Gordon Monson: Is Jake Retzlaff really a stellar quarterback? BYU will need him to be.

Provo • The worst-kept secret at BYU heading into Saturday’s inaugural game of the 2024 football season against Southern Illinois was who the Cougars’ starting quarterback would be. The best-kept secret was that defensive coordinator Jay Hill had suffered a heart attack, but that he rather remarkably would be coaching again during the game.

I’m no doctor, so we’ll stick with the unclassified classified stuff.

Turns out, the quarterback thing was fake drama, a leg and a prank pulled by Kalani Sitake on BYU fans and Saluki coaches, stirring a vacuous question, really, with an answer as obvious as wondering which party’s candidates will get the lion’s share of the one-sided red Provo vote in November.

Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear and a brain to think knew full well that Jake Retzlaff was the Republican in this race, a man of the Cougar coaches, if not of the electorate, the people who care the most — the 63 thou-plus folks who shelled out cash for their seats at LaVell’s Place. They packed the stadium here.

Well. For those who hadn’t listened carefully to the whispers and who wondered still, it was indeed Retzlaff who Sitake confirmed as QB1, making official what was more than apparent, just prior to the opening kick. Retzlaff beat out senior Gerry Bohanon, a transfer from Baylor and South Florida, who some had hoped via vapors of performances of the past would get the nod.

“I only know one way,” Sitake said later on, “play the guy who earned it.”

What was clear to see on Saturday evening was that Retzlaff has evolved from his abbreviated, undulating stint as the starter last season, an evolution that stood to reason considering the handful of appearances of a year ago were the quarterback’s first run in the left seat at both BYU and at the FBS level. Doing something for the first time typically leads to mistakes, and Retzlaff was no interception … err, exception.

The only thing that clouded over the QB clarity on this occasion was the level of competition, the fog brought in with an FCS opponent. I mean, the Salukis are good for who they’re for — they finished 4-4 in the Missouri Valley Conference last season and were defeated by teams like South Dakota, North Dakota State and Idaho, the latter coming in the second round of the minor league playoffs — but what they were good for on Saturday night was an easy win for the Cougars and a payday for the visitors.

If not for the need for some engine tuning — at quarterback and all around — before the schedule gets heavy, this game would have been a waste of everybody’s time. The final count pretty much summed up the way it went: BYU 41, Southern Illinois 13.

On account of all that, figuring what Retzlaff’s showing here proved, other than the fact that he looked much more comfortable under center than he had previously, is tempting, tricky business. He hit on 20 of 30 passes for 348 yards and 3 touchdowns. He mostly made sharp reads, getting the ball up on time and on target to 10 different receivers with touch and timing passes and laser shots, too.

Yeah, he goofed up here and there, missing some deliveries, but made his share of plays with — take note of this — zero picks. His 57-yard touchdown pass to Jojo Phillips in the first quarter was sweet. Another deep ball, this one to Keelan Marion, set up a subsequent TD throw to LJ Martin. That made the count 24-6 early in the second half, and by that time, it was apparent to anyone watching that there was no way BYU would lose this game.

“We know Jake’s abilities,” Sitake said afterward. “… He’s a tough kid who works hard and he has great abilities. I love the person that he is and he happens to play great football.”

Let’s pull back on the reins just a bit.

Retzlaff is nobody’s Heisman candidate, but it appeared — again, in a bit of a fog — that the Cougars do or could have an authentic quarterback, certainly against a team that gave him every opportunity to be that. Had he not been and done that, doubters could have rightfully harbored sincere doubts as to what in the name of Brett Yormark he would suffer versus incoming, oncoming and upcoming Big 12 defenses.

You might wonder that still.

Retzlaff certainly was upbeat in the postgame, uttering phrases like, “I can be me in this offense,” and “These [receivers] were playing their butts off. These guys can do it all around me,” and “I thought I played pretty well.”

He added with great enthusiasm: “It was a lot of fun to play football again. … It’s a dream come true.”

Dreams or no, it will be of keen interest to discover by the aforementioned day of the political vote in November — deep into an arduous conference schedule — the answer to two more important, more mysterious questions than the first one mentioned: Who should the BYU quarterback be? … and … Will any such decision make any kind of difference for a team with other questions surrounding it?

Such as: Can this team hold up against the big, bad boys?

Retzlaff’s best friend on Saturday night, BYU’s run game, an element that labored and languished so pathetically at times a year ago, looked improved against this opponent, despite the observation that no single back took a dominant role. By committee, the Cougars rushed for 179 yards. The BYU offensive front, also so severely challenged last time around, this time seemed … what’s the word? … better? Familiar? Adequate? Hey, no skeptic could disparage BYU’s total offensive yards number — 527.

The Cougars’ defense held the Salukis to less than half that amount.

Sweeping definitive conclusions — wholly responsible ones, anyway — off this single game are in short supply. What it meant and means, really, is that the Cougars could get off the bus without tripping, they could scrimmage well against an inferior opponent, they could move the ball, they could win a game they were favored to win by a decent enough margin.

Which brings us back to Retzlaff.

One thing that’s never been a mystery at BYU — at least not since the early-to-mid-‘70s — is that the quarterback is the center of the football universe, the man of the hour, the man of every hour, the straw that stirs the nonalcoholic — and sometimes the alcoholic one, too — drink. The guys whose names you know who played that position through the years often lifted a mediocre team to an above-average one, a good team to a great one. But Cougar teams that fell somewhere south of mediocre in some cases could not be lifted. That ask was too heavy, even for all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, let alone the dude taking snaps.

Relative to the comparison that matters — not measured up against Southern Illinois, rather plainly the Big 12 — will BYU be mediocre this season, yearning to be above average? Maybe. Will it be good, reaching to be great? Hmmm. Will it be lousy, hoping to be hoisted by a stellar QB? If so, we pretty much know how that will turn out.

The thought that came to mind when Retzlaff took the field on Saturday was, then: What will his fate ultimately be? Will he do the hoisting? If he does, will it even matter? Will Bohanon be called upon at some point to give the BYU attack a heave and a ho? How much heaving and hoing will be necessary?

Those are not vacuous questions. They are open-ended ones, begging for answers yet to come. They remain the focus, front and center, regardless of the happiness that emerged around the Cougars at LES on Saturday night.

“We’ll just get better,” Sitake pronounced.

It’s a good bet that they’ll have to.

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