Ranking the best of the BYU quarterbacks that left the program

So Jake Heaps is leaving BYU and headed to a school to be named later. What else is new. He's not the first backup or demoted quarterback to hit the road at BYU. Ty Detmer alone sent more players to the bus station than the honor code.

Quarterbacks flock to BYU like violinists to Juilliard, but only one plays and the rest sit or leave to find another place to play. BYU has lost more good quarterbacks than most schools have signed.

Below is a list of a baker's dozen of the best BYU quarterbacks who transferred to other schools — and, in many cases, transferred again and again — to find starting jobs.

"I can't remember trying to keep any of them from leaving," says former BYU head coach LaVell Edwards. "They were good players, but they could see they weren't going to get the opportunity to play. In most cases we'd help them find a school, or, if they had some place in mind, we'd call that school."

If BYU could claim a mulligan, which quarterback would they try again? Here's a highly subjective rating of the quarterbacks who got away.