1) Should BYU be ranked?
BYU is ranked 28th in the preseason poll. There is definitely not as much excitement about football season on campus this year as there was last year. However, I see this as a real positive for the team. BYU seems to do better when playing the underdog role. Last year, BYU wasn't expected to come close to competing with Oklahoma in their season opener. No one gave the Cougars a chance with a shaky secondary going against the Heisman trophy winner of a year before. But, BYU won a 14-13 nail biter.
Then (despite BYU being ranked higher) Oregon State was expected to come back from their Pac-10 finale loss against Oregon and beat the Cougars in the Las Vegas Bowl. I will never forget Jordan Pendleton turfing Jaquizz Rodgers in the first quarter after he fumbled the ball on a short screen pass. After Pendleton didn't go for the ball and just hit Rodgers, I thought, THE BALL IS JUST SITTING THERE! PICK IT UP! and promptly Matt Bauman scooped up the ball for the score. It was one of those I-will-restore-my-pride-and-take-away-yours kind of a play.
On the other hand, after BYU rose to be ranked 7th in the nation, they got drilled by a good but not a great Florida State team. A month later, the BYU-TCU matchup was so highly anticipated that College Game Day even showed up outside LaVell Edwards stadium for pre-game. However, it ended with a bitterly similar result. A 31 point loss in front of the home crowd wasn’t what I was looking for. Basically, BYU doesn’t do well with high expectations (see also: Quest for Perfection t-shirts).
On a lighter note…
And the big one…
2) Who will be BYU’s quarterback on September 4?
I said it before, and I will say it again – I still think Riley Nelson should be the starting quarterback this year. A lot has been said on both ends, but I found a few other reasons why Nelson should start.
A lot of people have said that running quarterbacks don’t do well at BYU. Who was the last quarterback on the Heisman trophy watch list besides Max Hall (who was only there for about a week) and John Beck? That would be Brandon Doman, a running quarterback. Doman led BYU to a 13-2 record as a starter, including 14 points in three minutes to pull off a victory against Utah for LaVell’s last victory. He led the BYU offense to about 44 points/game in those starts. Max Hall? 33 points. John Beck? 32 points.
Nelson certainly is not Brandon Doman and he will need one of the current running backs to step up, but if he can get some sort of an option game going, BYU’s offense could be surprisingly dangerous. As for the passing game, experienced
WR’s would also make up for some of Nelson’s mistakes, so I could see the BYU offense being very balanced.
Only problem would be heaps transferring. Can BYU afford to lose the #1 QB recruit in the country. I am not talking as a team I am talking as a recruiting tool.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but this situation is similar to when John Beck was a freshman at BYU. He was highly recruited as a top prospect, yet he struggled significantly when put into play his freshman year. Eventually, he grew into a strong starter in the following years. If Heaps hasn't shown he is the starter yet, perhaps this is a sign that he should be on second string this year to avoid the BYU freshman QB woes, but I don't think he'll leave what people think as "quarterback university" if he really is a top prospect.
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