Were a few factors involved but Heaps basically “lost the locker room”.
1. Riley worked his butt of in the offseason with the team while Heaps was mostly away.
2. Heaps returned and tried to be a vocal team leader without having earned it and promptly got put in his place by some upper classmen.
3. Riley performed better in practice.
So when Heaps was named the starter here were a lot of pissed players. It was way more than half that were team Riley...it was more like 95%.
Heaps is a good guy, but I think he decision to take care of things away from Provo really hurt his career progress and lead to the transfers.