Hill a great athlete, not a great throwing QB

[jacksonman]

Hill is a once in a decade athlete, if not more, and I really enjoy watching him play against Texas and other Teams that can't tackle. He has a great burst and can shed tackles unlike any BYU QB ever.

That being said, he is a below average throwing QB. Not quite to the Heaps/Nelson level, but definitely much worse than Beck/Hall. His running ability should open up all types of passing opportunities, and it often does. But I have noticed the following tendencies:

1) He waits until a receiver is open to throw the ball after the last move is made instead of anticipating the route, reading the defense, and throwing it to the spot that the WR will be open. This results in plays taking too long to develop, the pocket collapsing and Hill falling back to running.

2) When receivers are open, he tends to greatly under-throw them instead of hitting them in stride.

3) He doesn't seem to trust his receivers Maybe they aren't open. But he tucks and runs way too much on called pass plays.

4) He doesn't throw down-field enough and instead of trusting our big WR on a mismatch and giving them a chance, he quickly checks down to the RB.

He is tough as nails and is an incredible runner. I think if BYU just accepts that he doesn't throw well, and design an offense that is mostly run with the occasional throw to mix things up, I think we can win out, without dominating, by wearing teams down and dominating the clock.

I wish he could throw close to the level of Hall/Beck. I hope BYU one day returns to a throwing offense (personal bias). Maybe this is just one bad game, but I saw the same tendencies in the other games. We can look at his PER, but for me it is more the eye ball test. He just doesn't seem to command respect when he drops back to pass and he seems to take too long to make a decision and get rid of the ball.

Still hoping for improvement and a perfect season with a New Year's bowl! But I don't think after this game there is anyway we can play into the final 4 without all but 3 teams losing at least 2 games. Hope I am wrong!

[stuckinbig10country]

So...he's at about 65%, hasn't been below 60% all year, and we're talking about how he can't throw?

Even his 2 picks were flukie.

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[BYUBALLIN]

Hill progression with throwing the ball has been leaps and bounds I feel. He has really improved. I think those first couple of series he was just to pumped up..

[Gunk]

Again, I think Hill would benefit from some better play calling. More 5 yarders. He took another beating out there today waiting for pass plays to open up, many of which never did.

Tonight's game reminded me a lot of the bowl game last year where we just watched tuck it and run every other play.

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[Cougarbib]

Again, I think Hill would benefit from some better play calling. More 5 yarders. He took another beating out there today waiting for pass plays to open up, many of which never did.

Tonight's game reminded me a lot of the bowl game last year where we just watched tuck it and run every other play.

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Better play calling? I have not had a chance to look up the box score, but I would guess BYU had a 200 yard advantage over Houston and beat them by 8 points in spite of:

Fumble on a nice pass play when receiver should have stepped out of bounds instead of fighting for YAC.
Hill bouncing a pass 12 to 15 feet in the air off the helmet of a defender for an interception.
Hill throwing a little high to a receiver and the defender wrestles the ball away for an interception.
Houston scoring on a Hail Mary when holding should have been called at the line of scrimmage and two Houston receivers shoved BYU defenders before the ball arrived.
Bad calls. Koroma ejected. Our only true center. Already down 1 lineman due to injury. Late hit on their QB. Ticky tacky calls.
Penalties.

None of this is due to playcalling.

It might be more appropriate to criticize Anae for not having the team more disciplined when it comes to penalties, but remember that you wanted a meaner and nastier OL. You have got one. Two are freshmen.

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[NDCougar]

I am going to agree that he is not a great passer. I believe TH can be a great QB, but he currently is not a great pure passer......he is BYU's version of Tebow, a great athletic college QB. He miss open guys (high), throws the ball too late, is not patient in the pocket etc etc.......things a great throwing QB does well.

Against a top tier defense he will struggle when he has to throw.....these defenses can play the WR's straight up and contain TH from running. When this happens he struggles and I think a top DC could realize this if he has talent to play the BYU WRs straight up and stuff the box. TH will continue to gash weaker competition, but worry if we ever play anyone decent/top 25 (fortunately I am not seeing it this year) he will need to improve his throwing.

He had guys wide open last night and it is tough to miss them, thus a decent completion percentage despite missing guys he should hit. He had guys open, he has to make those throws.....in the first half (not counting so roughly) 5-8 throws that were just bad that should/could have been completions. If we do make a legit bowl game he MUST improve. A QBR of 56.1 and 2 ints against a horrible defense will not cut it.

Note: I am not knocking TH, Tebow won 2 NC's and a Heisman. TH is a man among boys and a beast running the ball and beast to take down, he simply needs to improve throwing the ball and he will be unstoppable.....if not a good defense will make him one dimensional and it could be a VERY long day for him.

Also, there are way too many runs for JW and TH. They are both great, but 28 runs for JW is too much and just asking to get him injured.....that is crazy number of carries. We need to get other backs involved or JW will have lingering injuries that will pile up. Same goes for TH, although some of his runs are not designed I worry about the number of hits he will take.

[EM_Puma]

I believe Hill's passing is what we all believed we'd see more this season where for the one Friday scrimmage of fall camp he had a poor outing. Many of Hill's passes were WAY off Thursday night. I give him a pass after the performance of the prior two games. Not sure why he had an off night on precision passing, but it happens. O'Korn likewise had such a night in their opening game.

[Cougs_Rule]

I heard a rumor that THill had the flu. I did see him get up sluggishly after a few runs. He usually bounces up.
Its interesting to me that Anae came out of the gate passing in that 1stQ. Also interesting that notwithstanding THill looking like last year with some errant passes, BYU still cleaned clock at 23-0. He finally settled down but had some very notable poor passes.
Maybe the worst was the pass to MM in the end zone. He held onto the ball way too long, notwithstanding he looked that way the whole time. I think he is afraid or frozen by something sometimes. I don't mind INTs, especially the two last night--freakish great play by #23 to go over the top of Juergens and then the batted pass straight up in the air is what it is. But THill looked like last years THill and he has to improve,
However, the Oline also played somewhat like last year. Once it looked like a blow out, the Oline lost its edge and Thill took a lot of shots and had to scramble much more--like last year.
Then mental mistakes! Juergens not running out of bounds toward end of first half is just stupid ugly. Bronco not taking one of his 3 unused time outs when he saw that UH was going to throw on the last play of the half, to prep for a Hail Mary, seems rediculous. Coaching mental error. Not defending that easy to defend Hail Mary was stupid. And yes, there were two holdings at line of scrimmage. I didn't notice the PI that Bib is referring to , but wouldn't doubt it.
The roughin the passer I have to watch on DVR. Looked like a total horrible call. OKorn was being shucked before he even threw the ball.
Summary. THill didn't look like the new and improved THill and he still put the game on his shoulders. BYU was tired from the high if UT, travel, etc, and then after what looked like a blow out after Q1, took their foot off the pedal and never really got it going again, at least on O. Glad special teams looked good and D played pretty good--once the coaches realized that giving OKorn six unmolested seconds to throw the ball was a bad idea.

[KYCoug]

I think Hill will continue to improve as a passer. He already is better about going through his targets and spreading it around more than anyone we've had in a long time. Steve Young did not start out as a great college passer but continued to get better... all the way to the NFL Hall of Fame. We seem to be playing this year like we have team ADD, if there is such a thing. I'm sure the short week didn't help and the 3rd game curse but a win is a win and I look forward to Virginia.

Go Cougs,

L Hatton
Louisville, KY

[SpiffCoug]

Schmoe and I went to the game and we were wondering if maybe he had a bruise or a knock on the throwing shoulder as his throws were less crisp than anything we've seen so far this season.