Jake Retzlaff got off to a solid start, but still needs to find his footing

With a season-opening victory under his belt, BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff is leading practice this week with a little more spunk in his step. Throwing for 348 yards and three touchdowns with no turnovers in front of a sold-out stadium against Southern Illinois can do that for a guy — but what happens next is what matters most.
The Cougars face SMU as a 10-point underdog in Dallas on Friday (5 p.m. MDT, ESPN2). The Mustangs are a far cry from the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs, but they brandish a bite much more dangerous than what the Salukis could offer.
From his seats at LaVell Edwards Stadium, Brandon Doman watched Retzlaff put 41 points on the board Saturday night.
“He missed some easy throws, but at the same time he made some unbelievably challenging throws,” Doman told the “Y’s Guys” podcast this week. “Some of his deep balls were so good. He made some slant throws that were really nice.”
Doman went 14-2 as BYU’s starting quarterback (2000-01). He returned to Provo after a stint with the 49ers to coach the quarterbacks (2005-10) and later became Bronco Mendenhall’s offensive coordinator (2011-13). His unique experience allows him to see a quarterback through a corrective lens.
“(Retzlaff) gets stuck on his back foot often,” Doman said. “He has that unorthodox throwing motion, which I don’t think you are ever going to take away from him. It’s kind of his thing. A lot of NFL guys are doing that, but you need to be very careful because it gets your footwork in bad position, and I think with some of the throws he missed his feet were bad. They were out of position, and he was on his back foot.”
Retzlaff focused on his footing more intently in the second half against Southern Illinois and it remains a point of emphasis in practice.
“If he can continue to improve on that and just solidify what he’s doing foundationally with his feet, I think he has a chance to be really good,” Doman said. “But he has to think of the feet because when the rush gets better and stronger and when his feet are happy like that, it’s gonna cause him some real challenges.”
Doman expects a “better and stronger” pass rush Friday from SMU, which will challenge Retzlaff as a leader on the field and in the quarterback room where grad-transfer Gerry Bohanon is waiting in the wings.
“I just don’t think they were pressured (by Southern Illinois) the way he’s going to be pressured,” he said. “There are some things I saw that were really good, but this team is going to face some serious adversity, and when they face it, the quarterback is going to have to rise to the occasion. I don’t know if I saw enough in that game.”
Doman knows the path Retzlaff has travelled all too well. He watched most of his junior season from the sideline in 2000 until quarterback Charlie Peterson went down with an injury. Suddenly, ahead of one of the biggest games in program history, Doman was called on to make his first start against New Mexico.
The Lobos were nowhere near the quality of teams Retzlaff faced last season — West Virginia, Iowa State, No. 13 Oklahoma and No. 21 Oklahoma State — but the margin for error was just as thin, maybe even thinner. Doman risked being remembered as the BYU quarterback who lost LaVell Edwards’ final home game in Provo.
The pressure to perform was magnified when Latter-day Saint President Gordon B. Hinckley popped into the locker room with a pregame challenge for Doman and his teammates: “Don’t muff it.”
Doman was magnificent and the Cougars routed New Mexico 37-13. The following week, the junior quarterback marched BYU into Salt Lake City and beat the rival Utes 34-27 to preserve Edwards’ hard-earned streak of 27 consecutive non-losing seasons.
The Cougars returned in 2001 with Doman firmly entrenched as the starter. Like Retzlaff last Saturday, his team enjoyed an August tuneup and routed Tulane 70-35 en route to a 12-0 start.
“There were so many question marks around our team. I think we took that personal. We had a solid senior class that year and we had something to prove,” Doman said. “We didn’t want to wait two or three games, we wanted to prove it immediately. We had a chip on our shoulder and just being able to come out and play the way we knew we could play catapulted us into a ton of confidence going into the next series of games.”
The 2024 Cougars have plenty of senior leadership, including half of the 22 starters on the depth chart, but question marks are everywhere. One game against an FCS program didn’t provide all the answers, but it did give BYU a significant starting point — and a much-needed shot of confidence.
“I think that was so good for this team — the entire team. They needed an opportunity to settle in and sink their teeth into this new quarterback,” Doman said. “They had 15 third-down situations, which is so helpful going into a season. They were 3-for-4 on fourth downs. That’s so nice to get an opportunity where you are not freaking out as a coach about going for it on fourth down. They had several red-zone opportunities. There are a lot of things they need to work on, and they were able to see most of it.”
With SMU and Wyoming (Sept. 14) on the road ahead of BYU’s Big 12 home opener against No. 16 Kansas State, the time for Retzlaff to catapult the Cougars forward is now.
“They are going to have to develop a road mentality against some of the guys that maybe aren’t going to be like some of the other guys they play later in the season,” Doman said. “If they can get a couple wins here, it would be such an awesome foundation to build on as they prepare for some really hard road games. It would be nice to learn how to do that right now.”
The old cliché fits for BYU. It’s one game at a time and the next game is SMU. But for Retzlaff, it’s a little more than just taking one step at a time, it’s about where his feet are taking him — all the time. According to Doman, Retzlaff’s footing holds the key to not only keeping his job, but also getting the Cougars to stand firm in a conference that expects them to be wobbly and weak.
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.