Anatomy of a Good Pass

We seem to have widely varying counts of good passes, drops, catchable balls, and bad passes. Perhaps some definitions might help us get apples-to-apples counts and a more meaningful dialogue. Heaps lovers seem to want to give Heaps credit for any pass a receiver could contort themselves enough to catch. So the reward to a receiver running full tilt to his left that stops his motion in that direction while twisting backwards enough to get a few finger on a bullet high and behind him is to get criticized for dropping a catchable ball - might be tempted not to try or to give up on balls.



There are really only two kinds of passes: good passes and not good passes.



A good pass will be delivered on correct timing, in the correct position, over the correct shoulder, away from the defender, with correct velocity and touch for the distance and particular receiver, TE, or RB.



Not Good Passes might be close enough to good that a player can dive, twist, change direction, search for, wrestle with a defender, etc to touch and might even be catchable by a great receiver, but nit as likely to be caught as it would if delivered as it should have been. In other cases not good passes are plain bad and not even remotely catchable.





Heaps has shown improvement in that he is not throwing as many passes clear over receivers reach or out of bounds in the last 2 or 3 weeks, but most of his passes are in the not good category but with some possibility of being caught.



I saw 3-4 good throws, 10 nit good but with some possibility of being caught, and 2-3 horrible passes including two caught by the other team. About 10 were caught by the right team. This poor performance was inspire of very good pass protection compared to earlier games.



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I don't agree with your premise that there are only two kinds of passes, good or not good. And there is no QB that only throws good passes. I agree timing is critical and touch is somewhat important, but when I played football (receiver in high school only), we would never get away with complaining about a throw that was too hard or under thrown or a little behind us. Our job as a receiver was to go and get the ball wherever it was. Heaps has not been pretty yet, but until our receivers start fighting for catches, getting in position to make catches and simply show some desire to make a "difficult" catch then I'm willing to give the guy (heaps) a break.



I've been going to the UFL games (new pro league) this year and have noticed that none of the 6-7 QBs I have seen there throw "perfect" most of the time and these are guys who have been through college already, were starters and many played in the NFL. There needs to be some adjustment or effort by the receiver to make the play. Every QB threw at least one pass that was behind the receiver and they were usually caught. Every QB overthrew receivers at times. Every QB threw the ball with velocity except for screen passes or dump offs to the RBs. There doesn't seem to be any room for "touch" on most throws or they get picked off.



I don't give heaps a complete free pass, but I don't think heaps has too far to go to be a good QB, but I think our receivers have a lot farther to go.



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In summary, there are a variety of passes that I see: the uncatchable pass, the perfect pass, the difficult pass (the ones that separate the good receivers from the rest), then all the rest - those that should be caught with a little adjustment by the receiver. Right now our receivers are still dropping perfect passes, never catch the difficult passes and seem to be 50-50 on the rest.



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I am certainly not impressed by the majority of Jake's throws thus far, but your definitions of a good vs not-good pass are way too stringent. I have other things going on on Sundays, so I don't get to watch any live NFL action, but I have a few minutes between 6 and 6:30 and I try to catch the highlight show. Tonight they probably showed 15 or so TD passes, and I think that only 4 or 5 would have fit your definition of good. The rest were a balance of pass and catch ranging from poor pass/great catch to decent pass/decent catch. In fact, the highlights included two passes that were the epitome of your good catch definition that were dropped. So all I am saying is that any discussion of whether a pass is good enough has to be viewed through the lens of how good the receiver is. Eric Drage (the second greatest BYU receiver ever, IMO) once told me that an average receiver should catch anything that he gets both hands on, a good receiver hauls in anything that touches one hand, and a great receiver catches passes that he shouldn't be able to get a finger on.



EDIT: Looks like I took too long typing and BYULV beat me to it.

I am nit suggesting that Heaps needs to throw 100% good passes because no one does. But there is no good excuse for Heaps to be off target as frequently as he is and that effects his completion percentage and sometimes like Saturday results in a pick when the receiver was wide open. If that pass was missed long - incomplete. Missed short - int. Combine inaccuracy with too much velocity and it resembles a kids game of "think fast".



