The Utah Primary Passer, Jon Hays

Jon Hays came in against Washington (week 4) of 2011 after Jordan Wynn went down. Wynn was 14-7 as a starter for Utah before his shoulder injury ended his 2011 junior season. Hays, statistically speaking, is probably the worst Utah quarterback since 2002. He has quarterbacked the Utes to a 5-3 record since Wynn went down with sporadic decision making that has left most Utah fans befuddled.

On first down, it appears Norm Chow and Hays were a little more creative but as the down and distance bore down on Hays, his effectiveness dropped severely. On second down, Hays is 18% less efficient than first down and on third down, Hays is 16% less efficient. A lot of that has to do with completion percentage. Hays completes around 57% of his first down passing attempts but it is only completing 49% of his second and third down throws.

If you factored in sacks, Hays has only averaged around 5.05 yards per attempt as opposed to Tevin who is averaging around 10 yards per attempt with sacks factored in. This is kinda where we go back to Hays' decision making. Around 58% of the called pass plays, Hays takes a sack, throws an incompletion, or throws to a receiver that is not on pace for a first down (<4 yard completion). That should be a fairly refreshing statistic for Tech fans and a fairly troubling stat for Ute fans.

I will admit the offense for Utah is much more complex passing offense than Tech's. Norm Chow and Jon Hays have done a fairly good job of distributing the football evenly amongst four receivers and multiple tight ends. It's almost impossible to predict which receiver is going to get the look based on downs and distance and this may also be a function of parity across the receiving corps. A general trend has been the following ratio of looks: 9 wide receiver looks to every 2 tight end looks. Running back looks have been almost non-existant in the 2011 Utah offense as Shawn Asiata and John White have only had around 15 catches since Jordan Wynn went down.