Cougars, Aggies, QBs and streaking Austin Collie
This is Austin Collie week.
After his domination of the Denver Broncos this past week, Collie has been the centerpiece of a lot of discussion about his talent, underestimation thereof and his uncanny ability to make plays.
Max Hall can relate. It wasn’t too long ago people complained about Collie getting all the throws by Hall in Provo. Easy to say why now when BYU receivers and QBs are struggling to connect and the Cougars need someone to emerge besides J.J. Diluigi with the hands, catch and run game.
To read more about Collie’s impact on the Colts this season, read this blog by Nate Dunlevy here.“
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This week’s showdown between Utah State and BYU takes on some interesting plot lines. The Aggies tend to save their best for the Cougars in Logan and this week will be no exception. Because of BYU’s 1-3 start, breaking in new offensive players, if there is ever a time for USU to get up on BYU, it will be Friday.
But as documented, the Aggies have plenty of problems of their own, namely injuries and playing a ton of young players.
Jake Heaps has spent the week going over his mistakes in the Nevada game. He missed passes he normally makes in practice and has executed his entire career. I bet he’s seen the Nevada game film at least three or four times, studying the timing, the angles and his velocity, delivery, stare downs, etc.
The biggest thing Heaps needs right now is a complementary run game. I think BYU’s best chances to develop that side show is to get DiLuigi and freshman Josh Quezada going in a team-tag situation with the run game. BYU’s offensive line has been disappointing with the power push game. We saw flashes of run blocking at Air Force and even Florida State. Still trying to figure out the sweep to Bryan Kayria on fourth and four at the 12 last week.
BYU is better running out of spread formations than when they do double tight ends and scrunch it around the center and project their intention to defenders. Without Harvey Unga’s power and strength, they’ve got to use the spread to keep opponents guessing and use a little deception with the pass, play action or run game.
The Cougars will face some defenses in coming weeks (TCU is not one of them) in which they might be able to find a rhythm with a well-designed and executed script with DiLuigi and Quesada. That single element would be significant for Heaps because play-action would mean something.
The worse thing BYU can do is have Heaps try to do it all. He’s not ready at this stage of his career and it will turn into what we saw that year Gary Crowton had John Beck throw a school record 60-something passes against UNLV in a loss at home.
BYU has faced some outstanding senior quarterbacks in one month and they’ll get three more very good ones in USU’s Diondre Borel this week, Ryan Lindley at SDSU and Andy Dalton at TCU.
Facing that experience has been the biggest challenge for BYU’s young defense. If they’d been facing mistake-prone rookies in September, it may have made some difference in their numbers.
Aggie pilot Borel has amassed 6,244 yards total offense in his career. He ranks No. 14 of active NCAA college total career offensive leaders.
So far BYU has face he No. 2 guy on that list, Nevada’s Colin Kaepernick (11,357), No. 8 Jake Locker , Washington (7.654), and No. 16 Christian Ponder of FSU (6,244). Still up in weeks to come is No. 5 Andy Dalton of TCU (9,587), No. 13 SDSU’s Ryan Lindley (6,685) and No. 20 Omar Clayton of UNLV (5,956).