rather remarkable.

Our string of amazing consecutive freshman contributors - spanning now over a decade*.

Let's start with Taysom Hill in 2012. The 4-star recruit and former Stanford commit came in and replaced an injured Riley Nelson and looked absolutely amazing. The phenomenal athlete was just bigger, stronger, faster, and smarter than everyone else. After playing in 6 games it looked like he was the obvious future of the QB position at BYU - until that fluke season ending knee injury vs USU. 2013 was another amazing year, even when considering that he had to overcome the weird GFGH offense, but 2014 came and after an undefeated start which gave BYU a national ranking and Taysom was a consensus Heisman Trophy candidate, he got injured again. Take away the offensive coordinating issues (going from Pro-Style, to GFGH, to Spread, and again back to Pro-Style--in ONE career) and the injuries - Taysom could have easily achieved anything he wanted, literally, ANYTHING was possible for Taysom - Heisman, Davey O'Brein, BCS Bowls, NC, and a day one NFL draft pick....things are starting off well.

Then, Tanner Mangum came in for an injured Taysom Hill and contributed right off his mission in game 1, as a freshman, and shredded the Nebraska, Boise State and UCLA defenses before going on to have an amazing freshman campaign. Tanner had the same issues as Jake Heaps* (see below) - and with more attention to his mental health I think we could have seen more out of him in his career.

Zach Wilson came in as a freshman (and the youngest player to start at QB in BYU history) and replaced Mangum mid-way through Tanner's senior year and finished with a literal perfect performance in our bowl win.

Then you had Jaren Hall and Baylor Romney who came in as freshmen to replace an injured Zach Wilson. Neither of them looked like freshmen - they looked about like any starter you'd see at any P5 school. Jaren Hall looked more athletic and had that razzle dazzle factor while Romney looked like a calm cool and collected pure passer who also had a decent set of wheels to keep the defense honest.

Now we have Jacob Conover coming in as a freshman and looking to continue the trend. I haven't personally seen much to make a judgment on him, but the reports and feedback I've read from players and coaches seem promising.

My question is - is this a common trend in the modern era of CFB? Are players just coming in everywhere much more prepared and ready to go than they use to be, or is this kinda unique to BYU?

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*I think we could make an argument that this string started with Jake Heaps as I think he looked incredible as a freshman - the ONLY thing he needed to work on was the mental and psychological aspect - which comes in time and with specific attention and mentoring. I could see something was wrong immediately as I had several classes with him and other players, but one class where there were literally 50+ players (Hello Dr. Hebertsons History 201 and 202 class at the SLCe). Yeah everyone was in there - Harvey Unga, Cody Hoffman, Jordan Pendleton, Riley Nelson, Ross Apo, and Jake Heaps ... to name a few. Jake and Ross sat alone and Riley and around 15-20 other players formed a sort of posse. Jordan Pendleton sat alone and just kept to himself like a boss. After class you could hear the group all talking about where they were going afterwards to hangout and have fun and they'd noisily and excitedly rush their way to the car and drive out in a sort of entourage - and Riley was the clear leader. Ross and Jake quietly made their way to their car and drove away alone. I talked to Jake many times before class started and he was always very polite and kind - we talked about growing up in WA and how our alma mater HS teams have met in the playoffs and discussed other PNW things. He clearly had a timidity and a nervous disposition even just talking to a fellow classmate. It was very obvious to me that the team loved Riley. I have also had classes with Riley - his very first class in fact - the year before when he had just arrived at BYU. We had a class that was located across the campus and developed a routine where we would walk and talk together after our class and we would just talk about anything and everything. The dude was just very likable and "cool" - he was intelligent and interesting to talk to and I felt cooler just associating with him. I'm sure everyone else on the team did as well. So it was no mystery that the team felt the same way about Riley. I'm just amazed that the coaches either didn't see it, or didn't work hard enough to address this issue with Jake. You can tell that the team came alive once Riley replaced Jake vs Utah State - they played harder and with more passion when he was lining up. This had to be absolutely devastating to Jake. I feel horrible for him. Nobody did anything "wrong" per se - Riley was being Riley and the team rallied around him. But naming Jake as the starter would cause some obvious problems with team chemistry. This is a coaching issue. Riley was talented and a play maker - but everyone knew once his college days were over, so was his playing career. While Jake on the other hand was a surefire future NFL QB - and even with a wild college career which was rather unremarkable (other than his freshman year) he still made an NFL roster and even saw playing time with the Seattle Seahawks. I still believe that with better coaching and with more attention to his mental game...he would have absolutely been drafted on day 1 or 2 in the NFL draft. But because he left the program, I'm not going to include him.