...taking unnecessary shots from the defense in the long run hurts the offense because the QB will always be dinged up and not at 100% or missing games due to injury. Look at the years when we had primarily pocket passers at QB (John Beck and Max Hall). They were guys who could move and extend a play but their focus was always keeping their eyes downfield and they made big plays this way through the air not with their feet. Another in that vein was Christian Stewart and those 3 guys led higher scoring offenses than did mobile QB's like Riley Nelson, Taysom Hill and Zach Wilson and it's not even close.

If a Riley, Taysom or Zach led offense avg'd 30 pts a game that was an exceptional year and it only happened twice between the 3. The rest of the time they led offenses that avg'd in the 28-29 pts a game range. Not good.

Beck, Hall and Stewart were primarily pocket passers and led offenses that avg'd collectively nearly 35 pts a game, almost a TD a game better than the mobile QB's. Their worst year between the 3 of them was Max Hall's first year in 2007 (a bit of a reloading year) and BYU only scored 30.1 pts a game that year. That was, by their standards, a bad year offensively but would've been an exceptional year for the mobile QB-led offenses.

it's also interesting to note that in 2014 Taysom started and finished 4 games before getting hurt for the year and he led offenses that avg'd 37 pts a game. Stewart took over and ended up starting and finishing 8 games and he led offenses that avg'd 39 pts a game. Hero baller vs pocket passer. The guy who focused on utilizing the talent around did a little better even though he was super raw and inexperienced (a walk-on JC transfer iirc).

In general BYU's offenses have done better when the QB isn't consumed with his own running prowess and instead keeps the focus on the team approach and utilizing the talent around him.