And the controversy lives on

[KingCoug]

in the middle of our 3rd year in search of a QB, its funny to see the other team plug in their backup who hasn't seen the field in 2 years and have him throw perfectly placed balls all over the field.

makes you wonder if lark could do anything like that, or if lark is just so bad that the coaches don't trust putting him out there.

I am no longer convinced Nelson gives us the "best chance to win." So I don't see anything we have to lose by giving Lark a chance at this point. And it seems most fans agree.

[SpiffCoug]

Does anybody really think Riley is good? The 2nd pick was on Apo? Really? Riley threw a 10 yard pass in the dirt haha. The 3rd pick wasn't even close. Riley is a joke of a qb. Give Lark a chance, he deserves one.

I thought Riley was good last year. I thought he would be good coming into the year. I thought he was good against Washington St.

He hasn't been good since. As the data has come in, I've changed my mind.

Apo got both hands on the INT. He should have caught it. It was unfortunate that he didn't.

Riley had a poor game. I don't know if Lark would have done any better. I don't know if it matters to give him a chance at this point.

I do wonder if he might he get his chance. I wonder if Riley got hurt again.

To be consistent with my stated position earlier this week. I said Riley should be given one half to one full game to see if he is healthy and can be efficient. I think he was pretty healthy today, but he was clearly inefficient.

I think a change should be made.

[snoscythe]

Sometimes in these Nelson discussions I wonder if we were watching the same game. Yes, Apo popped that pass up...but I am really curious to see how anyone can legitimately claim that the throw was anything but a complete and total piece of crap.

Basically, Nelson showed us who he is...capable of doing some things that really help the team, but ultimately he just can't throw the ball well enough to succeed at this level. Those WR screen passes were just plain awful. Rarely our passes thrown well enough that we can get yards after the catch.

I wouldn't get too pumped about Riley's yards...nearly 100 of those yard came on the shovel option to JWilliams.

By now, anyone who claims otherwise is basically stubborn and unwilling to see things that are plainly obvious. I guess I don't see why that observation is so controversial?

Also, you find me another quarterback anywhere who has turned the ball over 13 times in 11 quarters of play and experiences NO heat in terms of losing his starting position.

I think what creates the controversy is the coaching staff's complete and total devotion to Nelson. I really think creating an offense around his strengths was a fools errand.

I don't disagree with any of this, in fact, I agree with all of it. My point isn't that it was a good pass--my point is that if you are going to critique RN, be honest about it and don't come on here and say "it was RN's fault we lost the game because of his three picks"--because the #2 pick despite being a bad throw, was not on RN--Apo got 2 hands on it and should have caught it, but instead he took a ball that should have been either complete or incomplete, and put that ball where a defender could get it. This is coming from a former receiver. I never said Nelson played well, I'm just saying you can't put this loss on him because of the 2nd and 3rd interceptions--the 2nd was the receiver's fault, and the 3rd was meaningless after the game was out of hand. That's all I've said.

Bronco's benchmark is to score 20+ and hold the other team to less than 20. The defense didn't get it done today. Riley is Riley, and he played better than we thought, but still left much to be desired. Despite that, if our secondary showed up and if our DLine could have gotten consistent pressure, BYU wins.

I pin this loss on BYU's secondary and on OSU's OLine.

[Jarhead]

Sometimes in these Nelson discussions I wonder if we were watching the same game. Yes, Apo popped that pass up...but I am really curious to see how anyone can legitimately claim that the throw was anything but a complete and total piece of crap.

Basically, Nelson showed us who he is...capable of doing some things that really help the team, but ultimately he just can't throw the ball well enough to succeed at this level. Those WR screen passes were just plain awful. Rarely our passes thrown well enough that we can get yards after the catch.

I wouldn't get too pumped about Riley's yards...nearly 100 of those yard came on the shovel option to JWilliams.

By now, anyone who claims otherwise is basically stubborn and unwilling to see things that are plainly obvious. I guess I don't see why that observation is so controversial?

