5 Reasons to Bench Heaps

"Brigham Young Cougars quarterback Jake Heaps has had a rough start to his sophomore season. As is the case for almost any quarterback who has a rough stretch, some are calling for Heaps to be benched. Should he lose the starting job? BLUE COUGAR FOOTBALL looks at five reasons to bench him, and five reasons to keep starting Heaps."



http://www.bluecougarfootball.com/2011/09/5-reasons-to-bench-heaps-5-reasons-to.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I agree with this, all of it.

I don't think Heaps should be benched right now. But I do think if his play in the first half against Utah State is much more similar to 2nd Heaps vs UT & Utah, 1st half vs Ole Miss and the entire UCF game, that he should be benched.



If he plays closer to 2nd half Ole Miss and 1st half UT & Utah, he should be kept in.

SpiffCoug wrote:
I don't think Heaps should be benched right now. But I do think if his play in the first half against Utah State is much more similar to 2nd Heaps vs UT & Utah, 1st half vs Ole Miss and the entire UCF game, that he should be benched.



If he plays closer to 2nd half Ole Miss and 1st half UT & Utah, he should be kept in.

Heaps has definately looked bad at times this year. That is without question. But so has everyone else on the offense. That is why I have been defending heaps this year whereas I was criticizing him last year. Last year our offensive line and running game were the reason we won games while Heaps was missing throws that any High school QB could make in his sleep. This year, our offensive line looks horrible, our running game has been non existant, our recievers are running wrong routes, and heaps is missing throws at times. That is why I am blaming coaching. I think it would be a mistake to blame the QB while the rest of the offense looks lost. Doman needs to get these things cleaned up, then if Heaps still can't make his throws, bench him.

I concur with fdbtr, its pretty damn impossible for a QB to succeed when no one else on offense is doing anything right. If he cant get his stuff together when everyone else does then so be it, give Lark a shot. Just please not Nelson, please.

That article also mention 5 reasons to NOT bench Heaps. I think it is taking longer for Doman's offense to be second nature to our entire offense.



Heaps has made some terrible throws and terrible descisions, but I think he can work them out. In pressure situations his adrenaline and anxiety seem to change the way he passes. Some of the announcers this year have said that Heaps does well when he just goes out to have fun on the field instead of pushing so hard.

One reason left off the bench list, is that the vocal minority of CC think thats the best decision. Then there is always the ever-convincing, prurient PER, lurking around every thread.

Left off a reason not to bench Heaps. The majority of fans who fell in love with his big baby brown eyes before he even stepped foot on campus. Never before in history has there been such pre-signing hype and love for a commit. Fans loved him so much that anyone who thought that he should redshirt were shouted down. His fellow teammates who had the misfortune of sharing his position were disparaged until fans everywhere have convinced themselves without a shred of evidence that Holy Heaps and only Holy Heaps can play QB. Any coach that benched Heaps would have a whole lot of angry fans breathing down his neck.

Yeah we should have red shirted him, then played munns or lark after nelson was terrible and or hurt last year.Those coaches are idiots.

Well, if the coaches started Nelson and let him run around out there in his midriff then at the very least there would be more involvement from 50% of the fan base.

hawkwing wrote:
Left off a reason not to bench Heaps. The majority of fans who fell in love with his big baby brown eyes before he even stepped foot on campus. Never before in history has there been such pre-signing hype and love for a commit. Fans loved him so much that anyone who thought that he should redshirt were shouted down. His fellow teammates who had the misfortune of sharing his position were disparaged until fans everywhere have convinced themselves without a shred of evidence that Holy Heaps and only Holy Heaps can play QB. Any coach that benched Heaps would have a whole lot of angry fans breathing down his neck.

I'm sure that the coaching staff took "what people are posting online" into their decisions. It only makes sense. :roll:



Or maybe, just maybe, Heaps is a better overall quarterback than anyone on the BYU roster. If your job was on the line, would you care what a small vocal minority on a few websites think you should do? (having no actual data to go off of to back up their claims, might I add)



There is nothing out there that suggests that Nelson, Lark or Munns can do a better job than Heaps. (Nothing other than a pure "what the hell," caution thrown to the wind, approach. Which I assure you isn't exactly the approach that the people who get paid to do this have.)

Man, this is getting old. the same old drawn out arguments, over and over. I would like to publicly confess my part of this insanity.

At this point I'm so past defending Heaps and into stirring the pot (as if some or most of you couldnt tell). Im even getting past the sadistic, sardonic, TIC posts that arent even funny to me anymore. NOt that they were funny to anybody else.

What we all can agree, I think, this offense is sputtering badly, AND it is a "sad, sad day in Mudville these days and we hope that MIghty Casey (Heaps and the offense) stops swinging and whiffing and starts driving in some runs. AND/OR that Heaps gets replaced. FIND THE ANSWER COACHES!!

Signed,

Mr. "why cant we all just get along" Rodney King.

BlueIsBetter wrote:

Left off a reason not to bench Heaps. The majority of fans who fell in love with his big baby brown eyes before he even stepped foot on campus. Never before in history has there been such pre-signing hype and love for a commit. Fans loved him so much that anyone who thought that he should redshirt were shouted down. His fellow teammates who had the misfortune of sharing his position were disparaged until fans everywhere have convinced themselves without a shred of evidence that Holy Heaps and only Holy Heaps can play QB. Any coach that benched Heaps would have a whole lot of angry fans breathing down his neck.

