BYU Great Steve Young Impressed With ‘Swashbuckler’ QB Jake Retzlaff
Oct 12, 2024, 9:53 AM
BYU football legend Steve Young shared his thoughts on QB Jake Retzlaff during Big Noon Kickoff. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
(Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
PROVO, Utah – BYU football legend Steve Young joined the Big Noon Kickoff set on Saturday morning.
Young is in town supporting the undefeated and 14th-ranked Cougars against his wife, Barbara’s alma mater, the Arizona Wildcats.
Legend in the house 🏡🐐@BYUFootball's Steve Young joins the show 🙌 pic.twitter.com/pcekfXAwYO
— Big Noon Kickoff (@BNKonFOX) October 12, 2024
The BYU great shared his thoughts on BYU football after the 5-0 start. From what he’s seeing out of BYU’s defense, Young believes BYU can compete against anybody.
“I think more than anything, we’ve showed up with defense this year that led. This is the best defense we’ve had in a long, long time,” Young said on Big Noon Kickoff. “Then, the Big 12, that says that you can now compete. It’s allowed our offense, and Jake Retzlaff to kind of grow into this. And they have answered the bell. So in many ways, why not? If we can play this kind of defense and our offense continues to grow. I mean, honestly, we can beat anybody. I’m not overstating. I’m not hyperbole. We can beat anybody.”
Steve Young shares thoughts on BYU QB Jake Retzlaff
Former Heisman winner and USC legend Matt Leinart then asked Young for his thoughts on BYU starting QB Jake Retzlaff.
“He’s a swashbuckler. That means that he’s not tied up very well. He’s free and easy. He can make a lot of goofball mistakes and that’s what happened last year,” Young said. “I give him a tremendous amount of credit to going to school this offseason. I heard that he spent an inordinate amount of hours in the film room, in the classroom. You both know, this is how quarterback is really won. The game is run by owning the data. When you own the data, you can get ahead of the defense and now you can let your body do the things that are athletically ready to do. So Jake showed up.
#BYU fans are fired up at Big Noon Kickoff.
📸: @allyb_7 #BYUFootball pic.twitter.com/PS2PrDeE6p
— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) October 12, 2024
“Everyone was nervous. Is this the Jake Retzlaff from last year? Where it was balls flying all over the place, and chaos. He still has moments when you’re like, ‘Oh no!’ But in the end, he’s gotten better and better. This defense is protecting him so that he can now grow into it. I really love the Jake Retzlaff story this year.”
“How good could he get?”
Retzlaff, who has a year of eligibility remaining after this season, still has a lot of football ahead of him.
“I don’t know how it’s gonna be written in the end. If he has some mistakes and he has some goofball things, we’ll love him through it,” said Young. “We’ll figure out a way to get [him better]. But he is a better football player than he was last year, significantly. And he’s better than he was five weeks ago. So he’s the kind of kid that I love because he doesn’t make the same thing twice. He does some boneheaded stuff and then it’s like, ‘I’ll never do that again.’ So in that way, who knows how good he could get, which is super fun to think.”
BYU football takes on the Arizona Wildcats at 2 p.m. (MT) on FOX and KSL NewsRadio.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.
