Yes, the math says Taysom Hill can throw the football

At the outset, I have to admit this piece was born out of frustration.

Headed into the 2014 season, mainstream media tackled the same topic nearly every day for BYU: Can Taysom Hill throw the football well enough for BYU to improve?

It was a fair question, as his 2013 campaign was mediocre at best. A 53.9% completion percentage and 19 touchdowns to 14 interceptions ratio was decent, and many throws left a lot to be desired.

His season stats were torpedoed by the first three games. After that, he strung together several games of 65+% completion rate and threw for 417 yards against Houston. But mediocre road performances against Wisconsin and Notre Dame pulled everything back down a bit at the end of the year.

My frustration comes because despite how Taysom started the 2014 season before his injury, the talking points about his throwing capability have been copy-paste by the same set of media headed into 2015.

So to review, Taysom Hill was actually throwing the football really well last season.

Hill began the year with a great game against UConn, an admittedly sub-par defense. Still, 28/36 for 308 yards, 3 TD and 0 INT is a good game no matter who you throw against. His adjusted QBR for the game (which accounts for how good the defense is) was still 91.8 and his QB rating was 177.1.

In his final game against a Utah State defense that is gushed over yearly, Hill was 8/11 (72.7) for 99 yards, 1 TD and 0 INT -- passer rating 178.3 and adjusted QBR 90.1 -- before he was injured in the second quarter.

All totaled, his 2014 season looked like this:

88/132 (66.7%) for 975 yards
7 TD, 3 INT
QB rating: 141.7 (career high)
Adjusted QBR: 85.8 (career high)

Subtracting out the Utah State game, just because it makes the math easier for me, and extrapolating his four complete games over 12, those numbers look like this:

240/363 (66.1%) for 2,628 yards
18 TD, 9 INT

Does this guarantee Hill will do the same kinds of things in 2015? No. But it does mean we should really not have to hear talk of his throwing ability like he's never proven himself capable.