How BYU Quarterback Jake Retzlaff Stacks Up Against Big 12 Peers After Midway Point

Casey Lundquist | Oct 14, 2024

BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff against Arizona / 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. Retzlaff was named the starter and BYU hasn't looked back. After six games and a 6-0 start, theren's no more quarterback debate in Provo. Today, we're taking a look back at the first half of the 2024 season to evaluate Jake Retzlaff compared to his Big 12 peers (minimum 100 attempts).

Passing Yards

Starting off with the most basic metric: passing yards. Retzlaff has thrown for 1,424 yards through six games. How did that compare to other Big 12 quarterbacks? Here is the top 10:

Big 12 quarterbacks ranked by passing yards / BYU On SI

Retzlaff ranks eighth in the conference just behind Rocco Becht. Retzlaff is on pace to throw for 2,848 yards in the regular season.

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.

Big 12 quarterbacks ranked by touchdown passes / BYU On SI

Retzlaff is tied for fourth in the conference with 13 touchdown passes. His TD/Int ration has improved as the season has progressed. After week seven, he has a TD/Int ratio of 2.6. That ranks fifth in the Big 12.

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 fourth behind KJ Jefferson, Rocco Becht, and Brendan Sorsby.

Big 12 quarterbacks ranked by yards per attempt / BYU On SI

Quarterback Rating

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

Big 12 quarterbacks ranked by passer rating / BYU On SI

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 passing grades, Jake Retzlaff is one of the better quarterbacks in the Big 12.

1. Shedeur Sanders - 90.6
2. Brendan Sorsby - 82.2
3. Jake Retzlaff - 78.6
4. Garrett Greene - 78.4
5. Rocco Becht - 77.4
6. Josh Hoover - 76.6
7. Sam Leavitt - 73.1
8. Sawyer Robertson - 72.1
9. Behren Morton - 68.6
10. Noah Fifita - 67.3
11. KJ Jefferson - 67.2
12. Alan Bowman - 66.6
13. Avery Johnson - 63.8
14. Jalon Daniels - 57.0
15. Donovan Smith - 54.9
16. Cam Rising - 51.4/Isaac Wilson - 50.9

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 10 games for BYU. It's fair to expect a better version of Jake Retzlaff in the second half of the season compared to the first half of the season.

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