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BYU Lands Top Quarterback Jake Heaps

The word has come down from various sources that the four star or five star recruit quarterback Jake Heaps is verbally committing to BYU, and will make his announcement tomorrow in Provo.

The reason for the announcement to come at BYU's campus is because Friday is BYU's junior day and Heaps has been planning to attend that for some time.

Heaps is choosing BYU over the likes of Tennessee, UCLA, LSU, and Washington.

Some people may wonder why a top rated quarterback would chose a school that is not in a BCS league.

A reason is that Heaps is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and BYU is a private university owned by the Mormon church.

Meaning his values and religion are the norm at BYU.

Also, the quarterback history at BYU is nearly one of the strongest in the country with players as Steve Young, Robbie Bosco - who lead BYU to the 1984 national title, Jim McMahon, Gifford Neilson, and John Beck.

All of those players played in the NFL, and with BYU's pass happy offense Heaps will get the notice from stats while playing in a solid conference.

The last time BYU had a quarterback this highly regarded was Ben Olson who in 2001 was the nations top high school quarterback.

Olson's career was short at BYU, he redshirted in 2001, went on a Mormon mission and then went to UCLA.

He left BYU because of disagreements, but Olson never materialized from his projected potential partly because of injuries.

Back to Heaps, he most likely will serve a church mission as well, and he will either go before he enrolls in school in 2010 or attend BYU for a year and then go.

During his time on a mission he will be eligible to be recruited again, because of an NCAA rule about being out of school for two years and make no mistake he WILL be recruited again while he is gone.

University of Washington was a top choice on Heaps list because he lived in the area and that new head coach Steve Sarkisian played quarterback at BYU.

If things fall the right way Heaps could face his hometown school because Washington face BYU in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

He has too many accolades to list, but here are his two year totals:

Rushing Passing
Statistics Att Yds TD PA PC Pct Yds TD Int
2007 (So.) 95 409 14 336 202 61.0 3,095 31 7
2008 (Jr.) 67 -46 7 312 203 65.1 2,910 38 4

Also, in high school he led Skyline to a 14-0 season to the Washington 3A State Championship as a sophomore in 2007. He earned first Team All-League quarterback and 3A AP All-State honors.

Below is a highlight video of Jake Heaps from the 2007 season

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