Taysom Hill of the Brigham Young Cougars passes the ball against Boise during NCAA football in Boise, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012.
Ravell Call, Deseret News
Our Take: Between senior Riley Nelson's health and ineffective play and freshman Taysom Hill's youth and inexperience, the Cougars are still unsettled at the quarterback position as Friday's matchup with Hawaii draws near. Play-by-play announcer Greg Wrubell provides perspective on the current situation by reviewing BYU's history of playing young QBs:
For the longest time, the idea of a freshman starting at quarterback for BYU was just this side of unthinkable. LaVell Edwards took over as head coach in 1972, and it was 16 years until a greenhorn actually took the reins to start a game, and even then, in 1988, Ty Detmer had already benefited from a redshirt season.
The only first-year player to step under center in the Edwards era was Drew Miller, who as a true freshman straight out of high school, started exactly one game in 1997.
And that was it: in 29 seasons as head coach, LaVell Edwards started a non-redshirt freshman QB only once.
Read more about BYU's history of playing young quarterbacks on KSL.com.
DeseretNews.com encourages a civil dialogue among its readers. We welcome your thoughtful comments.
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Layton is an assistant editor for DeseretNews.com. He also helps manage the organization's social media presence and writes sports articles. Prior to his internship and employment at the Deseret News, Layton received a more ..
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BYU does not need to start a freshman quarterback on Friday. They can start a senior quarterback, let Lark have his chance use Hill as the wildcat.
@ Patriot
The knock on Detmer in the NFL (and I was a big Detmer fan)was that he couldn't throw deep. But he was a fearless in-the-pocket passer who could find secondary and tertiary receivers, a talent that Nelson clearly More..
@ Patriot
How exactly do you know Hill can't pass downfield? He has thrown exactly 14 passes in his collegiate career, most of those coming in the final drive against Boise St. Due to Doman's play-calling, Taysom is pretty much More..