Finding a proper starting quarterback at BYU is only as important as … you know, winning. If the Cougars want to rearrange their fortunes in Big 12 play on their second lap around that track, putting a bigger number in front of a lesser one, they’d best do what every high quality BYU team, without exception, has done for 40 years.
Get a quarterback. Not just get a quarterback, but get the quarterback.
There’s a lot more to good football living in a power conference than just that, but … no, there’s not. Not a lot. There’s some — build an offensive line that protects the main man and creates space on the ground, allow playmakers to make plays, and construct a defense that doesn’t cave in and explode like a 50-year-old, badly rear-ended Ford Pinto.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Details.
Speaking of details, when transfer quarterback Gerry Bohanon was recently asked what went wrong with BYU’s offense last year, he said as an outside onlooker: “We’ve got to expect to win. … The details and everybody weren’t on the same page. … You got to have 11 guys doing their part. Everybody has to understand their job on every play.”
He’s right.
But someone on the field has to make sure that happens. Establishing the leader, which is synonymous with the quarterback at a place like BYU, has to be Job 1. And at the end of spring ball in Provo, the quarterback/leader had not been established, at least not openly. It had been … delayed, postponed, deferred, laid over, pushed back. This was said to be a good thing, that a rush to judgment in this specific case would have been detrimental to the desired goal of methodically finding the man, the real deal.
I don’t think so.
Don’t fiddle-faddle around. Propel the guy forward now.
During spring camp, folks talked about giving the whole process more time, making room for all the QB candidates — Jake Retzlaff, Bohanon, Treyson Bourguet and Ryder Burton — to compete against each other, to show what they can do in blazing an effort to breathe life into an offense that was a burp and a sputter, a cough and a grunt for so much of last season.
That wasn’t all on the QB. BYU’s run game last season was laughable, due in no small part to a line that underperformed. Returning replacement starter Retzlaff, the quarterback who supposedly knows the attack best at present, was shaky and pick-sixy last year when Kedon Slovis got hurt — Oklahoma, hello — and Bohanon, who previously won a Big 12 championship at Baylor, having suffered injuries and overcome them, as well, needs further mentoring to acclimate himself to the Cougars’ offense. That’s the party line. The other two candidates are youngsters, one a transfer and the other a freshman with virtually no seasoning and no savvy, not yet.
Here’s what everybody believes: The starting position will come down to Retzlaff and Bohanon. Retzlaff lost all four games he started in relief in 2023 as he learned via getting kicked in the head a few times. Bohanon, an experienced athlete who has suffered and survived through the undulations of college football, is a quarterback who can throw and run. Will he quickly fit in at BYU? He’s convinced in the affirmative.
He called his spring-ball experience “a great opportunity to learn.”
He said he’s eager to get the ins and outs of BYU’s attack seared into his QB soul, using the prime example of Tom Brady when Brady played for the New England Patriots as his standard in that regard. For him, Bohanon said, grasping the offense “was like breathing.”
The new guy wants all the oxygen.
He also said he was not blown off course that the QB competition has been extended to the fall: “I’m not surprised. … Jake’s a good player.”
When Aaron Roderick was asked at spring ball’s end who had the edge to become the starter, the offensive coordinator looked as though someone had slammed a two-by-four across his forehead. This is not perfect news for the Cougars.
Who will get the nod?
“The one who takes best care of the ball and moves the team the best,” Roderick said, without so much as cracking a grin at the obvious nature of his statement. “It’s those two things combined. You can take care of the ball if you’re really conservative and don’t really do anything with it. We want that balance of still being aggressive and move the team but also take care of the football.”
There’s more profundity to what the OC said there than emerges at first read and we’ll get to that in a minute. First, the classic argument regarding what the process should be for naming a new starter.
Kalani Sitake is big on having his lead guy earn the position. He’s never been comfortable putting a king on the throne without figuratively smacking him around a bit en route. He’s mentioned some form of that about a thousand times.
