QB Competition open?

I was interested in Bronco's statement this week that the competition for the QB position next year is open.



First: I think that is baloney, but he kind of had to say that to try to keep all our QBs in town, believing they have a chance to compete and play. And my guess is Bronco has told Heaps that "you are our QB, but you need to understand that every position on this team is open." Heaps probably smiled because he knows he's better than anybody on the roster.



Second: Jake Heaps is the man, nobody will displace him, he is going to be a star, so nobody should kid themselves about that. Plus, I've said from the beginning, I don't think Heaps will go on a mission, and we've heard nothing to refute that.



Third: If Riley Nelson wants to play, he should change positions, become a slot receiver, or a return guy, or possibly defense, but he has no chance of playing next year. He'll be a senior, Heaps will still be the starter, and the coaches are going to want to prep Lark and Munns, not Nelson for backup status.



Fourth: we have such outstanding running backs in the program, I don't think we need a running QB, or an option QB. And I can probably guarantee BYU will not have a two QB system next year.



Fifth: Alex Kuresa is only 5'7", and he'll never play QB at BYU either, but he's an athlete, and he'll probably play somewhere on the team, eventually.

Not according to his Scout page, Is lists him as 6 feet tall, and I'm one that knows these are sometimes misleading and the height might not be exact, but there's no way there's a 5 inch difference. His brother in an interview was saying that he believed him to be 5 11 or 10 but his brother also said that it's common in that family to sprout a bit after high school.



And by scout I mean rivals, http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Alex-Kuresa-108185" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In one of the playoff games I watched this year the announcers kept says how good he was, and that he is only 5' 7", so I was interested that BYU recruited him, that's pretty short for a QB. Still, whatever height he is, hope he's a gamer for BYU.

I don't understand why this keeps being brought up. On any competitive team you have to open every position on the field to keep starters honest and find new stars and hidden talent. Just make the decision by the end of Spring camp.

I just have to say that in high school I was a basketball player. My senior year I had a great year. I began the season at 6' 0", then after a couple of big games the papers had me at 6' 1", then I scored 35 points in a game and was 6' 2". By the time the state tournament came around I was 6' 4"!! And, no, I never grew at all that year.



So what is reported and what is true often differ considerably.

You open it up so that the current QB doesn't get BMOC syndrome and lose his edge. Besides, if he gives it his best and one of the other guys beats him out, that's an awesome problem to have.

I don't think anybody has a problem with opening up positions for competition. I think given the mismanagement of "open" positions last year, this kind of talk makes people worry though, for good reason.



I don't think anybody is going to beat out Jake at this point. I mean he played better than max hall ever did, i believe, in the utah game. He has the arm and showed a lot of improvement. Him and riley are the only guys with real experience at this point. Hard to see him losing his spot.



What the crap are we going to do with riley though. Is he really going to be in the qb spot. So we have three back up qbs?



I think they need to find another place to use him.

jonnylingo wrote:
I don't think anybody has a problem with opening up positions for competition. I think given the mismanagement of "open" positions last year, this kind of talk makes people worry though, for good reason.



I don't think anybody is going to beat out Jake at this point. I mean he played better than max hall ever did, i believe, in the utah game. He has the arm and showed a lot of improvement. Him and riley are the only guys with real experience at this point. Hard to see him losing his spot.



What the crap are we going to do with riley though. Is he really going to be in the qb spot. So we have three back up qbs?



I think they need to find another place to use him.

Riley needs to play into a place. Preferential treatment is why we ended up with the record we did in the first place. Riley needs to decide to play in a different position, and earn his way into the two deep in that position. With all the coach love, he shouldn't have a problem doing it.



Riley was handed the 2nd spot behind Hall, handed the starter position over Jake, and now he is being considered as a "situational quarterback" - when he doesn't throw better than any of the qbs, or run as well as our rb's. I would consider Munns more situational than Riley...



And I don't hate Riley, for those of you that are going to post that I do. He has some of the biggest heart, determination, and work ethic that you will find. My only point is that if BYU wants to start winning games they have been losing the last 5 years, a big part of the equation is getting your best players on the field more times than the other teams best players are. Corby Eason, Kyle Van Noy, Jake Heaps, Cody Hoffman, Richard Wilson, Josh Quezada, the list goes on and on for BYU this year. And you can make the same case for players on the defensive side in past years.



I have NO PROBLEM with an open competition, as long as it is a fair competition. Problem is, at BYU if you are a RM and a walk on, that gives you an unfair advantage over someone that has more physical talent than you, lately.



Having a new OC and position coaches will change that. Especially if the new OC and position coaches aren't LDS.