I'm sure that the coaching staff took "what people are posting online" into their decisions. It only makes sense. :roll:



Or maybe, just maybe, Heaps is a better overall quarterback than anyone on the BYU roster. If your job was on the line, would you care what a small vocal minority on a few websites think you should do? (having no actual data to go off of to back up their claims, might I add)



There is nothing out there that suggests that Nelson, Lark or Munns can do a better job than Heaps. (Nothing other than a pure "what the hell," caution thrown to the wind, approach. Which I assure you isn't exactly the approach that the people who get paid to do this have.)

My response was a TIC response to dmcougar's TIC reason to bench heap 'because people on internet forums are calling for it.'



However, that being said, no coach ever always picks the right player for every position every time. We've had Berry over Beck, Coveys, Engemanns, and others. I'm a big believer in the idea that if you want to play you earn it in practice. But I'm also a big believer in, if you want to stay playing, you show it on the field.

hawkwing wrote:

hawkwing wrote:
Left off a reason not to bench Heaps. The majority of fans who fell in love with his big baby brown eyes before he even stepped foot on campus. Never before in history has there been such pre-signing hype and love for a commit. Fans loved him so much that anyone who thought that he should redshirt were shouted down. His fellow teammates who had the misfortune of sharing his position were disparaged until fans everywhere have convinced themselves without a shred of evidence that Holy Heaps and only Holy Heaps can play QB. Any coach that benched Heaps would have a whole lot of angry fans breathing down his neck.

I'm sure that the coaching staff took "what people are posting online" into their decisions. It only makes sense. :roll:



Or maybe, just maybe, Heaps is a better overall quarterback than anyone on the BYU roster. If your job was on the line, would you care what a small vocal minority on a few websites think you should do? (having no actual data to go off of to back up their claims, might I add)



There is nothing out there that suggests that Nelson, Lark or Munns can do a better job than Heaps. (Nothing other than a pure "what the hell," caution thrown to the wind, approach. Which I assure you isn't exactly the approach that the people who get paid to do this have.)

My response was a TIC response to dmcougar's TIC reason to bench heap 'because people on internet forums are calling for it.'



However, that being said, no coach ever always picks the right player for every position every time. We've had Berry over Beck, Coveys, Engemanns, and others. I'm a big believer in the idea that if you want to play you earn it in practice. But I'm also a big believer in, if you want to stay playing, you show it on the field.

He has Big, baby, brown eyes? ;-)



Well, then I guess the infamy is getting closer to whatever fame he feigned or was granted by so many. All we need now for a total balancing of the force is for him to be "de-throned" at halftime vs USU and then to complete the epic disaster, incur a loss at home to USU so people can dole out their venom, blame and hatred toward Jake and the inept coaches; and feel entirely vindicated in doing so and even point the finger of scorn toward those who have not given up hope or defense of Heaps. Riley, "good kid that he is" will never sniff as much glory or infamy. And dont try to sell me that jilted and ticked off Aggie fans can ever begin to equal the love or hate of a CougarNation scorned.



Rodney king was over-rated. :-)

It was rather interesting to see what was essentially (prior to the UT game at least) Jake's fan site make a run at an objective analysis of the kid.

One reason not to bench Heaps.... his backup.

I wonder if people are rethinking whether Heaps was overrated coming out of high school. It was a very weak QB class--based on raw scores Heaps would not have been a top-10 QB in any of at least the previous 4 QB classes. His ratings were largely stat and summer camp based rather than game-film based. And finally, Heaps had the singular advantage of throwing to the #1 WR in the country in Kasen Williams--over a quarter of his completions and over a third of his touchdowns were to Williams. I was lambasted for making this suggestion before Heaps even took a snap at BYU, so I don't doubt I'll get lit up again, but I think the fans just wanted to land a 5 star (or 4 star as two of the scouting services ranked him) QB so bad that they didn't care.



I was just thinking about the Kasen Williams factor this week as I saw Heaps fundamentally alter his approach to his reads once Ross Apo went out. Instead of staring down Apo most of the time, Jake actually started trying to make reads and check downs. Combined with Heaps comments about Apo over the summer ("throw it to him and it's either a touchdown or PI"), it just made me wonder if Jake was one of those QBs who has learned to rely on just one receiver rather than using the whole platoon to find the open guy, and when that guy went down, Heaps was forced out of his comfort zone.

Sno, I would agree with you.

I also think having BDoman on the sideline was at some level was providing a security blanket and hindering the team from gathering around Heaps. Of course I put much of this on Jake and the guys who didnt/dont want to accept Jake or at least rally around their young qb last year. And Apo is part of that, YES...overhyped, qb/wr combo.

And much of the film, albeit limited, that I saw of Jake in HS was him just chucking theball up and his speedy receivers ran under it and caught it. Same with Apo. He just athletically went up and over and sped past most HS defenders. Welcome to D1. Just glad Apo is not more severely injured that was a precarious hit. Just hope Jake doesnt laser in on apo anymore. NO wonder Cody wasnt getting much action. Altho he needs to create space as well.

trueblue72 wrote:
One reason not to bench Heaps.... his backup.

Sorry, but this is funny. :lol:

Great coaches take the talent they have and make it better. They don't just simply identify talent and put it out on the field. Hope to find out what kind of coaches we have out of all these new coaches. I know coach Reynolds is a great coach. I know Bronco is a great defensive coordinator. Outside of that, I'm not sure yet.