I really am sad to see Heaps go. I thought he had the potential to be great both on the field and off. He was a great ambassador for BYU football. He obviously underperformed this year, relative to expectations. I wish he would have taken the redshirt next year, and returned for 2013 and 2014. I really do believe that would have been the "best" course of action (from the outside, obviously I don't know his reasons any more than you all do). Perhaps the thought of redshirting seemed more intolerable than having to sit out a year for transfer restrictions. Though it essentially has the same end result: not playing in 2012.
Personally, this is the problem that I see with his early struggles and lack of development: he didn't have a veteran QB to show him how it's done. It took Beck two years to figure it out on his own. Max Hall spent a year under Beck. Heaps came in and had nobody to look up to. Doman can only spend a limited number of hours with Heaps a week, so Heaps either has to know how to prepare for a college football season already, or have a vet show him. He had no vet and obviously didn't know. Perhaps promoting Doman to OC was a little premature and distracted him from really helping Jake improve on the few hours they COULD have spent together...
I do applaud him for the timing of it, however. Since most practices prior to bowl games are spent developing younger players, now Heaps' reps can go to James Lark and Jason Munns. I think it is better for the team for him to depart now. Some people have trashed him for "quitting" on the team, but he did the best thing for the team by letting them move on and have extra practices to do so. Those are probably the same people who jumped all over him for not having a good start to the year. That was certainly wisdom and graciousness on his part. I don't think he holds any ill-will towards BYU. I, personally, don't hold any for him. I don't necessarily wish him great success elsewhere, particularly if it comes at BYU's expense, but I hope he is happy with his decision in the end. I think, ultimately, he will probably regret the decision.
Like Adam pointed out and many others have, and not just with BYU QBs: transfer QBs rarely succeed at their new schools. Russell Wilson is the only major QB I can think of that transferred recently and had better success at their new school than the old one. Of the BYU QBs that have transferred in the last decade, I believe there were three that made the "85-man roster" and transferred, only Ben Olson was named a long-term starter at another Division I-A program (UCLA, with disastrous results). I believe Jacob Bower got one or two starts at Tulsa b/c of injury. Cade Cooper never matriculated to a I-A program. I realize that's a small sample-size, but 0-3 thus far is somewhat telling.
Anyway, we'll find out within the next two weeks where Heaps ends up, and I can tell you all about whether he is a fit or not. Boise State would be an interesting choice, but it didn't make his cut. He is in Pac 12-only mode. He's not a bad fit for most Pac 12 offenses. Cal wouldn't surprise me: they did turn out Aaron Rodgers and they have a less than stable QB situation right now, though projecting out to 2013 is a bit tougher since they will likely have an incumbent entering his third year at QB in 2013 Why would USC want him? Washington has a stable of young, talented QBs already. I am not sure he will be able to handle the Leach system at Washington State, and, even if he can, it won't help his NFL prospects, which I think his decision was partially based on. Leach's QBs tend to put up video game numbers in college but don't exactly go on to stellar NFL careers...they are written off as "system QBs".
No comments:
Post a Comment