BYU Football: Could ULM's Two-QB System Work for the Cougars?

Louisiana-Monroe has two very talented quarterbacks in Kolton Browning and Cody Wells, and so last Friday against Baylor, the coaches decided to play both of them at the same time to see what would happen. Sure, this sounds like something you would do in a Pop Warner football game, but surprisingly, it worked well enough to give the Warhawks a 14-0 lead.

After watching the game for a while a lightbulb went on in my head. BYU, just like Louisiana-Monroe, has plenty of quarterbacks, to the extent that the Cougars don't know what to do with them. It only makes sense to use the players to their advantage, so why don't the Cougars try out a two-quarterback system?

First, some background information on the formation itself. ULM lined up in a shotgun formation with four wide receivers on Friday, one of whom was Wells. He then came in motion over to Browning, and lined up shoulder-to-shoulder with him. When the ball was snapped, Browning handed the ball off to Wells, who scrambled to his right (he is right-handed) and threw a short pass to a receiver.

(You can watch the formation run by ULM here.)

You can see the two quarterbacks in the backfield in the below picture.

In a situation where BYU might run the play, Taysom Hill could line up as QB and bring Riley Nelson in motion. Riley then would scramble to his left (being a lefty) and could throw to a receiver. Flip the play, and you have the same thing, just with Hill in motion and rolling to his right. Or, to make it even more crazy, you could keep Riley as a WR and have Hill toss a screen to him, after which Nelson would throw a pass.

To shake it up a bit more, former quarterback Alex Kuresa could line up as a receiver, which is his current position. He could take a hand off and throw a pass, just as the others did. Another possibility is to completely scrap the shotgun formation and line up in I-form with Riley or Hill under center, with Michael Alisa and James Lark in the I. Alisa could run up the middle and fake a hand-off, and then block while Lark pops out to the right. The QB could throw a pitch back to Lark and he could throw to a receiver from there.

With so many options, it only makes sense to at least try to run one. With Hawaii on the schedule next, it wouldn't be a very large risk to test it out.

Wait—Brandon Doman is the offensive coordinator?

Well, there goes that idea.