Zach Wilson is Making Me Feel Stuff

-- One great player can make even Scrooge believe

There once was a time in 2009 when BYU was down 30 to 14 at halftime against Florida State. And I believed we would still win the game.

There once was a time in 2008 when BYU was down 41 to 24 vs Utah with 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter. And I believed we would still win the game.

Admittedly, these were outlandish thoughts - BYU lost both games by brutal margins. But that's honestly how I felt back then. It's crazy to remember that only ten years ago I believed so strongly in Max Hall and Dennis Pitta and Austin Collie and Harvey Unga and BYU's close game success that I thought any deficit could be overcome. Nowadays the moment something goes bad I'm instantly met with the "here we go again" depression. 

I guess that's what a decade of heart-breaking, unbelievably close losses will do to a fan? You may think BYU has had some tough losses over the recent years, but the stats really cement the story. Brace yourself for the below tweets. 

Most losses by a TD or less during the past decade:
Pitt - 32
Indiana - 30
UNC - 29
Iowa St - 28
Mia (Oh) - 28
BYU - 27
Army - 27

Comparatively, Clemson is 26-4 in one-possession games since 2011.

— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) October 12, 2020

Only four teams in all of college football lost more close games than BYU did in the past ten years. This, following a streak where BYU won 17 of 19 close games from 2006 to 2010, including at one point ten close wins in a row by Max Hall-led teams. How did we go from winning every close game to losing every close game? 27 close losses equates to almost 3 games a season. That's bad! But somehow it gets worse. 

Apologies for extra salt in the wound but forgot to add:

Most 1-point losses in the past 10 years…

Pitt, 7
Buff, 6
BYU, 6
Navy, 6
LT, 6

Pitt has 2 so far this year. Since 2004, only 3 teams have lost 3 1-point games in a season, none from BCS/P5.

So worst is probably over.

— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) October 12, 2020

That second tweet is actually wrong. BYU didn't lose six 1-point games last decade; they lost seven. Here's the official list:

2010 17-16 to Utah
2011 17-16 to Texas
2012 7-6 to Boise State
2015 24-23 to UCLA
2016 20-19 to Utah
2016 28-27 to Boise
2018 7-6 to NIU

Imagine how different the 2010s feels if even half of those games go BYU's way. In 2011 a win over Texas gives us an 11-2 season with wins over Ole Miss, Texas, and Oregon State -- all on the road! -- and probably a top 15 ranking to boot. With a win over UCLA in 2015 suddenly we're 3-0 with Nebraska, Boise, and UCLA pelted against our shed - possibly the three most impressive wins from a name perspective to open a BYU season ever. In 2016 ... oh 2016. We could've broken the streak. We could've conquered the smurf turf. We could've been 11-2 with another top 15 ranking to our name.

Alas these games didn't go our way. And as a result my belief that things would go our way has submarined. I went from being the ever-optimist to Scrooge. 

It takes a special type of player to make you always believe something good will happen. When you have such a player on your team you never feel despair. It doesn't matter if you're down, they make you believe victory is inevitable. The 1996 squad was the first team that made me feel this way. Doman and Staley carried on the tradition in 2001. "Trailing by ten to Utah with only a few minutes left you say? No sweat, we're good." The last group that held this power over me were Max and his cohorts from the '07 to '09 era, as I mentioned above.

These were players so dominant that they gave you no choice but to think you always had a chance. Which brings us now, finally, to Zach Wilson. 

BYU was down 12 to Houston last week with a minute to go in the third quarter. We'd mustered a measly 14 points through three-fourths of the game. In my mind I knew the odds were against us: we'd have to score basically as many points in 15 minutes as we had in the first 45 just to get even with Houston, let alone what we'd need to do if Houston continued to score. I should have been panicking that our perfect season was about to get torched. I should have had that queasy feeling that accompanies every first loss of the season. 

But I didn't. I thought Zach would make something happen. And when I realized that, I began to remember I hadn't felt that way in a long, long time. 

Sure enough Zach made enough stuff happen to come back and even bury Houston. After scoring on a pair of plays aped from NFL playbooks -- the Chiefs underhand scoop and the Patriots WR screen -- Zach saved his best for last. 

BYU was up 29 to 26 with three minutes left when Zach threw a perfect ball to Neil Pau'u which was knocked away in the endzone. It was a close play; maybe it was a catch, maybe it wasn't. When the refs ruled it incomplete that old dreadful feeling from the past tried to crawl up. "That was our one chance to score on this drive," I thought. "We're going to have to settle for a field goal now. Houston will be able to win with a touchdown." When BYU false started a play later to put the team in a 3rd and 15 situation, well the outlook only appeared more grim. 

And yet Zach made me believe, even when the odds of converting a 3rd and 15 said I shouldn't. Even when a decade of close losses said I shouldn't. I texted my buddy. "For some reason I feel like we're going to score on this play." You may recall what happened next.

I don't mention this to toot my own horn - I'm not a fortune teller. I'm just trying to make you understand that Zach is playing so well that he is making me believe when there shouldn't be any ground for belief. Or as the epistle puts it -- and why not since we're talking about a religious school? -- who against hope believed in hope.

Also, for my money this is the best BYU pass I've seen since the 2011 Jake Heaps to Ross Apo strike. Where is the wide receiver separation on this play? Milne is covered from start to finish. Zach puts the ball in the only spot it can possibly be caught. There's no leeway here. Any longer and Milne catches the ball out of bounds. Any shorter and it's incomplete. To the right and Milne probably isn't able to twist and catch it. To the left and maybe that safety comes into the play. 

As one tweeter put it, the pass will go in the books as an 18-yard TD but when you factor in the drop back and the angle this is closer to a 40-yard pass than a 20-yard pass, and Zach made it perfectly.11. About 42 yards in the air based on my quick Pythagorean calculation. I'm not sure if any defender could've stopped this play.

The last way I can pay tribute to Zach is by comparing how he makes me feel versus how our last great quarterback made me feel. Taysom was that quarterback and through his entire career he was unbelievable, a walking highlight-reel. He scored a touchdown against Utah State when he was surrounded by five Aggies for crying out loud. He has touchdowns so iconic that they are known by one single name: the hurdle, the drag, the run. He was so good that when he was on the field I felt like he gave us a chance against anybody in the entire country. 

So what's the difference between him and this year's version of Zach? With Taysom I felt at any moment something could happen. With Zach I feel something will happen.

And man is that a fun way to watch games.