As I'm sure many have experienced, sometimes that's just how it goes. You take the field, and your trajectory is just off, or alternatively dead on, for no reason other than it's Saturday, or Thursday, or Monday morning....

Great QBs obviously have the mechanics and experience to rectify things quickly compared to the norm, but no one is on every week. Add in the significant duress in terms of pass rush, quality of opponent, and constantly being behind in the play clock due to our inane subbing pattern, and Jake getting himself back precisely on track was a tall order.

Facing all of those obstacles, he played well enough to get us the win.

Jake makes mistakes and misses throws--maybe more than we were used to seeing with the two recent upperclassmen who are now in the NFL. He also learns, improves, and competes his tail off. I expect a better game from him Saturday and multiple good performances before the year's out. After that, with another offseason and this year under his belt, it's possible that we could be looking at one of the great QB development stories in our very rich QB history before Retzlaff is done.