BYU’s Jewish QB Inks Deal with Manishewitz

Brigham Young University junior quarterback Jake Retzlaff – BYU’s first-ever Jewish quarterback — had such an unexpectedly impressive 2024 season that he’s now getting a marketing platform similar to what was once afforded to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Muhammad Ali among other sports luminaries. While Jordan, Woods, and Ali all had their iconic images grace the front of Wheaties boxes, Retzlaff became the first athlete to agree to a sponsorship deal with Manischewitz, the globally renowned kosher food company that specializes in matzo, macaroons and wine.

Thanks to the NCCA’s NIL (name, image, likeness) program, which empowers student-athletes to profit from their personal brands, Retzlaff, a one-time junior college quarterback, will be the beneficiary of his very own special-edition matzah and star in social media videos for the company that has been manufacturing Jewish delicacies since 1888.

“Manischewitz has always been part of my life,” the 21-year-old Retzlaff, who grew up attending a Reform temple in Pomona, Calif., said in a press release accompanying the announcement of the deal. “I grew up with matzo with peanut butter as my favorite snack, and every Passover, my family and I made matzo pizza together. At Chanukah time, our tradition was making potato latkes. Now, at BYU, I’m able to share these traditions with my teammates. This partnership is about more than football — it’s about creating connections and celebrating Jewish pride in ways I never expected.”

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Retzlaff was able to land this historic sponsorship deal because he has not only wholeheartedly embraced being one of only three Jewish students at the Mormon flagship institution – this entire season he’s donned a Star of David necklace and gone by the moniker “B-Y-Jew” – but has wildly surpassed all preseason expectations in quarterbacking BYU to a 10-2 record and Alamo Bowl berth. In fact, after going 0-4 as the starting quarterback during BYU’s inaugural Big 12 season in 2023, Retzlaff was deemed to be among the conference’s lower rung QBs going into 2024. He immediately proved the naysayers terribly wrong. After passing for 348 yards and three touchdowns during a season-opening 41-13 romp over Southern Illinois, Retzlaff went on to compile 2,796 passing yards and 20 touchdowns for the regular season – one in which BYU had an undefeated record before dropping a pair of one-score, ESPN-televised games to Kansas and Arizona State on consecutive Saturday evenings in November.

The Retzlaff-led Cougars’ stunning run was truly one of the most compelling narratives of the 2024 college football season. Week after week, as wins started mounting and BYU emerged as a serious contender to play in next month’s College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the limelight on the program – and Retzlaff in particular – intensified. By early October, ESPN, Fox Sports, and CBS Sports were reporting from Provo, Utah, while interview requests for Retzlaff kept pouring in. The level of public scrutiny and nationwide fanfare was unprecedented for Brigham Young but it hardly fazed Retzlaff and his underdog mates.

Following his team’s convincing 41-19 Week 6 win over Arizona in which he passed for a pair of scores, Retzlaff was asked how the team was able to focus on the task at hand with the outside noise reaching a crescendo.

“All that stuff is gravy,” reasoned Retzlaff, the only Division I starting quarterback of Jewish faith. “The No. 1 thing is taking care of business on the field no matter what. The national attention – it’s definitely something – but at the same time, you’ve got to keep the main thing, the main thing. I don’t think any group of people I’ve been around is better at that than this football team. . . . The national attention is great, the interviews are great, all the publicity is awesome and it’s so great for our BYU image, making BYU even bigger than it is. So, we love it, but we’re also so good at making the main thing, the main thing.”

Indeed, BYU took care of the main thing – winning –for the balance of October, reeling off three more wins before getting edged by Kansas and Arizona State (a team that made the CFP) to derail an undefeated season. But BYU bounced back from the killer setbacks to knock off the University of Houston, 30-18, in the regular season finale to punch their ticket to the Alamo Bowl at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas (Saturday, Dec. 28 at 7:30 p.m.), arguably the biggest bowl game for BYU since the 1997 Cotton Bowl. During this primetime matchup televised on ABC, they will face the formidable Colorado Buffaloes, another Big 12 heavyweight and one whose two best players, quarterback Shedeur Sanders and wideout/cornerback Travis Hunter, project as top picks in April’s NFL Draft.

For Retzlaff, meanwhile, the NFL Draft may very well be in the cards, but perhaps not until spring 2026. He still has one year of eligibility remaining at BYU, an opportunity to further his case for being able to play at the next level.

Regardless of where his football career takes him, Retzlaff’s legacy as a titanic figure in the history of Jewish sports is secure. It was just last December that Retzlaff spoke in front of more than 200 congregants at The Chabad of Utah County’s first public Chanukah celebration in the historic Provo courthouse. Now this December, he’s the face of one of Judaism’s most iconic corporate brands.

“We are so proud to welcome Jake officially into the Manischewitz family this holiday season,” Shani Seidman, chief marketing officer of Kayco, Manischewitz’s parent company, said earlier this month. “He is such an inspiration, and we are honored to support his exciting football career and dream. This partnership represents everything the brand aspires to be — celebrating our heritage and bringing awareness to Jewish food and excellence.”