START THE BEST PLAYER = WIN MORE GAMES.

BlueIsBetter wrote:

I don't think anybody has a problem with opening up positions for competition. I think given the mismanagement of "open" positions last year, this kind of talk makes people worry though, for good reason.



I don't think anybody is going to beat out Jake at this point. I mean he played better than max hall ever did, i believe, in the utah game. He has the arm and showed a lot of improvement. Him and riley are the only guys with real experience at this point. Hard to see him losing his spot.



What the crap are we going to do with riley though. Is he really going to be in the qb spot. So we have three back up qbs?



I think they need to find another place to use him.

Riley needs to play into a place. Preferential treatment is why we ended up with the record we did in the first place. Riley needs to decide to play in a different position, and earn his way into the two deep in that position. With all the coach love, he shouldn't have a problem doing it.



Riley was handed the 2nd spot behind Hall, handed the starter position over Jake, and now he is being considered as a "situational quarterback" - when he doesn't throw better than any of the qbs, or run as well as our rb's. I would consider Munns more situational than Riley...



And I don't hate Riley, for those of you that are going to post that I do. He has some of the biggest heart, determination, and work ethic that you will find. My only point is that if BYU wants to start winning games they have been losing the last 5 years, a big part of the equation is getting your best players on the field more times than the other teams best players are. Corby Eason, Kyle Van Noy, Jake Heaps, Cody Hoffman, Richard Wilson, Josh Quezada, the list goes on and on for BYU this year. And you can make the same case for players on the defensive side in past years.



I have NO PROBLEM with an open competition, as long as it is a fair competition. Problem is, at BYU if you are a RM and a walk on, that gives you an unfair advantage over someone that has more physical talent than you, lately.



Having a new OC and position coaches will change that. Especially if the new OC and position coaches aren't LDS.



START THE BEST PLAYER = WIN MORE GAMES.

I can't help but disagree with everything you've said here. But because we've been over it time and again I wont go back over the reasons why other than to say there is no evidence ever produced that shows RMs or walkons have ever been given preferential treatment. In fact, BYU plays far more younger players over older players than most schools. As for Riley there's no evidence that he didn't earn his co-starting spot this year, to say it was given to him for some nebulous reason is absurd. The fact is, he was simply the most prepared, ready QB we had.



A common fallacy in sports is that guys who are best at the end of the year would have been as good at the start of the year. That simply isn't the case. Look at how many people were calling for Thomas to be replaced by Uale. Once Thomas went out with a concussion and Uale came in most of Cougar nation cheered. But there was an immediate and noticable drop off that lasted for the next 2 or 3 games before Uale matched the level of play and ultimately exceeded Thomas. Now if you're argument is to sacrifice the first 2 or 3 games of the season to get more physically talented younger guys ready to play then that makes sense, but I hope that we are putting the guys out there that give us the best chance to win every game and developing that younger talent in practice to where they'll be ready to step in the next year.



I look back at the year, and I'm not sure things would have been that much better, if not worse, if things had been handled dramatically differently. The fact is, like Kitic says, we'll never know.

Kyle Van Noy vs Frazier

Corby Eason vs Bradley

Heaps vs Nelson

Hoffman vs Chambers

Richard Wilson not playing at all

Josh Quezada vs Brian Kariya



would all disagree on that... just because the coaches get things right at the end of the season doesn't mean they had them right at the beginning.



And the Thomas vs. Uale debate doesn't hold much weight, because neither are very good... Nobody was calling for Uale to start over Thomas pre-season, and rightfully so. Because he isn't and wasn't ready. Unfortunately for us, Thomas wasn't either.



But that's not the case with the others listed above. They all were better than their "competition" in game one.

As far as I'm concerned every position is open every practice. I think they should be like a 7-11 but without the locks on the doors :). Now I don't mean that you change guys around every practice but if someone starts being lazy and takes for granted their spot, then I think there is a decision that has to be made as to who should be where in terms of rotation or depth.

My take is go into the Spring with Heaps penned in at number one (I think he earned it), and the rest penned in at number 2 (Riley didn't earn it). And as people perform and show what they have the depth chart should fill itself out.

I remained convinced that if Heaps had been named the starter in spring ball, BYU would have won two or three more games this year. It's pretty clear that no other QB has the talent of Jake Heaps, certainly not Nelson. And to pretend BYU is going to be an option QB offense is insane. One of the duties of good coaches is to recognize talent and to get that talent ready to play. I don't believe Nelson has talent, he has heart and he has some physical gifts, but he's never going to be a great QB. So the coaches really blew the QB thing this year by going "dual" and wasting a lot of time on Nelson.



