BYU Quarterback Jake Retzlaff Facing Potential Suspension — How the Honor Code Could Impact BYU Football

BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff is reportedly facing potential suspension from the team following sexual assault allegations. We dive into how the BYU Honor Code plays a central role in this developing story and examine the broader implications for BYU Football heading into the season. What does this mean for the quarterback depth chart, team morale, and the university's public image? Get the full analysis and context right here.

Keywords:

Jake Retzlaff BYU, BYU quarterback suspension, BYU honor code policy, BYU sexual assault news, BYU football controversy, BYU football 2025 season, college football scandals, BYU quarterback updates, Jake Retzlaff case, First and 12 podcast, BYU football news

Transcript

0:00

Alright, let's talk about J-Gratz laugh. I've been putting it off long enough, so let's talk about it on today's show.[MUSIC]>> From all the home of Saints, Colorado, Arizona, Saint Vincent Netting. We've got St. 12 covered from end zone to buzzer leader. This is verse 12, we're all at this pass to all 16 teams, all in every episode.[MUSIC]>> Hello, and welcome to another episode of verse 12. I'm your host, Adam Gibby. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really do appreciate it. If you could do me a huge favor, hit that like button, subscribe, leave that five star review, it helps the algorithm, helps more people discover the show, which just helps build the community, allows us to be able to interact more and build an audience, build a community of big 12 fans who love everything about the big 12, whether it's football, college basketball, or any other sport that our teams play. I wanted to start off today's show, and this is someone going to do every Wednesday, at least until the season starts, where I'm just going to share the funniest thing I saw this past week. For this one, and it actually has a little bit to do with today's topic, is last week, the average journal who works for Texas Tech of All Schools found some public records of the calls that Utah protested against BYU last year in the Holy War. If you remember back, whether you're a BYU or a Utah fan, regardless, if you followed the big 12, this was one of, if not the biggest storyline, you know, outside of the field, that we had all season. And it was Mark Harlan, the athletic director of Utah, getting up on a mic after the game, saying, we are not happy to be in the big 12. It is something that has been kind of this running joke within the big 12 ever since Utah joined. They didn't want to join the conference. They've been pulling their feet. They've been just dragging and not wanting to be here, kind of throwing a tantrum. And that kind of solidified that opinion for a lot of people up to that point. A lot of people said, yeah, it's just a couple of people. They loved the pack 12, whatever, whatever. But when Mark Harlan got onto a mic and said, we thought we'd be happy to be in this conference, but today I am not happy to be in the big 12. Twitter ran off with that. The entire conference ran off with that and really kind of villainized the Utah athletic program more than they were already sort of viewed as the villain. The evidence journal found that Utah protested six different calls, including on what is being called the fourth and hold play, which was essentially the last play for BYU, or was seen that way, at least, where Jake Reds left standing in the shadow of his own and zone looked to his left. A Jojo Phillips saw that he was not open took a sack and the game was essentially over. However, there was a penalty flag thrown and nobody saw it. It wasn't me cover for a couple of seconds. It felt like an eternity, especially as a BYU fan. It felt like, oh, this is it. The perfect record is over. The game is over. And then the holding call was called. And the camera angles that were shown on ESPN didn't really show that it was exactly the greatest or most convincing hold of all time. Other angles ended up coming out later from fans that were had different viewpoints in the stands. It was a hold and you could see that Reds left clearly looked to throw the ball to him first, however, was unable to. But anyway, so Utah protested six different calls and they lost on five of them. It was just super kind of funny to, you know, just to see this huge fit thrown and Utah is just not happy and we're not happy to be in the conference and we're going to protest this game. And so they did and the only call ended up getting overturned was a holding call in like the second quarter that quite honestly if you had protested 50 calls, there would have been three or four of those anyways. There was no call of consequential value that Utah protested that ended up being the incorrect call, at least according to the big 12 officials statement. So I thought that was just the most interesting thing I saw this week. So it was very interesting that it came out in the beginning of June, kind of feels like the the wounds have started to heal a little bit as much as they can heal within the Holy War. And then you just kind of throw gasoline on this fire again and just kind of, you know, get things going again, get fans talking about it. The fan engagement between Utah and BYU fans never stops, but it definitely did reignite a little bit this past week and that was just kind of funny and