The opinion editor for The Daily Universe asked me to write a viewpoint about Jake Heaps' transfer:
Detour in Heaps' glory road
I held back some of my harshness when I was writing this. I do see Heaps as being kind of selfish here. It looked to him like BYU wasn't going to give him a green light to the NFL like he thought, so he took his talents to South Beach, so to speak.
Some people think it's the coaches' fault for not giving that green light. But I don't think any coach should be expected to cater to one athlete and center their game plans around him. As a former athlete of team sports and a team member in every class or job I've ever been in, I know that you fulfill your role and don't try to take matters into your own hands. You can still have a voice and be involved, but an attitude of "I know best" is usually not the best, and even if it is it just annoys people.
That said, at this stage in our lives we all are supposed to be a little selfish. We're here to plan our success for ourselves and our family, and get all the education we can so we will have more advantages compared with our competition. That's what I'm doing by going to law school. So maybe Heaps transferring and me going on to law school are similar.
And even though I wish Heaps would stick it out, I certainly don't wish for him to fail. Like I said in my viewpoint, it would be great if he transferred to a Pac-12 school and beat the Utes a couple of times for us, haha.
Unrelated point: If Heaps wasn't able to handle two years of BYU football, I wonder how he would handle two years on a mission. Am I being too harsh? What do you think? Talk amongst yourselves.
Did you see this one: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/sports/53053462-77/heaps-byu-football-monson.html.csp?page=1
ReplyDeleteI think it makes sense that you would want to pack it up and get out if the person in charge of your destiny didn't mesh well with you. It's two bad that the two had a falling out.
Overall, I'm not that sad by this development. This isn't completely Heaps' fault, but we were led to believe that he was going to be unbelievable this year. He fell far short. I hope that other people want him as much as he thinks that they do. Some humble pie does a body good.
It's ridiculous for anyone to say that the coaching staff didn't give Heaps enough opportunities. Yes, the first part of his freshman year was a mess, but from the moment Riley got hurt, it became Jake's team, and the starting spot was his to lose.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened then? He lost it through poor play. Was BYU supposed to keep losing games and watching him suffer just so he could keep starting? Absolutely not.
Now, wherever he goes and whatever he does, he will always have this transfer hanging over his head. For the first time in his life he was met with a bit of adversity, and he gave up. Simply put. He has a lot of talent, but I don't think he mentally has what it takes to be a great college quarterback or make it to the NFL.