Moments after a fumble in the second overtime cost BYU a chance to upset Oklahoma State and qualify for a bowl game, ending a mostly miserable season for the Cougars, head coach Kalani Sitake was asked if four-game starter Jake Retzlaff had done enough to earn the starting quarterback job in 2024.
Sitake didn’t throw Retzlaff under the bus, but he didn’t exactly give the junior college transfer a ringing endorsement, either.
“We have a good group of quarterbacks that can play. Some of them are really young. We have a lot of faith in Cade Fennegan as well, and Nick Billoups. Ryder Burton is an up-and-coming young player.” — BYU coach Kalani Sitake
So it was no surprise on Thursday afternoon when former Baylor and South Florida quarterback Gerry Bohanon announced he had committed to BYU, after sitting out the entire 2023 season with a shoulder injury.
Bohanon, who will be participating in his seventh season of college football this fall, certainly wasn’t BYU’s first choice. But he’s better than the alternative — which would have been to ride with Retzlaff or one of the other QBs already in BYU’s room in Provo.
As the recruiting and transfer portal cycle moved on in December, it became more and more apparent that BYU wasn’t going to get a big-name transfer QB, such as Kansas State’s Will Howard. About the same time Bohanon was announcing his commitment to BYU on Instagram, Howard was pledging to Ohio State.
Sure, BYU tried to get some more-accomplished transfer QBs, such as Ohio’s Kurtis Rourke (Indiana), Michigan State’s Sam Leavitt (Arizona State) and Hawaii’s Brayden Schager, who reportedly made a visit to BYU but announced Dec. 24 he is running it back at Hawaii.
In a way, Bohanon is a lesser risk, because he presumably comes with a much smaller NIL price tag. There weren’t a lot of other suitors out there for the Arkansas native’s services, apparently.
Lest some believe that this is a repeat of last year, when BYU got Kedon Slovis from Pitt and basically handed the former USC star the keys to the offense, the acquisition of Bohanon is much different.
He’s getting no guarantee that he will step in and start. Rather, he’s been told that the competition will be wide open, and not just between Bohanon and Retzlaff.
“We have a good group of quarterbacks that can play. Some of them are really young. We have a lot of faith in Cade Fennegan as well, and Nick Billoups,” Sitake said when asked the aforementioned question about Retzlaff. “Ryder Burton is an up-and-coming young player. He has done some really good things when he has been running scout team. We will evaluate it. We will look at all of those things.”
BYU signed three high school quarterbacks during the early signing period in December. However, Granger’s Carson Su’esu’e will serve a church mission before enrolling and will likely play a different position at BYU.
Enoch Watson, a dual-threat QB from Queen Creek, Arizona, who played for former BYU QB greats Max Hall and Ty Detmer, is also mission-bound. Noah Lugo, a 6-foot-2, 185-pounder from Texas’ Eaton High, will join a now-crowded QBs room that also includes walk-on Cody Hagen, a former Corner Canyon High star.
Aside from Retzlaff, a rising junior (in eligibility) who was 0-4 as a BYU starter after a spectacular juco career, it is a fairly young room that will benefit from Bohanon’s maturity and experience.
“The key in the transfer portal and in recruiting is to make sure that they are a good fit for our culture and our program. If they do that then I think they will be fine,” Sitake said in late November. “If they want to be at BYU, then we will play a lot better with them being here.”
Bohanon wants to be at BYU. No question about that. Obviously, he didn’t have a lot of other options, having not been able to show what he could do last season and having fallen off the radar of most programs.
Color BYU fans mostly unimpressed, if message board and social media posts are any indication.
They should remember, however, that Bohanon was a highly recruited QB out of high school, a four-star prospect who had plenty of options some seven years ago before choosing Baylor.
He’s also played in some big-time games, such as the 2022 Sugar Bowl, a 21-7 win over Ole Miss.
Nobody on BYU’s current roster can say that.
