BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier made his BYU debut on Saturday against Portland State. Bachmeier only played in the first half and he only attempted 11 passes, but he scored five touchdowns before sitting out the second half.
Given the limited number of reps combined with the level of competition, it’s unwise to draw too many conclusions about Bachmeier based on his debut.
We can, however, compare Bachmeier’s performance against his Big 12 peers in week one. This article excludes TCU’s Josh Hoover since he hasn’t played yet. 10 of the 15 Big 12 teams played either FCS teams in week one or bad G6 teams. Outside of Utah, Baylor and Colroado who played against Power Four teams, the competition level was fairly similar across the board.
In this article, will compare Bachmeier’s limited reps to those of his Big 12 peers.
Since the sample size is so limited, we will look at passing yards through the lens of yards per attempt. Bachmeier threw for 97 yards on 11 attempts for an average of 8.8 yards per attempt. That ranked sixth in the Big 12 and in the 73rd percentile nationally.
Bachmeier was tied for last in terms of accuracy percentage after week one. However, accuracy rate is typically a function of how aggressive a quarterback is. The more they push the ball down the field, the more inaccurate balls they will throw. That was the case for Bachmeier. Bachmeier’s accuracy was 63.6% (21st percentile nationally) but his average depth of target led the league. In other words, he was more aggressive and, as a result, less accurate. Bachmeier’s average depth of target was 97th percentile nationally.
West Virginia quarterback Nicco Marchiol was the most accurate quarterback in the league, but he was the least aggressive quarterback in the league as well.
Jake Retzlaff was good in some areas and bad in other areas. The one area where Retzlaff was elite in 2024? Getting first downs with either his arm or his legs. That was the biggest void for BYU to fill with Retzlaff’s departure.
In very limited reps and against terrible competition, Bachmeier was good at racking up first downs. Bachmeier accounted for .62 first downs per dropback which was in the 99th percentile among college quarterbacks with at least 10 dropbacks this season. That was second only to Behren Morton at Texas Tech.
The NFL QB rating is “a statistic that measures a quarterback’s overall passing performance based on completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, and interception percentage.” Bear Bachmeier had a QB rating of 131.4 against Portland State. That was 82nd percentile in college football and fifth in the Big 12.
PFF grades are a decent way to split out the impact a quarterback had on a game versus the pure statistical output. PFF attempts to strip out the noise and grades a quarterback on how they performed relative to the situations that they were put in. Were they making the right reads? How did they perform under pressure? Were they throwing receivers open or throwing to wide open receivers? All those things go into PFF grades. Bachmeier was in the middle of the pack in terms of overall offensive PFF grades.
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