I can understand the freshman having trouble reading a tricky defense, taking too long to decide where to throw, or even failing to see a defender or locking onto a receiver - typical freshman errors.

But missing wide open targets when he isn't even pressured results in low completion percentage even though he is only being given high percentage throws.



That is my beef.



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There are only two kinds of passes:



COMPLETED passes and INCOMPLETED passes. That's it. This is a results oriented business. Incompletions don't get results. Period. End of story.



The pass is either complete or it's not. There can be no middle ground. Excuses are just that - excuses and they don't cut it.



Bad throw? I don't care. It's either complete or it's not.

Drop? I don't care. It's either complete or it's not.



The passing game is about one stat: passer rating and right now Heaps and BYU have one of the worst ratings ever.

BYULV - I agree with what you say, as a receiver, you should have a job, and that is to catch passes that come to you. If they are on the numbers, at your knees, behind your head, your coaches should be riding you to make those catches. No excuses. If Higgins isn't out there telling his receivers that if a pass comes to them on a crossing route and it's a little behind his head that they still better come down with it, he's not doing his job.



Now, as a QB, those same coaches had better be riding him to go that pass to you in the best possible place for you to make that catch. And if Doman isn't out there telling Heaps he needs to get passes out in front of his receivers on crossing routes, rather than behind their head then he isn't doing his job.



There's an interesting story that Steve Young tells all the time at Devotionals and what not. He tells the story about how he got to San Fran and was practicing with Jerry Rice. The play they were practicing was a streak down the sidelines and Young was having difficulty getting the ball out to him, too high sometimes, too short others. He talked to Rice about the difficulties he was having in the pocket and Rice simply said to him, 'hit me right here' and held out his hands right in front of his chest.

kitic77 wrote:
There are only two kinds of passes:



COMPLETED passes and INCOMPLETED passes. That's it. This is a results oriented business. Incompletions don't get results. Period. End of story.



The pass is either complete or it's not. There can be no middle ground. Excuses are just that - excuses and they don't cut it.



Bad throw? I don't care. It's either complete or it's not.

Drop? I don't care. It's either complete or it's not.



The passing game is about one stat: passer rating and right now Heaps and BYU have one of the worst ratings ever.

Very good post.

kitic77 wrote:
There are only two kinds of passes:



COMPLETED passes and INCOMPLETED passes. That's it. This is a results oriented business. Incompletions don't get results. Period. End of story.



The pass is either complete or it's not. There can be no middle ground. Excuses are just that - excuses and they don't cut it.



Bad throw? I don't care. It's either complete or it's not.

Drop? I don't care. It's either complete or it's not.



The passing game is about one stat: passer rating and right now Heaps and BYU have one of the worst ratings ever.

Glad you aren't a coach at BYU is all I know.



Tell me, if we had a receiver rating at BYU, would it be higher or lower than the QB rating, and why? As we all know, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Apparently, you prefer statistics and to not ackowledge the whole truth....

This is true to a degree, routes are designed to have the ball thrown to a specific spot where the receiver can catch it in stride and the defender has the least chance to make a play on the ball. It depends on both the receiver and QB to connect, but when there are this many problems with the pass game the blame has to go all the way around. And I don't care what year they are in school, they're all equal on the playing field because they're all starters, so they all need to start playing like it.

Lawboy wrote:

There are only two kinds of passes:



COMPLETED passes and INCOMPLETED passes. That's it. This is a results oriented business. Incompletions don't get results. Period. End of story.



The pass is either complete or it's not. There can be no middle ground. Excuses are just that - excuses and they don't cut it.



Bad throw? I don't care. It's either complete or it's not.

Drop? I don't care. It's either complete or it's not.



The passing game is about one stat: passer rating and right now Heaps and BYU have one of the worst ratings ever.

Glad you aren't a coach at BYU is all I know.