entertaining to see. So if you haven't seen that, go check that out. You can just Google it Utah protesting calls against BYU. All right. So today's topic and this has been something I've been very hesitant to talk about. The reason being is that I don't want this to be a BYU football podcast. Admittingly I am a huge BYU fan. I'm not going to hide that. I'm not going to say that I'm not. I am, but this is a big 12 podcast. Not the purpose of this podcast. I don't want this to be a BYU football basketball podcast. I want to cover the cougars just as much as I cover UCF since Nadi Houston, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, every other team, even Utah. So when stories come out regarding BYU, I'm very hesitant to talk about them because I want to make sure it's actually a relevant story. I want to make sure it's something that isn't just in my circle of friends or in my community as of BYU fans. I want to make sure that it's legit. It's something real. Just as an example, when I forced our recruits, signs of BYU, that's a big deal on my Twitter feed. That's a big deal around the fans that I interact with on a daily basis outside of the show, but in the grand scheme, things on college basketball and college football, it's not a big deal. It's not story worthy. It's not worth having an entire podcast episode about. But as I've seen this story develop, as I've seen this story turn into more than just a localized BYU story. It's been featured on the SPN. It's been on sports center. I've heard other big 12 podcast talk about it nonstop the last couple of weeks. I feel that it's important that I talk about it because it represents a big portion of what's going to happen in the big 12 this season. If you don't know what happened, here's the very quick summary. I'm not going to read the report. I'm not going to summarize everything in great detail. If you want to do that, just search it up yourself or listen to any other podcast. Locked on big 12, talked about it. The Heartland College Sports podcast talked about it. But essentially what happened is is Jake Ressaf, who is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, but attends BYU and has to uphold the honor code. He is being accused of sexual harassment and essentially rape. He's being accused of sexually taking advantage of a young woman who is remaining anonymous but is saying that about a year and a half ago, almost two years ago, Jake Ressaf took advantage of her and did terrible things to her sexually. He is denying all accounts on this. He is saying that nothing happened at all. This is an ongoing investigation. It is expected to go on for the next year, year and a half at least. So where does this lead to BYU? This is a very interesting case. I want to start off by saying that the BYU honor code is not going to put up with anything with this. Now, in the court of law, you are innocent until proven guilty. I think that that's fair. I think that's the right thing to do. However, at BYU, there's a higher standard. At BYU, if there's even accusations, then BYU is not just going to put their hands up and say, "Okay, well, until you're proven guilty, you can do whatever you want." I don't think they're going to kick him out of school, but I don't think he's going to be sued up until there is a final verdict. One of the big things about the Church of Jesus Christ's Latter-day Saints is they live, and I myself and a member, and so I'm very familiar with this, they live with the idea or sort of the principle. We do weekly cleanings on our church buildings. And are the buildings actually dirty? No. The reason we do that is because we clean so they won't get dirty, we don't clean because it's dirty. So you don't clean walls and floors and doors and all that because it's already dirty. You clean it so it doesn't get dirty. That's just sort of the mentality of the Church of Jesus Christ's Latter-day Saints. That's the mentality of BYU's honor code system. And so if there appears to be something dirty, that's already crossing a line, that's crossing a line of PR that they don't want to cross. The other issue with this is that if Red Sloth ends up being guilty, and when I say guilty, I'm not even talking about guilty on this case. I'm talking if he had any sexual relations with this woman at all, that's a violation of the honor code. If it comes out that he, even with consent, did that? It's going to become a huge national story and it's going to put so much negative press on BYU that regardless of what they do on the field, it's not going to validate, it's not going to offset anything. If Jake Redsloth plays this year and let's say BYU goes 11-1, they make the college football playoff. And then next May it comes out that he violated the honor code and should have been playing this entire time. Any good that BYU does on the field, their mission is to share the message of Jesus Christ. Their mission is to share that message through athletics, to have people learn of the church, have people learn of this school through athletics. And if he ends up being suspended for honor code violations, that's going to be the biggest story to come out of BYU, regardless of what they do in the college football playoff or beyond. Just over a decade ago, Brandon Davies was the starting forward for the BYU Cougars basketball team. This was the year Jim Mordett and the Cougars were expected to make a huge run in the NCAA tournament. They