BYU Football: What history says about giving Zach Wilson a chance

Fans are starting to call for Zach Wilson to take Tanner Mangum’s spot as the starting quarterback. Historically this hasn’t been a terrible idea.

Tanner Mangum played great in the third quarter against Arizona. Ever since then however, Mangum has looked…well…not great. The blame can’t be all thrown onto Mangum, though. If four or five of Mangum’s passes weren’t dropped BYU may have won the game against Cal. But they weren’t caught, and part of that is Mangum’s fault.

After re-watching the game, I counted eight times that the receivers touched the ball with both hands but didn’t come down with the catch. Six of those however, were thrown either behind the receiver or were put in a spot where the receiver would have taken a hard shot by a defender. I’m not giving these scholarship Division I athletes a pass for not catching the ball, but Mangum didn’t make their job any easier.

Because of what happened, fans are starting to call for Zach Wilson. Normally you would think that the backup isn’t as good as the starter (hence why they’re the backup) but in the last decade of BYU Football it has actually been a good thing for the Cougars.

Here is a list of all the backups who started at least one game and how they did compared to the starter.

2010

Déjà vu to 2018? Sophomore quarterback Riley Nelson started the season and actually got a good win against Pac-10 Washington. However, the next week the Cougars fell to Air Force, a team that Cougar Nation felt was not as good as Washington. Sound familiar? The next week Nelson was replaced in the first half against ACC powerhouse Florida State by freshman Jake Heaps.

Heaps ended up starting the rest of the season and went 6-4 in those starts, including four games where the Cougars scored more than 40 points.

Original Starter Record: 1-2 (.333)

Backup Starter Record: 6-4 (.600)

2011

In 2011 Jake Heaps was the starter against Ole Miss in the season opener, but Riley Nelson did get some snaps throughout the game. However for the first four games, Heaps was the featured quarterback. Through those first four games, Heaps led the Cougars to an ugly 2-2 record. The most memorable moment was the Heaps backwards pass that turned into a Utah score on the Utes way to a 54-10 win over the Cougars.

BYU was down to Utah State in the Cougars’s fifth game until Bronco Mendenhall decided to put Riley Nelson in. Nelson led the Cougars in the fourth quarter to score 14 unanswered points, including a late touchdown pass to Marcus Matthews with 11 seconds left to beat the Aggies. Nelson went on to be the featured quarterback the rest of the season. Nelson and Heaps continued to share reps for the rest of the season, with Nelson as the main quarterback and in those games the Cougars went 7-1, including five games where the Cougars scored 35 or more points.

Original Starter Record: 3-2 (.600)

Backup Starter Record: 7-1 (.857)

2012

2012 was a year that was really difficult for Riley Nelson. The season started with a senior Nelson as the starter and freshman Taysom Hill being used in situational plays. Through four games BYU went 2-2 with Nelson as the starter, but it was the fourth game that Nelson lost his job. The Cougars were playing Boise State and for the entire game Nelson was unable to do anything offensively. Late in the fourth quarter, Mendenhall replaced Nelson with Hill and immediately there was an offense spark. The Cougars went down the field and scored, but failed on a two-point conversion.

Nelson went on be the starter for the next two games against Hawaii and Utah State. Hill led the team to win both games, but he was injured on the final play of the Utah State game. Nelson was named the starter and went 2-3 over the next five games, including an embarrassing loss to San Jose State. Third-string quarterback James Lark was then named the starter to finish out the season, going 2-0 with a win in the Poinsettia Bowl against San Diego State.

Original Starter Record: 4-5 (.444)

Backup Starter Record: 4-0 (1.000)

2014-2017

2014-2016 were seasons where we saw Taysom Hill get injured and the backup have to play a lot. These will not be accounted into the equation because Hill was never replaced for bad play. In 2017 there was a similar situation with injuries happening everywhere. There were a few series where Beau Hoge or Joe Critchlow would come in for Mangum, but it was never for a whole game and never really was long enough to have an effect on the outcome of the game.

Overall, when the backup replaces the starter for BYU good things happen. In the three seasons that had the backup take over the starter, BYU’s overall record has been 17-5 (.772) whereas the original starter finished 8-9 (.470)

To give perspective, BYU is 64-42 since 2010. That winning percentage is (.603).

So with all of that, it looks like giving Zach a chance is worth the risk.