I think the same thing is true at other positions. When junior and senior receivers consistently drop passes, they need to be benched and gotten out of the way. They begin again at the bottom of the depth chart, they can earn their way back on the field, but to just keep playing receivers who keep dropping passes, is also insane.

do you guys realize that if you benched players every time they dropped a ball or threw and incomplete pass or missed a tackle, it would create an environment of no confidence and eventually no one would perform for fear of failure and benching. I sure am glad Bronco doesn't treat his players like most of you would like or we would never sniff a winning season again.

frdbtr wrote:
do you guys realize that if you benched players every time they dropped a ball or threw and incomplete pass or missed a tackle, it would create an environment of no confidence and eventually no one would perform for fear of failure and benching. I sure am glad Bronco doesn't treat his players like most of you would like or we would never sniff a winning season again.

I agree, although I do think some of the receivers who struggled so mightily the first half of the season should have seen a little more bench time.

kitic77 wrote:

do you guys realize that if you benched players every time they dropped a ball or threw and incomplete pass or missed a tackle, it would create an environment of no confidence and eventually no one would perform for fear of failure and benching. I sure am glad Bronco doesn't treat his players like most of you would like or we would never sniff a winning season again.

I agree, although I do think some of the receivers who struggled so mightily the first half of the season should have seen a little more bench time.

I was pretty down on Ashworth as well but having said that, who could have replaced him? We were in a situation with our offense last year where depth would not allow for replacing struggling players. The coaches just had to coach them through it, which they did.

frdbtr wrote:

frdbtr wrote:
do you guys realize that if you benched players every time they dropped a ball or threw and incomplete pass or missed a tackle, it would create an environment of no confidence and eventually no one would perform for fear of failure and benching. I sure am glad Bronco doesn't treat his players like most of you would like or we would never sniff a winning season again.

I agree, although I do think some of the receivers who struggled so mightily the first half of the season should have seen a little more bench time.

I was pretty down on Ashworth as well but having said that, who could have replaced him? We were in a situation with our offense last year where depth would not allow for replacing struggling players. The coaches just had to coach them through it, which they did.

Take it easy on ashworth if he struggles saturday. he is injured again. the guy has put in effort and done his best. unfortunately injuries really hampered him his senior year.

jonnylingo wrote:

kitic77 wrote:

do you guys realize that if you benched players every time they dropped a ball or threw and incomplete pass or missed a tackle, it would create an environment of no confidence and eventually no one would perform for fear of failure and benching. I sure am glad Bronco doesn't treat his players like most of you would like or we would never sniff a winning season again.

I agree, although I do think some of the receivers who struggled so mightily the first half of the season should have seen a little more bench time.

I was pretty down on Ashworth as well but having said that, who could have replaced him? We were in a situation with our offense last year where depth would not allow for replacing struggling players. The coaches just had to coach them through it, which they did.

Take it easy on ashworth if he struggles saturday. he is injured again. the guy has put in effort and done his best. unfortunately injuries really hampered him his senior year.

He's injured again? I hadn't heard. I admit when I was down on him, I didn't know about the injury that he was fighting.

frdbtr wrote:
do you guys realize that if you benched players every time they dropped a ball or threw and incomplete pass or missed a tackle, it would create an environment of no confidence and eventually no one would perform for fear of failure and benching. I sure am glad Bronco doesn't treat his players like most of you would like or we would never sniff a winning season again.

I have to assume you are not referring to my post? You said "most of you" so I am a little confused. I said nothing about dropping a pass or missing a tackle. I talked about work effort. That being said if I were coach and you couldn't catch I wouldn't put you at WR or if you couldn't tackle I most assuridly wouldn't have you on my defense. And I don't care if that made you feel bad.

imuakahuku wrote:

do you guys realize that if you benched players every time they dropped a ball or threw and incomplete pass or missed a tackle, it would create an environment of no confidence and eventually no one would perform for fear of failure and benching. I sure am glad Bronco doesn't treat his players like most of you would like or we would never sniff a winning season again.

I have to assume you are not referring to my post? You said "most of you" so I am a little confused. I said nothing about dropping a pass or missing a tackle. I talked about work effort. That being said if I were coach and you couldn't catch I wouldn't put you at WR or if you couldn't tackle I most assuridly wouldn't have you on my defense. And I don't care if that made you feel bad.

My post was not directed at you. :) I have been reading posts on this board all year (especially when BYU was struggling) about recievers needing benched, RB's needing benched, LB's needing benched, DB's needing benched. It just gets old.

Kind of funny but I just had one more thought. One of the players that struggled most last year seemed to get a pass with most of the same guys calling for all the other benchings. His struggles got blamed on the OC, or the recievers.