were ranked in the top five. They were the Cinderella team before Cinderella was really thin. In fact, I think that Cinderella kind of really came from that year when Butler ended up making it to the national championship. So BYU is ranked high. They're expected to do well in the tournament and it comes out the brand and Davies broke the honor code. This was a huge moment for BYU. BYU had never really been relevant in college basketball. In fact, they had never really been the spotlight of any college sport until this moment when Jim Mermania was taken over the entire sport. He was college basketball at that time. And BYU didn't hesitate. They suspended him. He did not play in the NCAA tournament. The Cougars ended up falling in the sweet 16th of Florida and they actually fell in overtime to Florida. So it's reasonable to believe that they would have won that game with their starting forward who was their second or third best player. They would have then gone on to play VCU, I believe in the next round and had they won that game, they would have been in the final four. BYU knew what they were doing in that moment, but they also knew that if they let brand a Davies play, despite breaking the honor code. First off, it's going to set a precedent that rules for you have been off from me or it's going to set a precedent that what really matters is winning. These rules are just kind of when convenient, but they didn't do that. They knew the consequence. They took that action and they stood by it and to this day, I have never heard BYU or any official say, yeah, we probably should have just let them play. You see this happened quite a bit with BYU. A lot of times it's under the table. You'll see a starting safety or a point guard or maybe a star, you know, women's basketball player, whatever. They'll just suddenly not be enrolled. And there's not a lot said BYU doesn't come out and say, well, this particular student violated the honor code. They're just gone. I feel like, especially with the honor, sorry, with the transfer portal lately, you don't really suspect that as much anymore just because players transfer all the time and there's not always clear reasoning, but definitely the past decade or so. There's been plenty of examples of players who were on the team who were doing great and then they just leave. I'm not going to point at any one player because I don't know outside of the brand and Davies situation of any exact honor code violations, but it does happen. I do have sources. I do know people who have been affected by this rule. So going back to Jake Retzlaff, they're not going to mess around with this. BYU is going to take a stand and they're going to say, we are not going to put ourselves in a PR nightmare to where if Retzlaff comes out being guilty, then we're done. You know, that's going to be such a story that that's all its people going to talk about. And that is against the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ's Latter-day Saints. And for them, winning is not everything. You can't say that about every school, but you can say that about BYU for BYU, winning is not everything. Now, they would love to win. You see that with their NIL investment, but they're not going to take any big risks like that. So that leaves us wondering, you know, what's next for BYU? What's next for the Kugers? Well, they have a couple of quarterback options and again, I realize the legalities of things. I know not trying to be insensitive to the alleged victim, but this is a sports show. And for the purposes of this show, my job is to report and talk about the sports aspects of this story. I'm hopeful that everything's okay, you know? I'm hopeful that truthfully, if something did happen to this young woman, I hope that justice is served and I hope that she gets the help that she needs. I hope that if it didn't happen, then nothing happened. I hope also that justice is served. And I hope that Jake Redslove gets named cleared and they'll be able to move forward. But I'm not going to talk about the legalities. I'm not going to get into opinions or anything because my job as this podcast host is to talk about the sports and implications of what this means for the Kugers, and which is what I'm going to do. BYU has a couple of backup quarterbacks. None of them have seen a ton of action in college football. They have Tracy Borget, who is a transfer from Western Michigan. They have McKay Hillsted, who is a transfer from Utah State, and they have Bearbock, who transfer from Stanford of the three. McKay Hillsted probably has the most experience, but he also only played against Mountain West teams. That's not to say he can't come in and be a great quarterback. He has been in the system for a year, but last year he was the third, maybe fourth string quarterback. And so he hasn't not been taking first team snaps to this to this point. Now where does this leave the Kugers? I don't think it negatively affects him as much as the media seems to be doing that. I've been looking at preseason rankings coming out. And the Kugers have tanked from being a a fringed top 12 team to now being in the 20s and 30s. High 20s low 30s. I don't think it's going to be that drastic. I don't think it should be that drastic, at least as far as actual results go on the field. Here's why Jake rest of was a good quarterback. He was not a great quarterback. And I was saying that before any allegations came up, this