If Zach Wilson is being honest, he had no interest in BYU for most of his recruitment. The Cougars were at the bottom of his list.
It was nothing personal against the school. After all, it was close to his home in Draper, Utah, and Wilson liked head coach Kalani Sitake, whom he’d known since he was a kid. But when Wilson pictured himself in the BYU offense, it was not a fit. In late 2017, BYU had just wrapped up a 4-9 season in which it finished No. 124 in scoring and No. 118 in passing efficiency.
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“If I had to put money down in my senior year of high school, I would have said BYU would be the last school I’d go to,” Wilson said.
Wilson had committed to Boise State in June 2017, and some Pac-12 interest followed in his senior year.
But as the season ended, Sitake overhauled his offensive staff. BYU needed a QB recruit for its class, and the changes grabbed Wilson’s interest. Out went offensive coordinator Ty Detmer, the former BYU Heisman Trophy winner, and in came Jeff Grimes from LSU. Other arrivals included new quarterbacks coach Aaron Roderick and new wide receivers coach Fesi Sitake, who’d developed a strong relationship with Wilson while recruiting him at Weber State, giving Wilson his first offer.
Suddenly, BYU became more appealing. Wilson decommitted from Boise State on Dec. 13 and took an official visit to BYU on Dec. 15. He signed with the Cougars on Dec. 21 as part of college football’s first early signing day and enrolled early for spring, as he’d always planned.
Three years later, Wilson is posting eye-popping numbers for an explosive BYU offense. Wilson leads the nation in completion percentage (81.2). He’s second in yards per attempt (12.3), third in passing efficiency and ninth in passing yards per game (310.3). Through three games, Wilson had as many incompletions as total touchdowns (11).
BYU ranks sixth nationally in scoring (43.8 points per game), and the No. 15 Cougars are 4-0 for the first time since 2014. Wilson’s arm and this start have drawn NFL attention, and he’ll have a lot of eyes on him as BYU heads to Houston for a Friday night showcase game.
At a school with a prolific quarterback history — names such as Jim McMahon, Robbie Bosco, Steve Young, Detmer, John Beck and others — Wilson brings back memories of BYU’s glory days.
“He doesn’t make mistakes,” Houston coach Dana Holgorsen said this week.
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At the time Wilson committed, BYU did not have an established offense. Grimes had never been an offensive coordinator before arriving at BYU, so he cobbled together concepts from different places, like his stops at LSU and Boise State, but also from LaVell Edwards’ pass-heavy BYU days in the 1970s and ’80s. The result is an offense that uses a lot of window dressing to confuse an opponent — multiple formations and lots of pre-snap motion — but it sticks to a handful of concepts and plays. Some have referred to it as an RVO: Reliable Violent Offense.
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In Grimes’ first two seasons, BYU improved from No. 124 to No. 79 in scoring, then to No. 67. The Cougars posted consecutive 7-6 seasons.
There’s an emphasis on “violent.” Grimes is an offensive line coach by trade, and that’s where it starts. All five starting offensive linemen weigh at least 300 pounds. Four of the five starters have been in Grimes’ system for three years, like Wilson. BYU ranks No. 23 in yards per carry and has allowed only two sacks in four games. According to Sports Info Solutions, Wilson has been pressured on only 11 of 109 dropbacks.
“Pretty much everybody that we’re playing now has played in this system,” Grimes said. “Most guys, this being their third year in the system, there’s just a greater amount of experience in playing college football, and then a greater amount of experience within the system with the same coaching staff. We’re playing with mainly upperclassmen now for the first time since I’ve been here.”
Still, BYU lost its top three wide receivers from a year ago, and tight end Matt Bushman, who’d led the Cougars in receiving yards for three consecutive years, was lost for the year with a season-ending injury in preseason camp. There were questions as to how Wilson would handle that.
But this new starting receiving corps is also made up of veterans. Gunner Romney, Neil Pau’u and Dax Milne are juniors, and Milne is Wilson’s roommate.
“Zach is really comfortable right now,” Romney said. “He’s finally taking the next step of being the commander of the offense. He’s taken that next step and seems so much more confident and poised this year. It feels like the game is slowing down for him. He’s not rushing anything this year.”
In the end, as with most teams, it comes down to the quarterback’s ability to make plays, any way he can. Wilson often makes throws on the run or while off-balance, and he mixes in side-arm tosses when the moment calls for it, as he did on one touchdown pass against UTSA last week. College football writer Richard Johnson coined the term “The Mormon Manziel,” a reference to former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel’s unorthodox playmaking ability and self-confidence. On the field, one can see the comparison, though Wilson said in 2019 he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
Zach Wilson with the side-arm flip to Katoa for the Touchdown! pic.twitter.com/z01TTuuK2Y
— Jake Lee (@JakeRexLee) October 10, 2020
This is a wild crossbody throw by BYU QB Zach Wilson. He has some great arm talent and he is fearless. Wilson is a rising QB prospect to watch. Has a lot of upside.pic.twitter.com/pVC5PJZrIu
— Nick Farabaugh (@FarabaughFB) October 10, 2020
The aggressive play isn’t reckless. It’s by design. Wilson specifically works on throws from awkward positions. He was runner-up for the Utah Mr. Football award in high school, but he was also a talented basketball player at Corner Canyon High School, so he’s used to contorting his body.
