BYU’s Jewish QB Inks Deal With Manishewitz

Brigham Young University junior quarterback Jake Retzlaff — BYU’s first-ever Jewish quarterback — had such an unexpectedly impressive 2024 season that he is now getting a marketing platform similar to that once given to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Muhammad Ali, among other athletes. While Jordan, Woods and Ali all had their iconic images grace the front of Wheaties boxes, Retzlaff became the first athlete to agree to a sponsorship deal with Manischewitz, the globally recognized kosher food company specializing in matzo, macaroons and wine.

Thanks to the NCCA’s NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) program, which allows student-athletes to capitalize on their personal brands, Retzlaff, a one-time junior college quarterback, will be the recipient of his very own special edition matzah and star in social media videos for the company, which has been making Jewish delicacies since 1888.

“Manischewitz has always been a part of my life,” the 21-year-old Retzlaff, who grew up attending a Reform temple in Pomona, Calif., said in a press release accompanying the announcement of the agreement. “I grew up with peanut butter matzo as my favorite snack, and every Passover my family and I would make matzo pizza together. At Chanukah time, our tradition was to make potato latkes. Now, at BYU, I am able to share these traditions with my teammates. This partnership is about more than football – it’s about making connections and celebrating Jewish pride in ways I never expected.”

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Retzlaff was able to land this historic sponsorship deal because not only has he wholeheartedly embraced being one of only three Jewish students at the Mormon flagship institution—all this season he’s been wearing a Star of David necklace and going by the name “BY -Jew” – but has wildly exceeded all preseason expectations in quarterbacking BYU to a 10-2 record and Alamo Bowl berth. In fact, after going 0-4 as the starting quarterback during BYU’s inaugural Big 12 season in 2023, Retzlaff was considered among the conference’s lowest QBs in 2024. He immediately proved the naysayers terribly wrong. After passing for 348 yards and three touchdowns during a season-opening 41-13 romp over Southern Illinois, Retzlaff went on to amass 2,796 passing yards and 20 touchdowns for the regular season — one in which BYU had an undefeated record, before losing a pair of one-score, ESPN-televised games to Kansas and Arizona State on consecutive Saturday nights in November.

The Retzlaff-led Cougars’ amazing run was truly one of the most compelling narratives of the 2024 college football season. Week after week, as the wins began to pile up, BYU emerged as a serious contender to play in next month’s College Football Playoff National Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the spotlight on the program – and Retzlaff in particular – intensified. By early October, ESPN, Fox Sports and CBS Sports were reporting from Provo, Utah, as interview requests for Retzlaff continued to pour in. The level of public scrutiny and nationwide fanfare was unprecedented for Brigham Young, but it hardly worried Retzlaff and his underdog buddies. .

After his team’s convincing 41-19 Week 6 win over Arizona, in which he passed for a pair of scores, Retzlaff was asked how the team was able to focus on the task at hand with the outside noise reaching a crescendo.

“All that stuff is gravy,” reasoned Retzlaff, the only Division I starting quarterback of Jewish faith. “The no. 1 is to take care of business on the field no matter what. The national attention – that’s definitely something – but at the same time you have to keep the main thing, the main thing. I don’t think any group of people I’ve been around is better at it than this football team. . . . The national attention is great, the interviews are great, all the publicity is great, and it’s so great for our BYU image, making BYU even bigger than it is. So we love that, but we’re also so good at doing the most important thing, the most important thing.”

In fact, BYU took care of the most important thing – winning – for the rest of October, reeling off three more wins before being challenged by Kansas and Arizona State (a team that made the CFP) to derail an undefeated season. But BYU bounced back from the killer setbacks to knock off the University of Houston, 30-18, in the regular season finale to punch their ticket to the Alamo Bowl at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas (Saturday, Dec. 28, 7:30 p.m. pm), arguably the biggest bowl game for BYU since the 1997 Cotton Bowl. In this primetime matchup televised on ABC, they will face the formidable Colorado Buffaloes, another Big 12 heavyweight, and one whose top two players, quarterback Shedeur Sanders and wideout/cornerback Travis Hunter, are top draft picks in April NFL Draft.

For Retzlaff, meanwhile, the NFL Draft could very well be in the cards, but perhaps not until the spring of 2026. He still has a year of eligibility remaining at BYU, an opportunity to further his case to play at the next level.

No matter where his football career takes him, Retzlaff’s legacy as a titanic figure in Jewish sports history is secure. It was just last December that Retzlaff addressed more than 200 congregants at Chabad of Utah County’s first public Chanukah celebration at the historic Provo courthouse. Now in December, he is the face of one of Judaism’s most iconic corporate brands.

“We are so proud to officially welcome Jake to the Manischewitz family this holiday season,” Shani Seidman, chief marketing officer of Kayco, Manischewitz’s parent company, said earlier this month. “He is such an inspiration and we are honored to support his exciting football career and dream. This partnership represents everything the brand strives to be – celebrating our heritage and raising awareness of Jewish food and excellence.”