BYU Football: Should BYU be precautionary with Jaren Hall?
By Adam Gibby
In the last decade, only two quarterbacks have played an entire season for BYU Football.
In today’s college football it is almost a rarity to have a starting quarterback play every single game. To give some perspective, since BYU went Independent, the only seasons that BYU has had a starter play in every game was in 2013 with Taysom Hill, and 2020 with Zach Wilson.
In every other season injuries have sidelined the starter for at least one game. In 2012, 2015, 2017, 2019 BYU actually had to use a third string QB. But should that have an effect on BYU’s decision on whether Jaren Hall should start for BYU this season?
Absolutely not, but it should change how things are run at practice.
When Taysom Hill had season ending injuries four times, it didn’t keep him from being the starter. While this example can’t be the end all answer since Taysom was clearly the best quarterback on the roster throughout his career and that doesn’t appear to be the case for Jaren Hall, it is still a good example to look at.
Even after three season ending injuries and a promising freshman season by Tanner Mangum, Coach Sitake and the rest of the staff decided to stay with Hill. However more reps were shared with Mangum than any other backup had ever gotten while Hill had been the starter.
That should happen again this year. If in fact what Coach Roderick said about “Jaren being tough to beat out” is true then the offense needs to build around Hall but realize that there is a real possibility that at some point he may go down.
Playing “safe” by not playing the best quarterback would not be wise and would send a message to the team that if a player gets injured at some point, they may lose their starting position when they return back to full health due to “health worries”. But that does not mean that precautions can’t be taken.
What to do with Jaren Hall
Jaren Hall appeared to suffer two concussions in less than three games in 2019 and was injured for the duration of the 2020 season. Throw that on top of the fact that three of the starting offensive linemen are gone from last year’s squad and the odds that BYU will need a backup is a very real possibility.
With that, BYU needs to have a clear backup that gets 25-35% of the first team reps. Having two backups splitting reps would lead to potential confidence and chemistry issues if called on to become the starter. Typically the starter gets about 80-90% of the first team reps. Giving a few more reps to either Conover or Romney will prepare them better in the case that they need to get in the game, but still gives Hall the majority of the reps and shows him and the rest of the team that he is the starter and this is his team.
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What do you think? How do you balance giving Jaren Hall the first team reps while also realizing a very real possibility that he may miss time from getting injured?