First off, let me say I am not calling for Retzlaff to be benched. I don't think we are there yet. But the trend is not good.

Jake is unfortunately wildly consistent. From game to game, drive to drive and even throw to throw.

Keep in mind the average PER in FBS is 136.1 this year. For the year he is at 140.9 which puts him 48th out of 116 qualifiers (according to sports reference).

His PER by game number:

1. 197.1 undoubtably his best game of the year statistically
2. 111.7 we beat SMU in spite of him
3. 151.0 played solidly against a really poor Wyoming team
4. 162.5 He had 149 yards passing and -10 rushing against K-State, he was not the story but played well
5. 131.9 Started fast and finished really poorly against Baylor
6. 134.1 Played fine/ok against Arizona
7. 130.4 Made winning plays at the end against Oklahoma St. His play leading up to that wasn't great, but we scored 38 to win.
8. 174.0 UCF was easy because Jake made it easy for us. He played exceptionally well.
9. 101.2 Jake struggled mightily against Utah missing open receivers, but was under pressure a lot
10. 126.5 Utah, SMU and Kansas are his 3 worst games of the year. Kansas does not have a good defense.

So in the past 7 games, Jake has been above average from a PER standpoint just 1 time. In that game we won easily.

*I should note that Jake is obviously mobile. Against Wyoming, Baylor and Oklahoma St he made big plays with his legs. Those 3 games account for 63% of his rushing total for the year.

Jake likes to keep a list of where he stacks up against Big 12 QBs. He was predicted as dead last. He is not dead last. Here would be my rankings:

1. Shedeur Sanders-CU-Best QB in the Big 12 and it isn't really that close
2. Josh Hoover-TCU-His 154.5 PER to go with 3233 total passing yards (5th nationally) put him at #2
3. Sawyer Robertson-Baylor-Sawyer is mobile and been very good for Baylor
4. Rocco Becht-Iowa St-Rocco has Iowa St playing well at 8-2. 3rd in yards and 5th in PER in the conference
5. Sam Leavitt-ASU-Sam is #4 in PER and has really come on strong as he has 9 TDs and 0 Ints in in his last 3 games
6. Brendan Sorsby-6th in passing yards, 6th in PER and 6th in my rankings
7. Avery Johnson-KSt-Avery is just barely behind Jake in PER and passing yards, but has more running yards. He has also been better than Jake in conference games.
8. Jake Retzlaff-From #16 to #8 is not bad at all! Listen Jake is not elite. But he has been serviceable and made plays when needed until Saturday
9. Jalon Daniels-KS-Would most of us take Daniels over Retzlaff today as our QB? Maybe, but Daniels really struggled early in 2024.
10. Behren Morton-Tech-Behren is 9th in PER and 4th in passing yards. But a closer look at his numbers reveals he feasted on Abilene Christian and North Texas.
11. Noah Fifita-AZ-What a difference a year makes. Losing so much offensive talent has hurt him greatly.
12. Alan Bowman-OK St-Bowman is in year 5 of the Big 12 (3 with Tech and now 2 with OK St). But don't forget the other two years he spent in the Big 10.
13. Garrett Greene-WV-A much worse year for him than last year
14. Isaac Wilson-UT-Not ready to start his true freshman season, have to wonder how much this year will mess up his psyche.
15. Houston's QBs-Hou-They have been awful

Don't know what to do with UCF: KJ Jefferson played extremely well for 3 weeks. He had almost 400 total yards against CU in game 4, but had some turnover issues which plagued UCF. He played poorly against Florida the following week and was done despite a 152 passer rating and almost 200 yards rushing. Then UCF put in Brown who was embarrassingly bad and now has move don to Rizk who has been very solid in first few games.

Finally let's compare Retzlaffs year to some other BYU players' year's who were similar.

1982 Steve Young-Yes we hope he has a year next year like 1983 for Young. Young was a bit better runner, but passing they are very close
2014 Christian Stewart-Similar numbers to Christian when he relieved an injured Taysom
1998 Kevin Feterik
1994 John Walsh

Bottom Line: If Retzlaff continues to play the way he has the past 2 weeks then BYU may not win another game. If he can improve then we can win them all. Unfortunately, the arrow is pointing down at the moment.