU, but I feel like it is very hypocritical of BYU to allow him to do whatever he wants.  Let me explain why.  A couple years ago, BYU was recruiting a kid named Josh Quezada from southern california.  Josh was a pretty big recruit and was not LDS.  BYU was high on his list but while on his visit to BYU they informed him that if he chose to come to BYU then he would need to cut his hair.  Josh had long glorious hair that flowed out the back of his helmet when he played.  This made him rethink how serious he was about BYU because he felt his hair had become part of his identity.  After thinking it through, he decided BYU was the place he wanted to play, cut his hair, and committed to the standards of the school.  So if BYU is so serious about the grooming standards of the honor code that we would be ok losing a big recruit over it why are we looking the other way with Riley?  Is it because he is a returned missionary? Because he's white? Because he's from Utah?  Those are questions you don't want to ask but the point is that we have two standards right now, one for Riley Nelson, and another for everyone else.  If I was Josh I would have a major issue with that surfer hair that Riley is sporting, and not just that he's never stepped foot on a surfboard.

Ok now back to being unbiased...

The majority of BYU fans are convinced that Nelson should be the guy.  This was pretty obvious when they started chanting Riley! Riley! Anytime he stepped on the field.  Now I think the fact that BYU students think he should be the starter should be exhibit A for why he shouldn't be.  These are the same fans that rushed the field after narrowly beating Utah State last week.  Let me repeat that.  HUNDREDS OF BYU STUDENTS RUSHED THE FIELD AFTER NARROWLY BEATING UTAH STATE.  I have never been so offended in my life.  Come on BYU, have some dignity.  Is nothing sacred?  There are very few times when rushing the field is appropriate and beating Utah State under any circumstances is not one of them.  To further show BYU students ignorance, after DiLuigi fumbled the ball towards the end of the game I heard two, not one, but two different students yell "Come on Doman!!!! (our offensive coordinator).  Umm did I miss something?  Did Doman just go out there and fumble the ball himself?  Because I was under the impression that it was the running back. I don't understand how you can criticize a coach for a player dropping the ball, but apparently you can because these guys did.

 Now I gotta admit he had some great runs in that last quarter.  He runs hard and it was very effective against USU's defense.  His TD pass to Hoffman was a fine pass, probably the best I've ever seen him throw but that pass is always more about the catch than it is the throw.  Credit to Nelson for putting it where it needed to be, but Hoffman made a great catch there.  People forget that Heaps had an almost identical pass to Apo earlier in the game that was right there but Apo wasn't able to make the catch that Hoffman did. (To compare the two catches Apo's is at 0:41 in the video below and Hoffman's is at 0:55.)

Before talk about this "amazing comeback" orchestrated by Nelson gets out of hand let's try to remember what really happened.  The two plays that allowed us to win were two of the biggest flukes I have ever seen.  The first one is at 1:30 in the video below.  We can't see the flight of the ball because it is so high.  We usually call these types of passes a prayer because you throw it up and pray that someone comes up with the ball.  I've seen this throw from a lot of different angles and as far as I can tell it looks like Nelson has no intended receiver on this play.  He overthrows Matthews by about 15 yards and Jacobsen is running backwards when he catches the ball.  Hard to give much credit to the QB on a play like that because 99% of the time that pass is an interception and the game is over.

Ok now the touchdown pass that won the game.  This beauty is at 1:38 in the video.  Here we see that he overthrows DiLuigi (DiLuigi is 5'8" and has no chance at catching anything over his head), it gets tipped, and then ends up in Matthews hands.  Again, kind of hard to give credit to the QB on a play like that.

I don't want to sound like everything about that win was lucky.  Nelson came in and provided the spark that our offense desperately needed that game.  Our offensive gameplan was not working and USU had us figured out.  Nelson came in, changed things up and USU couldn't adapt in time.


My biggest problem with Nelson is that I don't think he can beat a good team by himself.  While he did come in and take it to Utah State, I think if Utah State would have been able to prepare to stop him then we would have seen a totally different game.  The reason I think this is the Air Force game last season.  Do you remember it?  I feel like very few BYU fans do.  We had been rotating series between Nelson and Heaps to start the season and for some reason during this game we only gave Heaps a couple of series and then let Nelson play the rest of the game.  Air Force had done their homework and knew that he did not have a very strong arm and so they stacked all their guys inside and played man coverage on the outside.  They basically looked at Nelson and said "We don't think you are good enough to beat us with your arm and we aren't going to let you run on us."  Well it turns out that they were right and Nelson didn't have the arm to effectively pass the ball against their man coverage.  We tried to run our option with him but they were all over us.  Run game only works when the defense has to respect the pass and since they weren't, they were all over us.  Riley was 8-19 passing for 73 yards at the end of the game and we lost 35-14.  There are plenty of QBs that are known for their rushing ability that are successful even in the NFL.  The difference is that they can still throw.  They are what we call "dual threat quarterbacks."  Nelson is a "single threat QB" that can't throw.  That is never a successful combo.

Ok that's enough about Nelson let's talk about Heaps for a little bit.  I won't act like he has been stellar this year because he hasn't.  Our offense has struggled at times and I do believe that he is part of it.  Having said that, I think you are a fool if you think that he is our biggest problem with our offense.  I don't think who is playing QB is our problem right now, I think our biggest problem on offense is our play calling.  Doman is a brand new offensive coordinator and is getting used to play calling duties.  I think that most would agree that so far our offense has been predictable, uninspired, and timid.  Now I'm not ready to give up on Doman, I think he is a smart guy and can be a great OC someday.  I think he is going through a learning curve right now and it shows on our team, even with all the talent we have out there.  What really makes me mad about this QB controversy is that Doman has basically made Heaps the scapegoat for our lack of performance on offense when he should be taking most of the blame.  The first few weeks of the season all the newspaper articles were about Doman and his questionable play calling, but now everyone has forgotten about that and everyone is talking about if Heaps should continue to play this season.  I think that is a cheap move by Doman to take some heat off himself.  I find it very funny that Doman is benching the player that has been "under performing" through the first 5 games of the season when he is the coach that has been under performing so far.

Let's also keep in mind that BYU's schedule so far has not been easy.  At Ole Miss, At Texas, Utah, UCF, Utah State.  So far of those teams, Heaps has faced 3 top 25 pass defenses.  UCF is #1, Texas is #6, and Utah State is #22.  Next week we play San Jose State who is terrible.  I really don't think it would be fair to let Heaps start that tough schedule and then put in Nelson to play the dogs that we have coming up.

I know that this has kind of been all over the place, but I hope my point is clear.  Heaps needs to continue to be the guy and Nelson needs to continue to come in for situational plays.  Hopefully against the next few games we have on the schedule our offense will get some confidence and experience in moving the ball so that we can end the season strong by beating TCU and Hawaii.  If you think that TCU is going to let Nelson run all over them then you are wrong.  He is not the answer to our problem right now.