Aaron Roderick Explains How BYU QB Bear Bachmeier Won the Starting Job

On what Bachmeier did to overcome those disadvantages and eventually separate himself from the rest of the quarterbacks, Roderick said, "He throws a lot of completions. He's really accurate...He's done a great job in camp taking care of the football. He's thrown the fewest interceptions of all the guys, and throws a really high completion percentage and a lot of explosive plays. [He] threw a bunch of touchdown passes and has done a good job leading our team and he's very mature. Our players gravitate to him. He's a good leader..[it's] rare to see a freshman who can lead the team the way he does every day."

At the beginning of camp, Roderick said he would name a starting quarterback as soon as the decision became clear. Bachmeier made the decision clear for not only Roderick, but the rest of the team as well.

"In practice he's proven that he deserves [to start]," Roderick said. "I think everybody out here has watched it happen. This is not a big surprise to anybody on our team because they've seen it happening in practice. Now it's our job to help him have the players around him execute so that he can play in the game like he does in practice."

Roderick added that the staff believed Bachmeier could contribute early, even in their initial evaluation of him back in high school. "He's been with us for 14 or 15 practices and [he's] playing at a really, really high level, especially for a freshman. It's impressive how quickly he's learned everything. He's very smart and he's doing a good job. That's why we threw him in the mix and we knew in high school that he was the guy that would have a chance to be a starter even as a freshman."

Roderick says BYU's style of play will not change with a true freshman signal caller. Most importantly, he said Bachmeier has already learned the whole playbook. "Our style of play won't be conservative," Roderick said. "[Bear] knows the whole playbook already. He can run anything Jaren Hall or Zach Wilson or Jake Retzlaff did since I've been here. He's capable of doing any of that. We will start it out the season, we're not going to throw everything out there in the first game. You never do that anyway...but yeah, we're not going out there to be conservative at all. We want to attack and throw the ball down the field and have a physical run game."

Lastly, Roderick said he feels Bachmeier is ready for his moment.

"We feel like he's ready for it and I think the whole team trusts him and is looking forward to seeing him go out there and do his thing," Roderick said. "He makes really good decisions. He's a very smart player. It's rare to see a freshman get through his reads so fast and be so quick to a checkdown...[he is a] very good decision maker and he's very accurate."

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