I feel sorry for Kalani Sitake.
It was predictable — and predicted from this corner — what happened to his BYU team on Saturday against TCU, perhaps not all the specifics, but the result … yeah, that was written in the stars. And other defeats are coming, close ones, lopsided ones.
There may be a surprise victory here and there, but the hard truth is this: The Cougars are going to lose, a lot.
Anyone with eyes to see could see that six months ago.
What Sitake said in Saturday’s aftermath is the effect of a coach reaching for a lifeline that isn’t coming. He’s the proud head of a proud program, but relentless is both his schedule and his fate now. The Cougars have lost and lost big on previous occasions in previous years. But that aforementioned hard truth is a wall of Big 12 water that’s bound to capsize BYU’s Poseidon, with no way to stay afloat, nowhere to run, no answers to find.
Every weekend won’t be as painful for the Cougars as TCU’s beatdown was, but what can Sitake do with the numbers smack dab in front of him — 447 passing yards yielded to an inexperienced quarterback who was made to look like a Heisman winner, 243 yards put up by his own tepid offense, a 24-zip early deficit and a 44-11 final count. It wasn’t just the numerical nuts and bolts, it was something even more helpless and hopeless — the speed, in BYU’s case a severe lack of it.
Sitake saw what he saw and his postgame remarks reflected the desperation in his plain view.
— “They exposed us in a lot of different ways.”
— “I’ve got to reassess a lot of things.”
— “We have to pivot and it is all in the realm of our capabilities. I don’t think we have to reinvent the wheel, but we do have to do some things differently to get stops on defense, to get pressure. On offense, get points on the board. Whatever it takes, it doesn’t really matter.”
Whatever it takes. It does matter.
There were untruths in Sitake’s last statement, and nobody can blame him for lying.
The Cougars could pivot all the day long, all the season long, and it might alter this and that, but not in any profound way. A reversal of fortune is not in the realm of BYU’s capabilities. They do not have to reinvent the wheel, but they need better wheels, faster ones, more athletic ones, more talented ones. More, more, more.
Which is to say, if BYU is going to eventually succeed in the Big 12, it needs better recruiting. It’s too late for that this time around, but the seasons ahead are on their way. More flotation isn’t optional, it’s a requirement. Is it possible?
Sitake can’t come out and say any of that now, not publicly, can’t say … Look, we just aren’t good enough. Our guys are gutty players, but they’re slow afoot, they can’t get to the quarterback, they can’t cover, they can’t tackle because they’re out of position on account of a deficit of speed, they can’t create space for our run game and they can’t get separation in the back end on attack. I like our guys, but, as is, they kind of stink.
No. He cannot say any of that.
So he says adjustments are within capabilities, things can be done differently.
He says, “Get stops” and “Get points on the board.”
I’m not even sure what those last two declarations mean. It’s obvious what they mean, but what isn’t obvious is … how?
His paraphrase of the famous Einstein quote — “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results” — is apt and perhaps useful to an extent. It’s easy to think the Cougars aren’t as bad as they looked against the Frogs. But are they good enough to win consistently in their new league?
Maybe some year. Not this year.
Sitake knows it, even if he wants so badly to believe something else. He just can’t say what he knows. And the worst part about it is, there’s not a whole lot he can do about it other than suffer and learn.
I feel for the man and for his team.
They will taste victory again, but not on the reg, not even if they found a way to do what cannot be done — reinvent the wheel.
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