BYU Football: The biggest takeaway from the open practice

Players out from injury was the main highlight of the BYU Football open practice, but if we can look past that, there is something really key to look forward to.

We have already mentioned multiple times that BYU Football is lacking a lot of players during spring practice this year. Although this could have been viewed as a big negative, we were able to learn something that we would not have been able to otherwise.

Jaren Hall is the real deal.

I’m not calling for Wilson to be replaced, put on a short leash or even a leash at all, but wow Jaren Hall looked really good on Saturday. On the day, Hall was 12 of 14 for about 200 yards and two touchdowns. He also had five carries for 59 yards not including a 60-65 yard run that was called back. Overall, he led four touchdown drives on all four of his possessions.

There is a real asterisk next to those stats though.

It is important to remember that most of the starters like Dayan Ghanwoloku and Khryis Tonga did not play much, and other players were injured such as Isaiah Kaufusi and Zayne Anderson. Essentially, Hall was playing against BYU’s backups and third stringers.

Regardless however, that is a good statline to have regardless of who the defense is.

It wasn’t Hall’s statline that impressed me though, it was his composure and decision making. On almost every play Hall appeared to be composed in the pocket and go through his reads before making a decision. Out of the 19 plays that Hall either threw or ran the ball, I felt like there were only four plays where he had a better option than what he did, and I am very critical when deciding if a decision was the best.

Does his performance warrant him taking the starting job? No, of course not. Does his performance warrant him playing time? I believe so.

Hall seems like the kind of quarterback that the New Orleans Saints have in Taysom Hill. He is a better runner than Wilson, and in all honesty, it would be better to have Hall running than have Wilson running whenever possible.

Hall seems like the guy you bring into the game when it is 3rd down and two or first and goal from the four yard line. He would give a different dynamic and look. If effective defenses would be forced to scout out both him and Wilson, which in return would benefit Wilson as well.

If there is one thing that I can get across though, it is this. Support Zach Wilson.

Wilson is going to make mistakes this season and we can’t take last Saturday’s practice as an excuse to divide up the fan base the same way as Heaps/Nelson/Lark, Nelson/Hill, Hill/Mangum and Mangum/Wilson. Three out of the four seasons, the coaches were right with an exception to last season where Wilson was a better option than Mangum. Even then though, maybe it was best to give Wilson more time to adjust to the team.

What Jaren Hall did on Saturday was incredible and he earned himself some playing time, but that doesn’t mean we need to start calling for change the second something goes wrong with Wilson.