We forced 11 TOs–ELEVEN!!!-- vs our two biggest rivals, and Hill managed to somehow turn both into one point losses. At this point I blame Detmer–who I love–for not having the guts to do the obvious. But now it’s too late. Detmer and Sitake have done Mangum waaaaaay wrong, and bad.
I’m tired of the excuses–Hill is simply an abysmal passer. He is now 115th in D1 yards/attempt. That means that every time he drops to pass, almost no one in the entire country is worse. He makes Riley Nelson look like Steve Young.
Clock running down, instead of Hill throwing out of bounds, or to the wide open Laulu-Putuau standing right in front of him, Hill steps into the rush to take a sack and costs us our last TO. He looks like a JV QB to me, happy feet and all.
Hill has thrown for UNDER 200 YARDS in FOUR of eight games, and has not thrown for over 300 in ANY of them. Last year Magnum threw for over 237 in 10 of his 11 starts, and threw for over 300 five times.
Hill’s numbers and W/L speak for themselves. I selfishly am mad that BYU had such a shot at a very special season but we threw it all away in some vain and inexplicable show of loyalty…
I stayed up late tonight after boycotting the KSL post game BSing. Stayed up to listen to the excuses and brown nosing after this particular lousy game. So they continue to downplay Mangum’s ability to do more as the QB, talking about Hill’s superior running. LOL, LOL, LO - after all his injuries. Also saying that Hill has more escapeability but apparently remembered that Mangum will be the QB next year and shouldn’t bad mouth him too much, so took some of it back. Because next year they will have to be defending Mangum. While Wrubell had a tidbit of objectiveness in his past reporting / remarks he is a TOTAL brown noser now that he is a
BYU employee. I understand just funny. My last KSL post game, ever.
Fortunately I don’t have to listen to those guys. Hill is bad. He just is. He regularly cannot escape defensive linemen. His passing is worse than abysmal–statistically it is epic; Detmer and Hill want him to be 2013 Hill. Well, he isn’t. He is a QB with above average speed who cannot throw downfield and who regularly misses short throws by YARDS, and not just by inches or even feet. 115th in D1 yards/attempt after 7 games means you are a liability. We had a chance to beat both Utah and BSU in the same season and threw it in the toilet by putting the ball in the wrong guy’s hands. The numbers speak for themselves.
This is two games IN A ROW with UNDER 50 YARDS PASSING IN THE FIRST HALF!!! Is it not obvious that with Magnum we could maybe have been better but could not possibly, under any circumstances imaginable, have been worse? Again, it’s all for naught now. Losing by one point to each of our two rivals after they both just gift wrapped the W for us should make everyone mad, but it seems the Utah media thinks it’s perfectly fine because Taysom is so gritty.
So we have another gritty QB with a cannon arm but the rifling is all chiseled away in different parts throughout the barrel. And does Hill still have above average speed or just average speed for a “running” QB?
The thing I have to wonder is after 7 games why Taysom still can not throw a “touch” pass (enough speed to get there, but not too hard for the receiver to catch)… Every time he threw over the middle, it was like trying to catch a fast ball without a glove…
Our Offense needs a blood transfusion… hard to watch these games.
Out O-line really really really sucks…
One other thing I noticed, Those officials made several bad calls when BYU had momentum. The High Low the called on the left guard and tackle was bogus, as well as 79 holding call (his arm never extended beyond the body, they were tucked in with proper technique).
Couldn’t have said it better. I thought maybe Taysom was just a little slow coming out of the chute this year and that he was starting to get his skills back somewhat. Yesterday was a huge step backwards. His pocket presence was absent, poor touch on passes, throwing the ball into the ground on some plays and three feet over the receiver’s head on other passes. In Detmer’s defense, he had to be planning on having Jamaal for this game. Had Jamaal played, BYU would easily have won this game. I credit Canada for a solid game but he got gassed and needed breaks. We handed the ball off to Algie Brown once or twice but that didn’t work. Have you ever seen a 260 full back be such a poor short-yardage runner? I don’t mean to be so negative but it is just frustrating when players don’t step up for big games like we see Jamaal do game after game. I’m sure Detmer would like to have Fall camp back and make a different choice for QB but, its all water under the bridge. Lavell always said that one of the toughest coaching decisions was picking the right QB.
At least gritty Noodle Arm Nelson scrambled to find time to pass. Gritty Hill scrambles looking to run, but having lost the speed to outrun anyone to the edges, our passing game is even further limited. On one of the very, VERY few times he scrambled with eyes up towards receivers, he had an easy little lob to Balderee for about 20 yards. Our receivers are not very good, but i think they are made worse by the fact that they give up early on their routes in large part because they have a pocket QB who quits reading (usually) after his first read.
It’s too bad the passing game was so bad, because it overshadows a few wonderful pass plays last night: the pass to Balderee you noted, the near-touchdown pass to Juergen which was right where it needed to be and Juergen made a beautiful grab–uh, were there any others? Too many drops by Kurtz.