Tell me, if we had a receiver rating at BYU, would it be higher or lower than the QB rating, and why? As we all know, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Apparently, you prefer statistics and to not ackowledge the whole truth....

In this case, the statistics are telling the real story. A lot of folks are blaming everyone but Heaps for his poor passer rating but for me, everytime he drops back to pass, I get a sick feeling in my stomach that something bad is about to happen and it has little to do with recievers. Last year was the last time I felt like BYU had a snowballs chance in picking up a 3rd and 8+ since that is a hard down and distance to pick up with the run and I have NO faith in Heaps ability to throw for it. Come on guys, even the most militant Heaps supporters can't deny the fact that Heaps is missing on the easy throws consistantly. Anyone remember him throwing 3 feet over the head of a wide open fullback that would have resulted in a touchdown? He misses on screen passes, he threw 5 yards short on the pick six on saturday, those throws to full backs are supposed to be routine and he is missing on them. I think it is for this reason alone that those of us who are pointing out that he isn't playing well are thinking that Lark or Munns couldn't be worse because I have seen many very mediocre QB's hit these throws with ease.

I have little faith in the receivng corps ability to get open, so of course we all have low faith in Jake. No one is open, except the check down, on 90% of pass plays this year. The passing game is a mess and the blame should get spread around. In my mind, in this order:



1) Anae (our scheme sucks, and has for 6 years running)

2) Tight Ends (can anyone in this group actualy get open and sit in a seasm vs a zone D?)

3) Wide Recivers (same as above--with more drops)

4) QB (made some bad passes this year, but only 1 bad one Saturday. Improvement. Just not enough yet)



I think the O line and RBs have been quite good this year. Not perfect, but quite good.

Lawboy wrote:
I have little faith in the receivng corps ability to get open, so of course we all have low faith in Jake. No one is open, except the check down, on 90% of pass plays this year. The passing game is a mess and the blame should get spread around. In my mind, in this order:



1) Anae (our scheme sucks, and has for 6 years running)

2) Tight Ends (can anyone in this group actualy get open and sit in a seasm vs a zone D?)

3) Wide Recivers (same as above--with more drops)

4) QB (made some bad passes this year, but only 1 bad one Saturday. Improvement. Just not enough yet)



I think the O line and RBs have been quite good this year. Not perfect, but quite good.

I think the Oline and RB's have been spectacular. Teams know we can't pass the ball and yet we still run for 200+ yards in 2 of our last 3 games.

frdbtr wrote:

I have little faith in the receivng corps ability to get open, so of course we all have low faith in Jake. No one is open, except the check down, on 90% of pass plays this year. The passing game is a mess and the blame should get spread around. In my mind, in this order:



1) Anae (our scheme sucks, and has for 6 years running)

2) Tight Ends (can anyone in this group actualy get open and sit in a seasm vs a zone D?)

3) Wide Recivers (same as above--with more drops)

4) QB (made some bad passes this year, but only 1 bad one Saturday. Improvement. Just not enough yet)



I think the O line and RBs have been quite good this year. Not perfect, but quite good.

I think the Oline and RB's have been spectacular. Teams know we can't pass the ball and yet we still run for 200+ yards in 2 of our last 3 games.

I'll give the Oline a spectacular when they can cut out the false starts. It has really been an issue this year, and hurt us Saturday. This team can not do 1st and 15 or worse.

All a receiver needs is a step if the ball is thrown well, I've seen our receivers get a step on their guys plenty of times, it's just not good enough when your QB isn't throwing very well.

Lawboy wrote:

Lawboy wrote:
I have little faith in the receivng corps ability to get open, so of course we all have low faith in Jake. No one is open, except the check down, on 90% of pass plays this year. The passing game is a mess and the blame should get spread around. In my mind, in this order:



1) Anae (our scheme sucks, and has for 6 years running)

2) Tight Ends (can anyone in this group actualy get open and sit in a seasm vs a zone D?)

