A history of bloodied, broken teeth has BYU QB Jake Retzlaff latched on to the Cougars’ starting job

Provo • Before we get into how BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff played on Saturday, his father wants you to hear a story.

It happened almost a decade ago. A teenage Jake was at his brother’s Little League game. While his father was coaching, Jake stood next to his best friend competing for every foul ball that came their way.

As one pop-up hovered above the two boys, Jake body-checked his competition and rose up to nab the ball. But when he came down, he hit his chin on the fence.

Jake’s bottom teeth were all but gone, tilting all the way back in his mouth. He then proceeded to grab his teeth and straighten them out by hand before his parents rushed him to the hospital for surgery.

“One of the ways that you know how bad it is, is to see what the pain reliever is,” Steve Retzlaff said as he retold his son’s story on Saturday at LaVell Edwards Stadium. “I said, ‘What’s he on, doc?’ Dilaudid. I’m like, ‘Oh, sh--.’”

Dilaudid can sometimes be 10 times stronger than morphine. But that’s not the kicker to the story.

That happened on a Friday night. By Tuesday, Jake was back at practice.

Plus, let’s not forget, he ended up with the foul ball.

“He knows how to persevere,” Steve told The Salt Lake Tribune. “He’s competitive. Never give up, be patient. He says it all the time. So this [BYU quarterback battle] is nothing new for him. There’s no part of us that doesn’t have tremendous, unbelievable, deep-down appreciation [for the chance], yes. But is competing new for him? No. Doesn’t bother him.”

So with that in mind, maybe how Jake Retzlaff played in BYU’s season opener on Saturday shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

After spending the last nine months embroiled in a quarterback battle, Retzlaff responded by outlasting his competition in fall camp and then taking control of the job on Saturday. In a 41-13 win over Southern Illinois, the quarterback looked smooth. He threw for 348 yards and three touchdowns — and did it with a 66% completion rate.

He led BYU’s offense to 527 total yards — its highest output since Nov. 11, 2022. He added a 197.1 rating to complement that.

A quarterback competition moving forward? He at least put those rumors to bed for one more week.

But Steve Retzlaff knew that was going to happen before the game even kicked off. It’s what his son has always done. Everyone else just had to learn about it.

“A-Rod, who has tremendous confidence in Jake, he’s going to learn something he didn’t know about Jake today,” Steve Retzlaff said of BYU’s offensive coordinator, Aaron Roderick, before the game. “He’s a much better competitor than anybody.”

It’s something the quarterback has built a career on. In high school, Jake Retzlaff had to wrestle away the starting job as a junior by coming in during a blowout against California powerhouse Mater Dei. He put together two touchdown drives late, moved the offense, and all of a sudden was in the starting mix.

“It was kind of like a surprise. Like, ‘Oh this guy is good,’” Jake Retzlaff told The Tribune.

In college, it was the same thing. He graduated during COVID-19 and scholarship offers to bigger schools didn’t come. So he went to Riverside Community College in California, threw for 4,500 yards and took his team to the state title.

When he transferred to BYU, he didn’t win the job starting job. But he played in the final four games of the season after quarterback Kedon Slovis got hurt. Jake Retzlaff may not have won any games, but his father thought the offense moved “much better [and] came alive,” with his son in the game.

“He always takes teams to where nobody thought they could go. I’m very confident he’s going to do that this year and he gets to taste that today,” Steve Retzlaff said on Saturday.

His son certainly did.

A BYU offense that was so desperate for explosive plays and first downs last year had no troubles on Saturday. Retzlaff went 6 of 6 passing on third down for 93 yards — an average of 15 yards a completion. He picked up three, fourth-down tries.

In total, he had eight throws of 15 yards or more. That included a 57-yard touchdown to JoJo Phillips and a layered ball to Parker Kingston for 36 yards. He ended the night with a deep ball to Keelan Marion for 52 and then threw a dart into tight end Mata’ava Ta’ase for a touchdown in the middle of the field.

But was this validation for Retzlaff? No, he didn’t need any validation. He already knew, just like his father.

“We knew who we are. We’re confident in ourselves. Everybody in that offense knows what we can do. I think it’s a validation more for you guys [on the outside] than anything, because we’re confident in our abilities,” Jake Retzlaff said.

Before the game, Steve Retzlaff went to see his son at the team hotel. Jake wasn’t nervous at all. This was the opportunity — a chance to take control of BYU’s quarterback room — he was preparing for all along.

And it’s not that Retzlaff didn’t respect the other quarterback in the race, Gerry Bohanon. The two are extremely close.

“They are authentically close,” Steve Retzlaff said. “On the Cougar Walk into the stadium, I hugged two players. Gerry and Jake.”

But like his father, Jake just felt like this was his time.

“Jake’s really performed at an unbelievable level every chance he’s gotten,” Steve Retzlaff said. “I think he knows exactly what he has to do. It comes from performance. I have absolutely no doubts he’ll just take the reins [on the position] tonight.”

In his 2024 debut, he did.

Now he just has to hold on.

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