Some agree, saying it’s preferable for the Cougars not to name a starter at this juncture, even if they know full well who the starter will be, as a means of encouraging wicked individual work and training and competition during the offseason. It’s also advantageous for them to keep everyone guessing to avoid disappointed guys up and transferring.
You may have noticed, that happens a lot these days.
But there are larger intentions for BYU football.
It needs one of its own, even if he’s a transfer, to rise — spectacularly, if possible — above the muck and mud of a 5-7 pig splatter last season. To be sure, it would have been better for one of these quarterbacks to have shown himself to be clearly superior to the others — not in the fall, but now, right now. If coaches feel that way, but are keeping a lid on it, they shouldn’t. They should be boosting up somebody, anybody, to take the wheel and run and throw with it.
Back to what Roderick said.
More than a few observers have made note of the fact that Retzlaff didn’t chuck any interceptions during spring ball. Good for him. But if that’s the best praise a quarterback can reap in the spring, it’s not exactly a promising point. Why? Because BYU needs a Captain Courageous on the deck, not Captain Careful. Retzlaff did hurt the Cougars, at times, when the freshman took over for the injured Kedon Slovis in 2023, slinging the ball all over creation, but if he, or any quarterback, is coached to be too cautious with the ball, then that ball will not be moved effectively down the field. Every coach hates turnovers, but if that loathing swirls a quarterback into a mental mess, causing him to be too scared to tee it high and let it fly, that’s no reason to celebrate. It’s a reason to worry.
Remember that Ty Detmer threw 28 interceptions the year he also passed for 5,188 yards, 41 touchdowns and won the Heisman. A quarterback can’t be double-clutching in the pocket, freaking out over the manner in which his coach will respond to a mistake. That conjures the old story told about Steve Young, apocryphal or otherwise, when he early in his career at BYU threw a pick against Georgia. When he came off the field, coach LaVell Edwards said, “Don’t worry about it, Steve.” When he threw a second interception, the coach said, “It’s OK, don’t worry about it.” After Young threw a third pick, and he came off the field, he told Edwards, “Coach, I’m not worried about it.” And LaVell supposedly said, “Isn’t it about time you started worrying about it?”
Retzlaff’s pick six thrown against OU last season still slams around in the heads of Cougar fans. But that was then, not now.
Let’s say it all plain here: Bohanon is the leader BYU coaches should want to see rise to the occasion. He has the physical tools and the personal charisma to do precisely that. He said he’s overcome his shoulder injury that kept him from practicing for a year, that he’s all “good now.”
“When you hurt something, it takes a lot to get back,” he said.
Now, in a new place at a new time, it’s a fact, a fact he acknowledges, that he has a lot of new stuff to cram into his brain at this point. “I’m on my way, but I’m not there yet.”
It would have been stellar — for him and the entire program — if he had demonstrated enough for those coaches to jump ahead five spaces and already name him the starter, but that did not happen.
If he stays healthy and doesn’t mess things up, it will happen either before or sometime during the 2024 season. That’s a guess, but a decent one.
There are whispers at this time that Retzlaff held his ground enough to stay ahead of Bohanon in the race to be No. 1 at the start of fall. And maybe he did. Still, the advantages of naming an authentic top guy sooner rather than later remain immense. Not just to do so in some symbolic way, but to really allow a leader to shine.
Usually, players on any team know who the better QB talent is. It doesn’t take a mind like Bill Walsh’s to see it or sense it. And that’s likely true in this case, too. If it’s not, division could arise. On the other hand, if BYU’s coaches really think they have two quarterbacks who are equally talented, talented enough to lead them to where they want to be in the Big 12 — namely, big winners — that would be a remarkable coincidence, and an amazing bit of splendid fortune. So much so that it’s probably not true.
And if it’s not true, then which quarterback is a quarterback and which is the quarterback?
“It’s been a really good battle,” Roderick said.
Wrong answer. Not if you’re hoping one’s good enough to be a star.
Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
Follow @GordonMonson