is not me coping. This is not me coming up with some excuse of, well, we'll actually be okay. No, I actually mean that when I say it, he was an okay quarterback. This past season, he threw for 2,947 yards, 20 touchdowns, 12 interceptions completed 58% of his passes. He ran for 417 yards. Now he did throw the ball down the field. He was not the kind of quarterback who threw a lot of screens. He didn't do a lot of bubble passes, anything like that. It was a lot of down the field throws, which you're going to get more interceptions from that. You're also going to have a lower completion percentage because the longer the balls in the air, the more things can go wrong whether it be the overthrow, whether it be an underthrow, the ball getting tipped, just a tough catch, whatever it is. So I'm not too concerned about the completion percentage. One thing I was a little concerned about is that he threw only two touchdowns and five interceptions in the final five games of the season. The Cougars still went three and two, including that massive win against Colorado in the Valero Alamo Bowl. But it wasn't Jigaret's love winning. And in fact, all season it wasn't Red Slav who was winning the games for the Cougars. Rather it was the other parts around him over performing and putting up amazing statistics to put the BYU Cougars in a great spot to win. Just as an example, the Cougars had, I believe four or five special teams touchdowns this past season. That's crazy. You don't see that from anybody. You don't see that from anybody. You're lucky to get one or two in a season. I think the Cougars had five. Their kicker, Will Ferrin was able to consistently drill 50 plus yarders. Why is that a big deal? Because when it's fourth and 10 instead of going for 10 yards and possibly throwing an interception or an incomplete pass, you can settle for that five year pass knowing our kickers probably want to hit this 55 yarder. Also the Cougars led the country in interceptions. That means short fields and means pick sixes. It means setting yourself up for a very, very favorable drive. Jigaret's love did what he needed to do to win 11 games. I'm not taking that away from Jig. He was a good quarterback. He did what he needed to do, but he was not Cam Newton. He was not Lamar Jackson. He was not any of these quarterbacks that you see that just take over a game and absolutely dominate. He was a game manager who didn't get in the way of his team winning too much. Now we did get in the way against Kansas. He did get in the way of Arizona State. I believe in both games. He did not throw for a single touchdown. He was just a game manager. So the Cougars don't really need whether it's Bach Meyer, Hillstead or Borgay to come in. And be the next Zach Wilson or be the next Jaren Hall or Tayson Hill. They just need to come in and be a game manager. Can they take care of the ball? Can they throw for 3,000 yards? Have a two to one interception touchdown interception ratio and be mobile enough on their feet to where they can be at least somewhat of a run thread. I don't think that's unrealistic to ask of Hillstead. I don't think that's unrealistic to ask of any of the guys that BYU has. They are a power of four team that are recruiting at a power for level and they have a history of great quarterbacks. I think that they should be OK at the quarterback position. Now where it's going to hurt them is going to be team chemistry. You know, can the quarterback, whoever it is, hit receivers at the same timing that Red Slough can. Can he make the audible calls that Red Slough can because he's been in the system for so long? Can he read the defense at the same level because he's been playing so many games? Those are going to be the areas that are going to be a little bit more difficult. I trusted Red Slough a little bit more on third in seven, then I do a quarterback who I haven't really seen play that much. But here's the bottom line. I don't think Red Slough is going to play this year. Do I think he's going to get kicked out of BYU? I don't believe he will until there's a court ruling. However, I just don't see the PR potential PR nightmare being worth it for the kugers. Could we see him in the future? I'm not sure. I think in today's transfer portal world where players transfer so quickly and for whatever reason, I wouldn't be at all shocked at all to see Red Slough decide to leave regardless of what happens in the ruling. If nothing else because if he was at another university right now, he is probably playing. Just truthfully, he probably is. A lot of schools will go with the innocent until proven guilty unless there's just an abundance amount of evidence. But it appears in this case, there's a lot of evidence, but not a ton of evidence. So we'll see what happens. But like I said, I'm not going to get into the legalities of this. This is not. And again, I've been hesitant to talk about this because I don't want to sound like a BYU fan on this show. I want this to be a big 12 podcast, but this has been a major story in college football. I think it's something that did need to be addressed. And I think it's something that is going to be a hurdle for BYU going forward. As you get more recruits, as you get more interest in players who are willing to play for you, you're going to have more players who aren't necessarily brought up in the church of Jesus Christ, the Latter-day Saints. That's not me at all saying that there's not