In the week leading up to BYU playing USC early in the 2019 season, Kalani Sitake had studied the film of an 18-year-old quarterback who had just spun the ball up and over, around and through ranked Stanford, beating the Cardinal by 25 points, having thrown for 377 yards and three touchdowns on 28-for-33 passing, leading the Trojans to a 42-3 scoring explosion down the stretch.
Said Sitake: “He is poised and made some really tough throws.”
Thirty-nine months later, that “he” is now Sitake’s quarterback. One of them, anyway.
You may have heard that Kedon Slovis, the once smooth-faced youngster who became the Pac-12′s freshman of the year that first season and who now has three additional rings around the trunk, and some baggage, too — two more at SC and one at Pitt — as a college veteran, is coming to play quarterback at BYU. The graduate transfer is scheduled to arrive in Provo in a couple of weeks.
Sitake says he is pleased as punch with the QB’s arrival, as is offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick.
Roderick called Slovis an “effortless passer” and a “great leader.”
Pitt fans called him something else, during and after a less-than-stellar 2022 season.
“He’s an extremely talented quarterback,” insisted Sitake, “with a wealth of experience.”
The only problem with that wealth is that some of it wasn’t stacked quite as deep as it was through that auspicious beginning, when Slovis rolled up 3,502 passing yards and 30 touchdowns. Four times during his initial season, he threw for more than 400 yards. He threw for a school record 515 against UCLA. He also suffered a couple of injuries that knocked him out of games.
He played well, at times, during his sophomore season, which was made complicated by interruptions caused by the COVID virus, but he had games when he completed 40 passes and threw for five touchdowns. He also suffered another injury.
He wrote further: “Football is kind of like life — you can’t control everything. Whether it’s injuries, or having to navigate a season with COVID and so many unknowns … some things you just don’t plan for. And everything didn’t go as I planned during the rest of my time at USC. There were obstacles, for sure, and we didn’t win all the games we wanted to. But that didn’t stop me from giving all that I had …
“And I’m hoping that, if anything, the hurdles I’ve had to overcome have taught me a lot about how to succeed going forward. I’m hoping they’ve made me a better quarterback, and a better man.”
He added: “For my next two years of eligibility, I’ll be playing quarterback at the University of Pittsburgh.”
Well … oops, for one year of eligibility.
Then, now, he would take the obstacles, the hurdles, the lessons that have made him a better quarterback, a better man to BYU.
At USC and Pitt, Slovis’ phenomenal freshman completion percentage of a fraction short of 72 percent started to sag, drooping to last season’s low of 58 percent for the Panthers. Although he has totaled 9,973 passing yards, his seasonal yardage lowered, too.
Slovis thanked the folks at SC for his experience there, just like he thanked the folks at Pitt for his experiences there. And then he moved on.
I’m not inside the quarterback’s head, only he really knows why he’s become nomadic through his college years. He seems eager to finish up strong in Provo, a location he once described during a podcast — about heckling fans — as “a weird place.”
Slovis lost to the Cougars in the aforementioned game for which Sitake was studying film, throwing three interceptions en route.
But there’s nothing weird about the way Sitake and Roderick want to open up their offense as BYU enters the Big 12. Those coaches know the Cougars will have to do that to succeed weekly among that group of P5 opponents.
Everyone is fully aware, foremost among them Sitake and Roderick, that without a quality quarterback, your offense is dead, especially in a new competitive environment where poise at that position will be paramount. As Jaren Hall leaves, BYU had almost no experience at that most important spot.
Now, it does.
Is descending experience a positive?
If the Cougars are worried about Slovis’ more traditional — read: stationary — skillset in the pocket, perhaps Roderick can mix in some of Sol-Jay Maiava-Peters’ mobility from play to play to balance things out. Although, generally, Roderick has said he loathes any sort of excessive two-quarterback methodology, knowing full well the importance of featuring a dominant leader in that QB role.
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi told reporters a while back that Slovis is “very, very talented and he’s got another year. I would imagine in another year he’s gonna be a heckuva lot better than he is this year.”
Not at Pitt.
A popular way of describing a mediocre quarterback these days is to say he is or was a bad fit. Maybe Slovis was exactly that at Pitt. Maybe he was utilized poorly. Maybe he was coached poorly. Maybe he’s not that good. But maybe he is — for someone else, somewhere else.
Sitake and Roderick hope so, from Pittsburgh to Provo.
Here’s to everybody hoping the best for the kid.
No one has named Slovis as the Cougars’ top guy. In fact, there are whispers that BYU could sign another transfer, as well, and it should haul in whoever it can. With the school’s track record at quarterback and with a depth of talent at receiver and with a strong need for a boost, Provo, weird or otherwise, seems an attractive option for anybody, like Slovis, who has become disinterested in or disenfranchised from their former team.
Slovis, though, is particularly interesting. Can he kickstart a college career that once seemed so promising, not just at the college level but also as a pro prospect? That is the question.
The answer is equally compelling.
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