Also, you find me another quarterback anywhere who has turned the ball over 13 times in 11 quarters of play and experiences NO heat in terms of losing his starting position.

I think what creates the controversy is the coaching staff's complete and total devotion to Nelson. I really think creating an offense around his strengths was a fools errand.

I don't disagree with any of this, in fact, I agree with all of it. My point isn't that it was a good pass--my point is that if you are going to critique RN, be honest about it and don't come on here and say "it was RN's fault we lost the game because of his three picks"--because the #2 pick despite being a bad throw, was not on RN--Apo got 2 hands on it and should have caught it, but instead he took a ball that should have been either complete or incomplete, and put that ball where a defender could get it. This is coming from a former receiver. I never said Nelson played well, I'm just saying you can't put this loss on him because of the 2nd and 3rd interceptions--the 2nd was the receiver's fault, and the 3rd was meaningless after the game was out of hand. That's all I've said.

Bronco's benchmark is to score 20+ and hold the other team to less than 20. The defense didn't get it done today. Riley is Riley, and he played better than we thought, but still left much to be desired. Despite that, if our secondary showed up and if our DLine could have gotten consistent pressure, BYU wins.

I pin this loss on BYU's secondary and on OSU's OLine.

We lose as a team; however if you are to choose a unit, it is the defense that didn't meet or exceed the minimum expectations to achieve a win. The first 35 points were squarely on the shoulders of the OSU offense taking it to our defense. The offense isn't good enough to overcome that and wasn't expected to going in to this game. I think OSU proved they are a legit top 10 team.

I think we all can agree that the offense is not what it needs to be long term, but they produced at least as much as could have been expected in this game, and it should have been good enough. OSU had some outstanding throws and catches and a few lucky bounces.

[Jarhead]

At the same time, I agree the o-line needs a new coach immediately, and Doman needs to be given an ultimatum concerning improvement. I would also have liked to see Lark get a shot by now.

[SHIZ]

We lose as a team; however if you are to choose a unit, it is the defense that didn't meet or exceed the minimum expectations to achieve a win. The first 35 points were squarely on the shoulders of the OSU offense taking it to our defense. The offense isn't good enough to overcome that and wasn't expected to going in to this game. I think OSU proved they are a legit top 10 team.

I think we all can agree that the offense is not what it needs to be long term, but they produced at least as much as could have been expected in this game, and it should have been good enough. OSU had some outstanding throws and catches and a few lucky bounces.

just because the offense scored more than 6 points this time doesn't mean that they did their job.

[Mingjai]

BYU lost as a team. The defense had no pass rush, resulting in poor coverage downfield, which in turn opened up the run game.

On the offensive side, besides Riley doing stupid things with the ball (Ty Detmer commented on that at halftime for the ABC audience), two series of downs stick out to me:

3rd Quarter (15:00): BYU 14, OSU 14
1st and 10 at BYU 25 Riley Nelson pass incomplete to Richard Wilson.
2nd and 10 at BYU 25 Iona Pritchard rush for 5 yards to the BYU 30.
3rd and 5 at BYU 30 Riley Nelson pass incomplete to Cody Hoffman.

4th Quarter (~9:00): BYU 21, OSU 28
1st and Goal at ORST 10 Riley Nelson pass incomplete to Cody Hoffman.
2nd and Goal at ORST 10 Riley Nelson pass incomplete to Cody Hoffman.
3rd and Goal at ORST 10 Riley Nelson sacked by Scott Crichton for a loss of 8 yards to the OrgSt 18

The first series is the 3 and out right out of halftime, and the second was the series inside the 10 after having driven the length of the field and gained momentum to tie up the score.

[Mars]

Riley tends to get worse as games go on. He runs a lot, gets tired, takes hard hits, and then begins to fumble, and then his team falls behind so he begins to push and throw interceptions. He's a pretty good 1st half QB, and a pretty good QB when behind one score, but a pretty awful 2nd half QB, and when behind 2+ scores.