“He’s always had that, able to throw it at different angles, move around and do all that kind of stuff,” said Eric Kjar, Wilson’s football coach at Corner Canyon. “He can do it in a variety of different ways.”
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“That’s stuff you can’t teach,” Roderick said.
Wilson put up respectable numbers as a freshman at BYU — 12 touchdowns and only three interceptions in nine games, with 1,578 passing yards and a 65.9 completion percentage. In the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl against Western Michigan, Wilson finished 18-for-18. The future was bright, but his shoulder nagged him. It had for a while, since high school. It would flare up in Monday practices after games that year. After the season, he underwent surgery to repair the labrum.
Wilson believes he threw too much with his arm in high school, and he didn’t use his hips and lower body enough. He remembers one day as a senior when he put on three separate throwing sessions for college recruiters. It was supposed to be one event, but the recruiters showed up at different times, and Wilson had wanted to make an impression. His arm was dead afterward, and the impact lingered into his freshman year.
As a sophomore, Wilson injured his thumb in a loss to Toledo and needed surgery, which kept him out for four games in the middle of the season. He wasn’t quite the same in the final four games, throwing five interceptions, including four in the last two, with zero touchdowns in two losing efforts. It put the job up for grabs heading into the offseason. While Wilson was dealing with the surgery, Jaren Hall and Baylor Romney led BYU to victories against Utah State and Boise State.
But this offseason was different for Wilson. For the first time in his college career, he was healthy. The summer prior, he visited 3DQB, a quarterback training facility in southern California for his shoulder rehab, where former BYU quarterback John Beck is a trainer. Wilson couldn’t throw at that point, but he watched Drew Brees train and picked up all sorts of little training techniques he could put into action in the 2020 offseason. Tips like going through all of his remaining progressions after a throw against air, without a defense on the field.
“Drew had the best mentality I’ve ever seen,” Wilson said. “That dude came out and worked super hard. It was nothing like I’ve ever seen. That guy would come out there and he was just so dialed in on what was going on and he took it every single day like it was a business and he wasn’t going to sell himself short, he wasn’t going to come out and joke around. He had a good time, but he definitely took it seriously, so that was something I definitely appreciated.”
A healthy Wilson has exploded out of the gate. He’s always been accurate, but not this accurate. In his career, Wilson has only twice completed fewer than 60 percent of his passes in a start — one was a 57.9 percent game against Toledo in which he broke his thumb. In 2020, he’s completed at least 72 percent of his passes in all four games. Roderick said Wilson has learned to find and take the easiest throw available on a given play.
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It’s not just dinking and dunking with short passes. Wilson is averaging 12.3 yards per attempt, his 10 completions of at least 30 yards are tied for third among QBs who have played four games and his 13 completions on passes thrown at least 20 yards downfield rank second nationally, according to Sports Info Solutions.
“That’s definitely what we’ve been trying to work on,” Wilson said. “The percentage of shots we’re landing is up there too. That’s a huge key to success of an offense, being able to stretch someone deep and punch them vertically. It really opens up everything else.”
I'm ready to start talking about BYU QB Zach Wilson as a first-rounder pic.twitter.com/9JLHgLYd4o
— Mike Renner (@PFF_Mike) October 5, 2020
Though just a true junior, Wilson has become an intriguing NFL prospect. That kind of accuracy can’t be taught. But BYU isn’t scheduled to play a Power 5 team this year, making it a bit harder for scouts to evaluate his season. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. recently ranked Wilson as his No. 5 QB prospect. After Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State’s Justin Fields, the next spots are up for grabs, though Wilson could have as many as two more seasons at BYU if he wants them.
“Over the summer, he was given mid-round draft grades from NFL teams, but he has outplayed those projections so far,” said Dane Brugler, The Athletic’s NFL Draft analyst. “The competition hasn’t been impressive and it doesn’t get much tougher, although the Boise State and San Diego State games will be must-see contests.
“Wilson has average size, but his pocket presence and instincts are terrific. He has all the arm talent to rip off NFL-level strikes down the field. And the competitive toughness is clear. He has put himself in the Day 2 discussion, and if he plays at this level the rest of the season and into the draft process, then the first round will enter the conversation.”
Wilson’s confidence has been evident on the field this season, but it’s always been there. Senior safety Troy Warner admitted he thought Wilson was too cocky when he arrived in spring 2018, and the two butted heads at times. Wilson made some headlines later that spring when he took two BYU cheerleaders to prom. He hadn’t planned to go, but his parents wanted him to because he had left high school a semester early. He asked two friends if they wanted to come, and they had fun with it.
Wilson’s never been shy, but that’s not a bad thing for a quarterback. Especially when he backs it up.
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“That’s just who he is, he’s a very confident kid, and he can be like that because of how he works,” Warner said. “He’s grown to inspire me in how you really should prepare for games. I’ve never seen him without his iPad watching film. I’m glad that he’s getting all the rightfully deserved attention that he’s getting right now, and we’re very happy that he’s with us.”
Statistical data provided by Sports Info Solutions
(Top photo: Rick Bowmer/Pool Photo / USA Today)
