Kalani Sitake is still more than a little bit miffed, three months later.
He heard the way the public and some pundits talked about his BYU team and the schedule his athletic director scraped together despite everything, and he can’t believe anyone accused the Cougars of ducking certain opponents.
“It ended up becoming a little bit of rumors, people talking about who’s trying to play which games and who’s opting out of games,” Sitake tells The Athletic. “I want to make sure whatever is being said, especially when you’re talking about our team and our willingness to play, that it’s actually done in the right way, that it’s truthful. I took exception to people saying we were choosing to not play certain teams. We were committed to playing football from the very beginning. We were the only team in the West that said we were going to play during fall camp, from what I remember.
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“For people to accuse us of not wanting to play, I think it’s not truthful. We were always willing to play, no matter when. Obviously, we went out to Coastal Carolina to play that game on short notice. It’s not about getting the result you want; it’s about the willingness to play. We wanted to get 12 games for these kids. … If they would have let us, we would have played 16 games.”
BYU did ultimately get 12 games, its only loss coming in that remarkable game scheduled on two days’ notice against the Chanticleers. The Cougars capped off their 2020 season with a 49-23 win over UCF in the Boca Raton Bowl and a No. 11 finish in the AP poll. Though its original schedule was decimated over the summer when the Pac-12, Big Ten and SEC announced they would play conference-only slates, BYU proved to be must-see TV, with quarterback Zach Wilson garnering Heisman hype. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler now projects Wilson as the No. 2 quarterback prospect in the 2021 NFL Draft.
“Some people might say the season felt like a nightmare, but I’d say it was a dream,” BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe said. “Like, did that really happen? It was an odd, odd year.”
There was no sequence more dreamlike than the days surrounding BYU’s 22-17 loss against Coastal Carolina on Dec. 5. The two unbeaten top-20 teams were showered with praise for making the game happen on extremely short notice, and their unique backstories combined with the presence of ESPN’s College Gameday and an instant-classic T-shirt tagline — “Mormons vs. Mullets” — to produce one of the highlights of the 2020 season.
Part of the motivation for playing the game, Holmoe said, was that neither team was happy with how it was being treated by the College Football Playoff selection committee. He called it “disappointing” to see BYU No. 14 in the first in-season rankings and said that “it was very apparent if we didn’t do (the Coastal Carolina game), they weren’t going to move us up.” Yet he doesn’t hold ill will toward the selection committee, understanding how unusually difficult its job was last fall.
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Sitake’s main takeaway from that hastily scheduled game was that marquee home-and-homes don’t need to be scheduled a decade in advance. This one was essentially built off a handshake agreement and the promise of a return game in Provo.
“It didn’t take that much work,” Sitake said. “If teams really wanted to do it, they don’t have to schedule five years out. You can get this done as soon as you can if both sides are willing. That’s what it came down to. … The creativity and innovation from all the administrations was amazing to watch. Possibilities were flying around. It was more exciting than anything.
“We had the same amount of time to prep for the game as the other team did. Like, right now, we know our 12 games going into the season, so everyone’s prepping all summer and all spring for those opponents. I don’t know if it’s overkill … but I do think a lot of times maybe you’re overthinking some things. When it came down to playing that game, (the timing) allowed us to keep our focus on the fundamentals of the game, the simple things that allowed us to execute better.”
Though his program became its poster child, Holmoe doesn’t think on-the-fly scheduling will become any more prevalent post-pandemic; the Cougars are already back to scheduling games nine years out and further. When games are canceled less than seven days out in future seasons, there won’t be so many other opponents available as there were when COVID-19 pauses left several teams at any given time with unexpected open dates.
“It’s hard to throw a game together for any variety of reasons,” Holmoe said. “When you do, it’s like the planets are aligning.”
As he looks back on the season, Sitake said his overwhelming feeling is gratitude. He appreciates that his players had something to play for. He believes that’s why BYU is returning only two seniors from 2020, even though all of them were granted an extra year of eligibility. And that leads to his first big challenge of 2021.
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The Cougars enter a new year ranked 127th out of 127 FBS programs in returning production as calculated by ESPN’s Bill Connelly, with just 31 percent of the 2020 team’s overall production expected back. The roster has been hit hardest on the defensive side of the ball, where just 16 percent of 2020’s defensive production returns for 2021. Georgia ranks second to last in returning defensive production … at 39 percent.
The extra year of eligibility offered by the NCAA means that most college football teams will be overloaded with experienced players in 2021. Twenty-six FBS teams return at least 80 percent of their production from 2020. Nine of those 26 are Pac-12 teams, members of the conference that had the shortest 2020 season. It’s easy to see why BYU’s situation is different. Even in non-pandemic years, BYU tends to have one of the oldest rosters in the country because of the several players each year out on missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and on the back end of their college careers some players are perhaps more ready to start the rest of their lives.
The Cougars got to play a full season last fall, and most seniors graduated. Those players went into 2020 thinking their senior year was going to be it for them, so they gave it their all. And now they’re done.
“They want to get to the next transition in life rather than run it back for another year,” Sitake said. “That would complicate a lot of things for them, like graduate school or jobs lined up or trying for the NFL.
“We’re going to find out how deep we are right now, because we’ve lost a lot of production. Hopefully, we’ll be able to build off of what we did last year.”
That will make the upcoming spring practices, starting Monday, crucial for BYU. The long list of position battles is headlined by the quarterback competition, which begins as a four-player race between Baylor Romney, Jaren Hall, Sol-Jay Maiava-Peters and Jacob Conover. The eventual decision will fall to Sitake and new offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick, who was elevated this offseason when Jeff Grimes left for Baylor but retains his quarterbacks coach title. Whichever quarterback takes over will do so behind an offensive line that returns mostly intact aside from the loss of All-American left tackle Brady Christensen to the NFL.
Sitake anticipates spending more time this spring in 11-on-11 situations, some live and some not, in an effort to foster the competition needed to sort out all these position battles. He and his staff restructured its entire spring practice approach to account for the inexperience on this year’s roster. Sitake wants to see his players compete but doesn’t feel that he has to name starters at every key spot by the end of spring ball. He’s in no rush, even as he stares down a schedule that includes five Pac-12 opponents (Arizona, Utah, Arizona State, Washington State and USC), one ACC team (Virginia) and one Big 12 foe (Baylor).
“Something beautiful happens when you start competing and jobs are open,” Sitake said. “You get the best out of everyone, so the cream will rise to the top. We’re excited to have that moment happen.”
(Photo: Jasen Vinlove / USA Today)
Nicole Auerbach covers college football and college basketball for The Athletic. A leading voice in college sports, she also serves as a studio analyst for the Big Ten Network and a radio host for SiriusXM. Nicole was named the 2020 National Sports Writer of the Year by the National Sports Media Association, becoming the youngest national winner of the prestigious award. Before joining The Athletic, she covered college football and college basketball for USA Today. Follow Nicole on Twitter @NicoleAuerbach