amazing players who want to follow the honor code who aren't of the faith there are. You look at Yeg or Demon this past year for BYU basketball. You look at AJ DeBonza. They've all agreed they want to live the honor code because they think it's going to be beneficial to them and helpful for them in their mission to play professional sports. However, a lot of players aren't really into that. They're not going to subscribe to wanting to live that honor code. As BYU is trying to recruit these guys because in the past, let's just be honest. It's been 75% members of the church of Jesus Christ, the Latter-day Saints, and then maybe 20% of non-membered, you know, members who are not of the faith. Going forward though, as BYU tries to be more competitive, they're going for those other players and those other players have to agree to live by those standards. And you know, a four year career is a long time. It's a long time to change your mind. It's a long time to, you know, maybe make mistakes that aren't viewed publicly by majority of people around the world as a major issue. But at BYU are major issues. Just an example, if BYU cannot drink coffee, 99% of the world out there would have zero problem with that. But at BYU, that's an honor code violation and a player who maybe agrees to not drink coffee or not drink alcohol. They make it to 21 and they decide, hey, I've been here for three years. I want to drink. It's not against the law. I'm going to do it. They get caught in other kicked out of school. So I think at BYU, you might start to see more stories like this come out. I'm not sure they're all going to be public. But what I am saying is you might see players, more players that are dismissed from the team and there's just not a lot of stories about it. I do want to mention last thing kind of on this J. Krezz left story. I do think BYU is doing the right thing is they've released public statements where they basically said we're staying out of it. We're not going to make any statement. I know that they're having conversations behind closed doors. You know, they're making decisions behind closed doors. I'm sure that the quarterback room has already had a conversation on what to do, what they need to be doing, looking forward. You have to start preparing McKay Hill, who I presume would be the starting quarterback. You have to start to let instead have the mentality of I'm going to be KB one. And I realize a competitor, a competitor's mindset is I'm always going to play. I'm always going to be the starter, but it's different when you actually are. This may be his team now and he needs to know that. And I think that BYU is having those conversations. I think they know what's going on, but they're not going to release anything to the public because there is always the possibility. I'm not saying it's a big possibility, but there is a possibility that this story does conclude, you know, it could happen tomorrow. It could happen right now. It's in recording. J. Krezz left could come out and say the allegations are false, but we did have consensual sexual sexual relations. Okay. He's free by the law. You know, she agrees he is free by the law, but he is not playing a BYU for breaking the honor code. It could also come out that she comes out and says, actually, no, it didn't happen. I mixed him up with somebody else or I don't know, maybe maybe it just didn't happen. And I'm sorry for saying this, but he's completely innocent. And now J. Krezz left the quarterback again. That could happen. I don't think it's going to though. And so you have to play or you have to prepare as if it's not going to happen. You have to prepare as if he's no longer on the team. So where does that lead BYU for next year? I think that they might drop a game or two that they weren't going to lose. I think it's going to hurt them a little bit in the earlier games of the season. You've seen quarterbacks struggle against P4 talent when they haven't played against P4 talent before the games faster. The guys more athletic, they're smarter. They're just better athletes at the P4 level. So he'll stay at if he is the quarterback should probably do okay for the first three games that are playing Portland State Stanford, who's a very lower tiered P4 team than they play East Carolina. But after that, once they open up the season, it's going to be a lot more challenging for the kugers. And we'll see what happens. I do think that if Hill Stead or whoever ends up being the quarterback can just be a game manager. The kugers should be fine. They bring back strong running backs. They have great receivers. Their defense looks like it's reloading. And we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. So thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for listening. I really do appreciate it. If you want to join the conversation, please just send me a message on X that is at first in 12. The word first, F-I-R-S-T and X-I-I Roman numerals were 12. How you see it in the big 12 logo reach out to me. I will talk about what everyone to talk about. We will have that conversation if you want to join the show. Let me know we can do that as well. Also might know the foe series is coming out here in the next couple days. I'd love for you to reach out if you want to talk about your favorite team. And we will do that. We will record that episode and we'll put it up on the show. So thank you again so much. See you next time. Bye.[MUSIC]