In the history of BYU football, how many times has a RM QB returned during the summer before fall camp and had a productive season? None that I can recall.

Matt Berry and John Beck both struggled coming off of their missions. The post-mission Riley Nelson vs freshman Heaps platoon was a nightmare. I can't recall many other fresh RMs being thrown into action right after the mission. Taysom actually played pretty well his first year back before being injured, but clearly could have used time to develop. Max Hall really benefitted by having a year of scout QB time under John Beck.

Given historical precedent, it seems unwise to rush Mangum into playing time this fall. Hopefully Taysom comes back healthy and doesn't get hurt. That would obviously be the best case scenario, but he really needs to alter his playing style for the good of his career and for the good of the team. Time to listen to Steve Young and play more violin, less sledgehammer.

Returning from a mission to play Division I quarterback is a very difficult thing, as we can see by how few quarterbacks have successfully done it at BYU or anywhere else. To expect Mangum to be the primary backup, particularly given the schedule we have coming up in 2015, seems to be very shortsighted on the part of our coaching staff.