Retzlaff is 1st Jewish QB at Mormon Institution
Jake Retzlaff, a junior transfer, has blazed a trail for the Brigham Young University Cougars.
This past autumn was a season of firsts for the Brigham Young University football team.
After decades of playing in less-regarded conferences as well as an independent, 2023 marked the first season the school competed in the vaunted Big 12 conference.
It was also the first season that BYU, the country’s preeminent higher education institution of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had a Jewish quarterback. It was, in fact, during a Nov. 4 game at West Virginia that junior transfer Jake Retzlaff made college football history when he started under center for the Cougars.
While the game’s outcome (37-7 loss to WVU) may have been forgettable, that a Jewish student-athlete was assuming such a prominent role for BYU – a school where the overwhelming majority of students are Mormon, and no more than a handful identify as Jewish – was a momentous development.
“It’s incredible,” Retzlaff remarked to the AJT about being a trailblazer at America’s flagship Mormon university. “It’s pretty awesome to be able to represent religion at this high of a level and this big of a stage, nationally.”
Even before he got the starting nod against West Virginia (it was a solid debut as the school’s new QB finished 24-42 for 210 yards), Retzlaff’s ascension to the BYU active roster following two years of football at community colleges (first Golden West, then Riverside City College) created serious buzz on the school’s picturesque, mountainous campus in Provo, Utah.
For some BYU students and football players, being classmates and teammates with Retzlaff was their first-ever exposure to Judaism. Naturally, the school’s athletic department wanted to parlay this once-in-a-lifetime situation into a prime learning experience, so back on Oct. 3 during Sukkot, it arranged for a kosher food truck to provide a festive team meal in honor of the holiday. This was also a first for BYU football.
“It is significant being a Jewish football player,” acknowledged Retzlaff, who had a bar mitzvah last decade and counts Chanukah as one of his favorite holidays. “Every team I played on growing up, I was the only Jewish kid on the team. The only difference [in playing at BYU] is that religion is emphasized. I’ve had team prayers before games while growing up. When a coach or player or anybody says a prayer, I like to use that prayer as it is mine. I take part in that. Obviously, when they get to ‘in Jesus’s name’ is kind of where I stray off a little bit. But other than that, I take all those words to heart, and I embrace all the meaning in those words.”
After a sophomore season at Riverside City College in which he put up eye-popping numbers (4,596 yards and 44 touchdowns), the gunslinging quarterback was drawing serious attention from big-time programs. BYU, bracing for its inaugural season as a Power Five school, simply offered him the most realistic opportunity to play meaningful minutes. That it was a Mormon-based institution factored very little into the equation.
“I didn’t really have much expectations to be honest with you,” said Retzlaff. “I knew that it was going to be different, coming into a religious institution that BYU is. It’s been incredibly surprising, and it’s been incredible how supportive everybody is around here of me and my religion. Because they are so religious themselves, they respect me and my religion. It’s a pretty awesome thing.
“The transition was definitely something, but it wasn’t too crazy. The transition is more being at a religious school versus being the only Jew.”
Meanwhile, there was the other transition – leapfrogging from community college to the Big 12. Looking back now, nearly a year after committing to BYU, the most trying time was last spring when he had to adjust to new teammates and a fresh playbook while dealing with tonsillitis that required multiple surgeries.
“It was brutal, nothing went right,” admitted Retzlaff. “It was really tough to deal with. The most annoying part was that I was at football practice and not being able to participate at all.”
Every team I played on growing up, I was the only Jewish kid on the team. The only difference [in playing at BYU] is that religion is emphasized. I’ve had team prayers before games while growing up. When a coach or player or anybody says a prayer, I like to use that prayer as it is mine. I take part in that. Obviously, when they get to ‘in Jesus’s name’ is kind of where I stray off a little bit. But other than that, I take all those words to heart, and I embrace all the meaning in those words.
When Retzlaff got off the pine and participated in game action for the first time as a BYU Cougar, there was a month full of games remaining, all against the iron of the conference: West Virginia, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State. A far cry from junior college competition, indeed.
“Obviously it didn’t help being on the sideline all year, but I was still locked in all year and still ready to go at any moment,” added Retzlaff, whose best afternoon came against the Oklahoma Sooners when he threw for a pair of touchdowns in a slim 31-24 loss to the perennial Big 12 juggernauts. “I was always one snap away from being in.”
From a purely football perspective, being the starting quarterback at BYU means playing the same position that was once assumed by NFL Hall of Famer Steve Young when he was a BYU Cougar back in the early 1980s. This connection wasn’t lost on Retzlaff when he was weighing his options a year ago.
“It’s pretty incredible,” said Retzlaff, who hasn’t yet had the chance to meet Young but whose mother and aunt did run into the school’s most recognizable alum when they were on campus earlier this fall. “Obviously, a legend of the game, on top of being a legend of BYU. That’s part of the reason that I came here. It wasn’t just that the quarterback history was recent, but it was historic within this program.”
As Retzlaff showed signs of being a serviceable game manager down the stretch for a BYU team that finished 5-7 in its first season of Big 12 competition, the redshirt junior with two years of eligibility remaining is in the running for being the Cougars’ starting quarterback for 2024 and 2025 – something the coaching staff had envisioned when they recruited him out of community college.
Retzlaff, however, has even grander visions.
“I’m just excited to go compete in this conference for two more years and after that hopefully play well enough to get a shot at the league [NFL],” he explained.
When asked to put that goal in the context of his current team’s situation, Retzlaff responded, “my focus is on getting better now and preparing for next year. We had a little baptism in Big 12 football this year,” before pausing for a split-second and acknowledging that the latter stadium is “ironic coming from a Jew.”
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