In the recent Athlon Sports College Football preview for the West Coast an anonymous coach rendered his opinion of BYU football for the coming season and our QB competition saying this: “Their returning starting quarterback (Zach Wilson) might not be their best option. I think there’s going to be a full-on race through camp and they might make a change this season. With his injuries, he kind of plateaued.”

I wonder if it was Bryan Harsin from Boise St that said that? Zach de-committed from him to come to BYU and I wonder if he’s getting a little dig in. Romney lead a really well executed offense last season as the 3rd string QB against Harsin and his top 25 ranked team and gave them their only regular season loss. It very likely prevented them from being the g5 team that got the NY6 invite (went to Memphis instead). That was an impressive win by a freshman QB making his first start.

While I don’t totally believe that there is an actual “full-on race” going on (I think it’s more of a show to try and keep Romney and Hall happy and A weak attempt to leverage ZW into making some changes and improve than it is an actual competition), I can see why he might think ZW has plateaued because of injuries. I think the term “plateau” is being kind. He and the BYU offense went from being 60th in red zone offense his freshman year to 120th last season. Also his pass efficiency rating plummeted significantly. That was a pretty clear step backwards.

ZW apologists have made a lengthy list of excuses why it’s not his fault:
coaches call crappy plays when he’s in the game, coaches call harder plays when he’s in the game, coaches make it easier for the backups, the backups success is all because of trick plays, the OL doesn’t block for ZW (meanwhile they look great when the backups are in), ZW had to play all the hard teams, ZW had injuries that prevented him from playing well, injuries interrupted his off-season preparation, WR’s couldn’t get separation (even though they did for the backups), Bushman couldn’t get separation in the red zone, his WR’s run wrong routes, drops, etc.

Maybe the opposing coach touched on something and that is ZW simply isn’t very good if he’s not 100% (his apologists on CB certainly have pointed that out). Maybe BYU coaches need to wake up to that fact and heavily consider whether they should waste any more time investing reps in his development because with his undisciplined/reckless style of play he will always be fighting injuries and won’t be 100%. Maybe it’s time to cut their losses, move him to a back up role and focus on next man up. Maybe part of the reason for his sophomore slump is that opposing coaches have seen enough film to have figured him out and this is what we can expect from him going forward?

Mendenhall and staff wasted the entire 2012 season with a top 3 defense when they were afraid to pull the trigger and bench the starting QB who was hurting the team and losing games. Judging by ZW’s downward trajectory and the opinion of an outside perspective, sticking with ZW for another season is a huge risk for Kalani.