BYU Football Countdown: Player 76 – Swiss Army Knife
By Adam Gibby
No. 76 Taysom Hill – Quarterback – 2012-2016
What?! Taysom Hill is ranked 76 and not top 20!? What is this? It is accurate. What Taysom is doing in the NFL right now makes his college career seem a lot better than it actually was. We forget quickly how in 2016 fans were booing Taysom during the UCLA game demanding that Tanner Mangum be put in. We also forget how against West Virginia he threw for three interceptions in a game that probably should have gone the Cougars way.
Taysom Hill was undoubtedly a really good quarterback, and in 2014, it really did look like it was going to be a really special season for the Cougars, starting 4-0 and have already passed their toughest tests with Texas, Houston and Virginia.
But then there was an injury.
As good as Taysom was that season, he got injured and the memorable season became a throwaway season. The injury wasn’t his fault per say, but regardless it derailed the season.
Rankings
Impact A-
2014 is a perfect example of the impact that Taysom had on the team. With him playing, they took down Texas, Houston and Virginia convincingly. Without him, they lost to Nevada, UCF and Memphis. He even made Ty Detmer’s disaster of an offense look good in 2016 (don’t worry Ty, we’ve got your back with a good ranking later in this list). Long story short, I don’t think we realized how good Taysom was when he was here and his time in the NFL has shown that. The one bad aspect about Hill that is hurting his ranking here is the injuries because when he was out he wasn’t able to make much of an impact for the team.
Statistics C-
This may come across as a surprise to many but his statistics aren’t actually as great as you may think. Over his career he threw for 43 touchdowns and 31 interceptions. He also had 19 fumbles, losing eight of those. His yards per attempt is also really low with a 6.62 average, well below the average of any other quarterback on this list. What does save him statistically is his 2,815 rush yards and 32 touchdowns on the ground. Again, as mentioned yesterday, the statistic ranking does not care when the stats happened or the impact of those games, the ranking only cares about pure numbers and outside of the rushing yards, Taysom was not statistically great.
Memorable Moments B+
Oh what could have been. The failed two point conversion against Utah, the injury in 2014 that may have prevented a 11-1/12-0 season. The 2015 season that saw the Cougars lose three of their four games by a combined eight points. All of those lost opportunities, but here are some special moments that we won’t ever forget.
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Tomorrow we hit the quarter mark at 75! Be sure to check that out and if you’ve missed the other articles check them out below.