3) Wide Recivers (same as above--with more drops)

4) QB (made some bad passes this year, but only 1 bad one Saturday. Improvement. Just not enough yet)



I think the O line and RBs have been quite good this year. Not perfect, but quite good.

I think the Oline and RB's have been spectacular. Teams know we can't pass the ball and yet we still run for 200+ yards in 2 of our last 3 games.

I'll give the Oline a spectacular when they can cut out the false starts. It has really been an issue this year, and hurt us Saturday. This team can not do 1st and 15 or worse.

The only reason the false starts are so damaging is because our throw game is so pathetic. Last year, a 1st and 15 meant better statistics for max hall who made 3rd and 15 look like an easy down and distance.

we already have more false starts this year than all of last year....it is a bigger issue this year.



I still think we are close, but mainly because the defense is playing hard an making plays now. I look back at Utah 2009, and they played crap v Wyoming at home, AFA at home, at SJSU, among other poor offensive games, both with new QBs. Both those guys have more experience and are really good now, and I expect the same with us. Experience matters at QB, and our lack of it is hurting us. If it happens in 2011, then I will be ready to move to the next guy. Until then, it is tough on the job training.

Lawboy wrote:
we already have more false starts this year than all of last year....it is a bigger issue this year.



I still think we are close, but mainly because the defense is playing hard an making plays now. I look back at Utah 2009, and they played crap v Wyoming at home, AFA at home, at SJSU, among other poor offensive games, both with new QBs. Both those guys have more experience and are really good now, and I expect the same with us. Experience matters at QB, and our lack of it is hurting us. If it happens in 2011, then I will be ready to move to the next guy. Until then, it is tough on the job training.

I think a lot of the reason for the false starts are due to having a new QB (no matter who it is). These guys had gotten used to Max and his cadence and now they have a new guy. Plus we have a new center as well. Bronco also said that some of the false starts on Saturday were due to lineman wanting to get off the ball really quick in the run game which makes sense. I think that will improve with time. I am still behind Heaps as the starter. I just want him to start progressing faster then he is. He really needs to start making better throws in the short game. Making the spectacular throw (like the one he threw to ashworth right before his touchdown pass) is one thing but he will never be a great QB until he hits the easy throws consistantly which, IMO is the reason he looks bad to me. My hope is that since he hit on those 3 really good throws last game that his confidence level will go up and he will start hitting the easy throws the way a BYU QB should.

frdbtr wrote:

I am still behind Heaps as the starter. I just want him to start progressing faster then he is. He really needs to start making better throws in the short game. Making the spectacular throw (like the one he threw to ashworth right before his touchdown pass) is one thing but he will never be a great QB until he hits the easy throws consistantly which, IMO is the reason he looks bad to me. My hope is that since he hit on those 3 really good throws last game that his confidence level will go up and he will start hitting the easy throws the way a BYU QB should.

I think we can all agree on this. The question I have is can the plays coach Anae is using now allow this to happen? I doubt it. And we also need 1 TE to step up and be a go to threat. Until 1 TE steps up, 1 WR steps up, Jake is going to struggle.

I am not trying to pin it all on Heaps, and if we had a stable of Austin Collie, Ben Cahoon, Dennis Putta, Andrew George, Manase Tonga, and Harvey Unga, this would be less of an issue because they could carry Heaps against most of our opponents - but - Heaps could help the kittens he is playing with now by throwing with accuracy to the spit he is supposed to hit with touch. There will still be drops - see post above about NFL receivers dropping great passes - but there will be fewer drops - because the kittens will be more confident about where to look for the ball.



Heaps, according to reports, makes the throws in practice. He made them in high school. I get that he won't always read coverage correctly and may not see the open guy, but I am talking about the times the receiver is open, Heaps sees and throws to the open guy, and unfortunately, usually puts the ball every where but where a receiver would expect it- see Jerry Rice quote above.



And yes Higgins should train the receivers to know Jake's tendencies and first look behind, then above, then short, and if not there, look where it is supposed to be.



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