Hey, I’ve never suggested Hill NEVER makes a good pass, just that he cannot do it downfield with any CONSISTENCY. He will, as will any QB, occasionally make a good downfield pass. But what he does with far more consistency is either airmail throws, throw short balls into the ground (you saw 3 or 4 nice catches by BYU receivers last night diving or falling into the ground on short routes that should have been chest high throws), or throw balls in the flat either way too hard or behind people (TD Utes; TD UWV; TD saving tackle by Hill vs Miss St). I feel like I’m driving the “bench Hill” bus around here, but I don’t even think that matters anymore. Let him play out the string and get some good numbers against 4 soft opponents and history will view this as just another ho hum 8-4 year, no better and no worse than Bronco had done the last several years. But we all know how close we were to an epic season and our first shot at a NY Day bowl since the Cotton Bowl 20 years ago.
Perhaps it is past the time for Tanner Mangum to be our QB. Watching these late late ESPN games is torture.
This was the worst offensive game played by BYU this season. The team looks beat up after playing all of those P-5 games. Perhaps BYU claims to be P-5 but we aren’t. Never did hear what really happened to Jamaal to keep him out of this game vs. Boise State.
You could be more thorough with your assessment. We don’t have near the receivers we had last year. Not only are the receivers dropping passes, they are running bad routs. Going left when they should go right.
But, it’s too easy to blame the QB. Had we gone for some extra points we would be 5-2. Had we gone hurry up all year and we would be 6-1 or 7-0.
I hate to agree with Grasshopper on anything, but The negativity re Hill is a bit out of control. He was thrown into a bad situation and had to completely change his style of play, and being the athlete he is it wasn’t hard to imagine that he could have pulled it off. His arm has actually looked good against teams that can’t manage a good pass rush but this year those teams have been few and far between. Magnum would have similar problems in those situations, as would anyone, including NFL receivers. So why blame Hill alone? Our depleted OL has had a hard time with both pass and run blocking and our receivers are good possession receivers but not particularly fast.
I think Jim made a good point with Hill’s difficulty to touch pass in a way that is just natural for Mangum. It seemed like he had done better the last few games but I think he gets rattled under pressure as a lot of QB’s do. But it’s not Hill’s fault that a coach chooses the at best 30% chance of going for two to win a game instead of just kicking the extra point and taking the almost 50% chance of winning, along with many other dumb coaching decisions. It’s not Hill’s fault that we aren’t deep in many critical positions and have had to make do. I think the coaches are learning and getting better and so are the players and prospects are good for next year. They will also have an opportunity to play in a pretty good bowl against a decent team this year. I see the glass as half full. Sorry if I sound like a KSL guy but I do.
Oh one more thing. I think loyalty is not a trivial thing and I’m glad the coaches followed through with Hill. This affects how recruits view things and it’s just the right thing to do. Now of course, if Hill had just been awful and everyone else was performing, of course you replace him, but I don’t think that’s been the case. And I’m really glad that we have a backup with the great attitude Mangum has. His time is coming.
This is the stat that is the most telling. He can’t get the ball downfield with any consistency. The opposing defense knows that. They are consistently stacking the box with defenders knowing Hill rarely hits anyone down field. I’m surprised we have been able to run as well as we have. (Actually against good defenses, Williams hasn’t done that well.)
It may be unfair to blame everything on Hill. He was given a new offense to learn. But even in the old Anae offense, his passing was horrible. He was mainly a running back. Anae and Mendenhall loved picking the qb with heart over passing talent.
Detmer should have made him a receiver. At 6’2" with his speed and strength, he would have dominated.
I always said Mangum should have been named the starter coming out of camp. I don’t understand why they haven’t changed to him.
This is my take on Football at BYU. I can’t believe that the offense is so terrible. The reason for this statement is just watch how smooth Boise State is and some of the other teams we have played. We are like a high school team offense. I can’t understand why coaches don’t watch film after film on Boise State, U. Washington and see what they do. They open holes, run good passing routes and they get people open… We struggle on almost every play. We could of won the Boise State game if only the field kicker and holder would of lined up 7 to 8 yards deep rather than 5 yards deep. Petty hard to kick a field goal any time went you line up 5 yards from the line of scrimmage, especially with our offensive line.
Don’t put to much blame on Hill. The blame should be on the Offensive Coaches.
There is a of truth in that statement. Calhoon has a problem on his hands and its called, "keep hustling to get open even when your QB rarely makes a 2nd read and NEVER a 3rd read.
For anyone to comment that Tanner would not have made a difference this year just blows my mind. Tanner had a 8-4 season with wins over a good Nebraska team, as good of a BSA team (anyone seeing what Ajayi is doing in the NFL?) is this year and Utah was an easy win except Whit outcoached Bronco…he always does. Tanner did this with a crappy Oline, just like this year’s and as a true freshman 9 months off a mission. Tanner also had UCLA beat had Bronco not gone all " let’s blitz when all we have to play is run gap defense" . The game was done, over, chalk it up as a win.
With Williams on this team and Tanner making the throws I would be surprised if BYU was not undefeated and being talked about by everyone and their dog gushing over how this BYU ist a front runner for a New Years game. Let the arguing commence.
