AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — The two-headed BYU quarterback experiment got exposed Saturday before a sellout crowd in Falcon Stadium.
But that's not why BYU lost to the Air Force 35-14. It was a chunk of it, but not the entire picture of the Cougars' embarrassing setback against a team it had dominated most of several decades.
BYU's defense got exposed. So did erratic receiver play. And turnovers and stinky punts didn't help.
In reality, BYU lost to the Falcons because Air Force was a better football team — more polished, more experienced, more confident, hungry, motivated, intense and were led by a three-year starter at quarterback, Tim Jefferson.
Now back to the QB deal.
"They brought in two inexperienced quarterbacks and our defense devoured them," said AFA's Jefferson.
Of freshman Jake Heaps' interception to AFA star corner Reggie Rembert? Well, Rembert told reporters a more experienced Max Hall would have waited and not thrown the ball.
"Max Hall would have audiblized out of some of those plays he knew wouldn't work," said Falcon linebacker Anthony Wright.
Experience. It really, really does count.
So, why is BYU messing with a two-headed QB, robbing both Riley Nelson and Jake Heaps of 50 percent of the experience they might gain? And this doesn't take into account the frustration of receivers heretofore silent on their frustrations over adjusting to two completely different passers.
In BYU's loss to the Falcons, Nelson had BYU rolling and the Falcons looked confused. Then Heaps came in. BYU momentum stopped. The Falcon defense regained composure, figured out Nelson, and the romp was on.
After the freshman Heaps threw his interception just before half, offensive coordinator Robert Anae abandoned him in a game BYU needed to stretch the field as only Heaps can do. Granted, Nelson had several key passes dropped (Mitch Matthews and O'Neill Chambers) when the Cougars were fighting the second half, but so did Heaps on a long bomb to Luke Ashworth.
Inconsistency. Doubt.
The key word here is inconsistency; lack of rhythm and confidence for an offense designed and built on pure execution — the over and over work routine of perfecting the mundane.
It's a mantra BYU offensive coordinators have sung since the Vietnam war.
BYU's offense does not have that execution right now. Part of it is inexperience. But that's the point — cutting Nelson and Heaps' experience in half is not BYU football. It is counter execution.
A BYU team Saturday completed just 10 passes for 88 yards. Cougar offenses the past 45 years have done that in, say, about one quarter. The Cougars hadn't done that since walk-on Jackson Brown against Utah and Urban Meyer in a snow storm in 2003 for 43 yards.
There was no snow Saturday. And BYU had more at QB than Brown, a converted basketball player at Utah Valley.
This experiment is impeding, hampering and restricting one of these guys from throwing, audiblizing and making plays like Hall.
You only have to remember the post-John Beck spring of 2007 when Hall was given almost every single rep in practice to prepare him for his debut against Arizona. Hall completed 26 for 39 for 288 yards and two TDs in a 20-7 win in Provo.
Hall benefited from being the guy.
Now, I don't have a favorite of Nelson or Heaps. But they are so very different. Nelson showed why BYU coaches can't keep him off the field, but that gusty run stuff led to his second-quarter fumble which gave AFA the chance to take a 21-14 lead.
Heaps did throw a foolish interception on BYU's next possession, which cost him playing time the rest of the game. But Heaps is a guy who can stretch the field and prevent AFA from putting eight in the box, which is what the Falcons did with Riley, who ran 20 times, 13 more carries than the featured back, J.J. DiLuigi.
Good defenses, like AFA, TCU and Utah eat up QBs who run 20 times. Nelson ran 11 more times than Jefferson, an option guy.
And in all of this, what did it do to the receivers, veterans like Chambers, Ashworth and McKay Jacobson? Aside from the O-line, this is the backbone of BYU's returning offense.
Oh, wait, Jacobson. BYU's fastest receiver and best deep threat, didn't catch one pass. He hardly ran down field more than five yards. In a game where the Falcons crowded the box for three-quarters, shifting from a 3-4 to 4-3 front to stop the run, that weapon remained idle.
Confidence is a fragile thing in football and momentum is everything.
When the Cougars left Falcon stadium on Saturday, they had very little of either one.
Perhaps this two-headed thing has always been a temporary thing, to get BYU past a very tough early September that doesn't get any easier going to Florida State next Saturday.
If so, perhaps you ride this for another four quarters.
But if not, please put a fork in it soon.
On the sidelines and in the locker room, there was a little anarchy going on over this wishy-washy albeit "honorable" and "fair" thing to play two QBs.
If coaches are indecisive in picking a full-time QB, the offense, then the defense, then the special teams all suffer.
That's what I think I saw, aside from a very fired up and very impressive AFA team that lapped it all up on the way to celebrating their third win in a decade over the Cougars.
Timing couldn't have been more perfect for AFA coach Troy Calhoun.
He caught BYU's offensive and defensive guys cross-eyed.
e-mail: dharmon@desnews.com