Tulane football had a great year last season, and despite losing its quarterback, it is gaining another big one after signing Jake Retzlaff. Head coach Jon Sumrall has the Tulane football program on the rise, and it is primed for a run at the College Football Playoff this season after bringing in Retzlaff from BYU because the rest of the roster is stacked from top to bottom.
There were some questions surrounding Retzlaff after he left BYU. There was an initial lawsuit filed against him for sexual assault, but that lawsuit was dismissed. Despite the dismissal, Retzlaff was still facing punishment from BYU for an honor code violation since he admitted to having premarital sex. With the sentence looming, Retzlaff left BYU and headed to New Orleans.
At the American Conference Media Day, Tulane football head coach Jon Sumrall directly addressed the situation with Retzlaff with the media. He said the university did its due diligence regarding his situation and gave them the green light to move forward.
“The situation with Jake presented,” Sumrall said. “After doing our due diligence on the university’s side of things with everything around Jake, we got the green light to move forward. Then you check to make sure that, academically, things are, you know, a fit and that worked. Then, you have to decide on the football component.
“Felt like, you know, when it presented, we vetted every angle of it. As I said, adding a new player is an entire scope. And, as we went through that process, it checked all the boxes, so let’s do this.”
Sumrall knew Retzlaff previously, after recruiting him at his previous stop at Troy when Retzlaff was still in junior college and looking to move up to the FBS level.
“The unique thing with Jake? I recruited Jake when I was the head coach at Troy in 2022. Jake had one offer from Troy at Riverside Community College for a long time. And then, late in the process, BYU came in,” Sumrall recalled. “We won our conference championship game at Troy that year, played a game against Coastal Carolina, and, two days later, I went on a flight to go see Jake, and he was the guy we wanted to come add to our program as a transfer quarterback out of the junior college ranks. And then, BYU came in. Proximity to home, several other factors came to play, and I went to BYU.”
Retzlaff had a solid season last year, throwing for 2,947 yards, 20 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and a 57.9% completion percentage. He led BYU to an 11-2 record. Tulane reloaded after
losing Darian Mensah to Duke, and now, Retzlaff has to prove himself.
Jake Faigus graduated from the University of Arizona in 2022 and has had stops at Catena Media, Playmaker, DraftKings, USA Today, Spike Up, and Spotlight Sports Group. He also writes for Sporting News and works at iHeartMedia in Phoenix.
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