How BYU Quarterback Jake Retzlaff Stacks Up Against Big 12 Peers After Eight Games

Casey Lundquist | Oct 30, 2024

BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff against UCF / BYU Photo

The quarterback battle was the primary storyline of the BYU offseason. Jake Retzlaff and Gerry Bohanon battled it out for the starting job until the end of Fall camp. In fact, BYU didn't announce the starting quarterback externally until the afternoon of week one. Eight games into the 2024 season, Jake Retzlaff has silenced all doubters as he continues to improve and lead BYU to wins. Today, we're taking a look back at the first eight games of the 2024 season to evaluate Jake Retzlaff compared to his Big 12 peers (minimum 120 attempts).

Passing Yards

Starting off with the most basic metric: passing yards. Retzlaff has thrown for 1,870 yards through six games. How did that compare to other Big 12 quarterbacks? Here is the top 10:

Big 12 passing leaders / BYU On SI

Retzlaff ranks seventh in the conference just behind Behren Morton. Retzlaff is on pace to throw for 2,805 yards in the regular season.

Quarterback Yards Per Attempt

Jake Retzlaff hasn't thrown as many passes as a handful of quarterbacks in the league. In terms of yards per attempt, he ranks second behind only Rocco Becht. Retzlaff has been very efficient when he drops back to throw.

Yards per attempt / BYU On SI

Passing Touchdowns

One strength for Jake Retzlaff this season has been passing in the redzone. Retzlaff has taken care of the football and converted opportunities into touchdowns. He is the primary reason why BYU's redzone offense has been efficient. BYU has been forced to rotate a lot of players at running back due to injury, so they have relied on passing the football in the most important moments.

Passing Touchdown Leaders / BYU On SI

Retzlaff is tied for third in the conference with 17 touchdown passes. His TD/Int ration has improved as the season has progressed. After week nine, he has a TD/Int ratio of 2.6.

Quarterback Rating

Quarterback rating / BYU Photo

In terms of quarterback passer rating, Retzlaff ranks seventh out of the 16 starting quarterbacks in the league.

PFF Passing Grades

PFF grades are a great way to split out the impact a quarterback had on a game versus the pure statistical output. PFF strips out the noise and compares how a quarterback performed relative to the situations that they were put in. Were they making the right reads? How did they perform under pressure? Were they throwing receivers open or throwing to wide open receivers? All those things go into PFF grades.

In terms of PFF grades, Jake Retzlaff is second behind only Shedeur Sanders.

1. Shedeur Sanders - 91.1
2. Jake Retzlaff - 86.2
3. Sawyer Robertson - 82.7
4. Brendan Sorsby - 80.9
5. Garrett Greene - 80.7
6. Avery Johnson - 80.0
7. Sam Leavitt - 78.8
8. Rocco Becht - 76.2
9. Behren Morton - 76.2
10. Josh Hoover - 74.2
11. Noah Fifita - 73.7
12. KJ Jefferson - 70.8
13. Alan Bowman - 69.6
14. Jalon Daniels - 67.2
15. Donovan Smith - 61.7
16. Isaac Wilson - 52.4

By most measures, Jake Retzlaff is in the top half of Big 12 quarterbacks. He has been opportunistic and he's shown tons of growth in 2024 compared to 2023. Retzlaff has tons of potential, but he also has tons of room to improve - and that's probably the most intruiging thing about this BYU football team. It's important to remember that he has only started 12 games for BYU. It's fair to expect a better version of Jake Retzlaff as the season progresses.

If Retzlaff can continue to improve every week, BYU has a chance to be playing its best football come November.