It’s been trendy to say Retzlaff isn’t very good. I’ll be honest … I agreed with this through the first couple of games. But I think it’s time that we fully get behind our qb … not just because he’s our guy, but also because he’s good. Or better said … there are few better qbs in the conference if any. Following are the conference qbs I’ve been able to watch this year, and my thoughts on them (from best to worst):

1. Fifita, UA … Some excellent throws against Utah, but 19/31 for 197 yards? 6.4 yards an attempt? That’s terrible, honestly. He's pretty inconsistent and inaccurate. Retzlaff has more yards, TDs, and a higher passing efficiency rating.

2. Avery Johnson, KSU … he’s talented, great runner, but man he looked terrible against us. He’s only completing 61% of his passes on the year for 6.5 yards an attempt. Only 9 TDs on the year. 137 pass efficiency rating — not good at all.

3. Alan Bowman, OK State … played so poorly against Utah he was benched for a guy for half the game. Was horrid against KSU today, 26/50 with 2 INTs. Woof.

4. Isaac Wilson, Utah … fun stat, he’s the first Ute QB since 2022 to have three games of 200+ yards. So that’s something. But he makes awful decisions, can’t hit narrow windows, and has more interceptions than touchdowns (7).

5. Sawyer Robertson, Baylor…only 463 yards on the season before today where he “lit us up” for 324 yards … but on an inefficient 56% completion percentage and with 2 INTs.

6. SMU’s qbs … I don’t think I’ve ever seen worse QB playthen when they played byu. Preston Stone was sacked nearly every time he dropped back to pass, and Kevin Jennings couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn … with a QB rating of 27.6. Wow. Supposedly Jennings played well yesterday against FSU and they are 4-1 but what I saw against BYU was just putrid QB play.

7. DJ Williams, SIU … only 98 yards against BYU. Pathetic.

Then you have Jake Retzlaff … he’s 5-0, averaging 241 yards passing per game and 4.7 yards a carry to boot. 11 TDs to only 5 interceptions. 61% completion. 8 yards per pass attempt.

Seems to me Retzlaff is outplaying all of these other QBs. Now, these QBs have better games when not playing Utah or BYU’s defense. There are other QBs in the conference that I haven’t watched that maybe are better. My point isn’t that Retzlaff is the best in the conference—but that he BELONGS. He’s solid. He’s playing well. His QBR rating after the Baylor game, if you take out the bugaboo against SMU, would place him in the mid-30s in the country, I believe.

My second insight is that either (1) Retzlaff is pretty good, or (2) all these other QBs stink too. Or maybe … college football defenses are just really good now and it’s really, really tough to play the QB position against these defenses. In which case, we need to cut Retz some slack when he throws an INT or misses a narrow window. Because it seems like most QBs have that problem too. They all "stink" or better said, college defenses are just really good.