Had my fortune read or foretold, whatever, once by a trippy woman named Madame Zelda. She was an older gal who wore funky robes, ate a lot of cantaloupe, even during our session, and smelled like cheap incense. I thought the visit, the whole endeavor. was a joke, that she was a character that fell straight out of a cartoon. I laughed a few times as she got in touch with the cosmos. But I gotta admit, she nailed a number of things — not all — about my future. Props to her.
Kalani Sitake reminds me a little of Madame Z, minus the robes, the cantaloupe and the incense. Four weeks into BYU’s season, it seems apparent that more than a month ago he nailed a number of things about the Cougars, things few others could see.
After BYU beat Kansas State on Saturday night, I was thinking about the Sitake-Zelda connection. That’s when the coach twisted this way and that, talking inside of the same paragraphs about some of the things his team did wrong, while also pointing out things it did right.
He could ricochet his thoughts around like that rather easily, without causing damage to anything or anyone, what with a 38-9 victory in the bag. But there was more ricocheting going on, deeper, more rapid bouncing between the satisfaction of an unexpected 4-0 start to the season, and the urgency to prepare for the work yet ahead. Just one more victory, and his team will tie last year’s total.
Asked Saturday night what statement his team had made, Sitake answered, “We showed that we can play. … The question was: ‘What kind of team is this?’ I think there’s a lot of unknowns, but that’s OK. Maybe people know a little bit more now. Not going to surprise anybody anymore … so we got to be ready, keep working, and be humble.”
With that said, Sitake was sending a double-edged message to all those in the media, in the prediction business, in the stands and everywhere else who had doubted not just the talent of this particular iteration of Cougars, but its trajectory, too, and also to his team, directing his players not to mess up a promising start to their second trip through their new league with a sudden lack of focus and too much yet-unearned pomposity. The Cougars are nowhere near talented enough to float on by like that. Some really smart people still believe BYU isn’t the better team, even after its home-fueled triumph over K-State — and it won by 29 points.
An absence of focus and abundance of arrogance will get BYU beat this week at Baylor — and at other places. It could very well happen. Sitake is sure of that.
Either way, the skeptics, present company included, thought there was small chance that the 2024 Cougars would get to 4-0, or clear the relatively low bar of making a bowl game this time around. And those preseason guesses that BYU would finish at or near the bottom of the Big 12 were quietly objectionable to the coach. “Everyone can have their opinions about our team, but we’re better than a lot of people are saying we’ll be,” he told me in August.
I asked Coach Zelda why he believed that, how he could see it.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brigham Young Cougars tight end Ryner Swanson (80) falls during the game between the Brigham Young Cougars and the Kansas State Wildcats in Provo on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024.
His response: “Hard work. You can make up the difference on a lot of things if you have the work ethic, and I think we do. We have the passion, the intelligence, and the commitment to get this thing right, and we’ll get there. I’m excited. I want everyone to see what we see.”
Wait, there’s more.
Sitake also claimed that there were no-name players on his team that would transition into stars this season: “I’m counting on it. That’s what this team can and should be doing. There will be some that nobody anticipated, and some who will take advantage of new opportunities. We have a lot of guys here who can play at the next level. I’d like to see them make some big-time plays before they move on.”
Thus far, college standouts, if not pro prospects, are emerging or giving hints of emerging. Guys like Jack Kelly, Isaiah Glasker, Harrison Taggart, Mory Bamba, Crew Wakley, Darius Lassiter, the dinged Sione Moa, among others.
And big plays have been key to BYU’s success, as was evidenced in that run through the end of the second quarter into the third quarter against the Wildcats. That might have been one of the craziest short-stretch explosions anyone has ever seen, huge plays made by the offense, the defense and special teams.
Defense was discussed at length by Sitake during his prognostications and he was convinced results would be better. To date, the two P4 teams the Cougars have faced — SMU and K-State — failed to score a single touchdown. “Keep an eye on that side of the ball,” Sitake said. “We’ve got some players there.”
Overall, Sitake was more optimistic than anyone I had talked to about BYU football. Maybe that’s a coach’s job, but he was on an island in the middle of a vast ocean. Vegas was not optimistic, not at all. In fact, oddsmakers said Sitake’s chances of being the head coach fired first this season were extremely high, sixth highest among all FBS coaches.
Sitake said he knew better.
“We’re a bit of a mystery. And I don’t mind it. There’s nothing wrong with people on the outside not knowing what we have. We’re watching the talent that’s there. We’re way different than we were last year.”
He said the adversity of a year ago helped BYU figure out how to play in the Big 12: “There were a lot of things last year that our guys didn’t know. Now, they do. They’ve come together. … I don’t know what the record will end up being. Nobody does. But I don’t think people have us right. We’re bigger and we’re faster. We are a better team.”
He was right, everyone else was wrong. That’s the way it looks, anyway, a third of the way into the season. Are the Cougars a flawless outfit better than and beyond their record? Will they remain unbeaten? No, they are not, they will not, and Sitake acknowledges at least the former now, being careful not to see and harp on seeing only the hole, not the doughnut, thus far. But he knows his offense has to improve to maintain an ascent through conference play. Averaging 390 total yards won’t be good enough to continue a steep climb.
That aforementioned defense is holding teams to an average of 12.8 points and 269 total yards. Oddly enough, BYU is getting the exact same number of rushing yards on average as it is yielding to opponents — 136.3, the same number of overall rushing attempts — 137, and the same number of total rushing touchdowns — four. It’s getting twice as many passing yards, and nine total TDs passing versus zero for its opponents.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kansas State Wildcats running back DJ Giddens (31) is tackled by the Brigham Young Cougars during the game between the Brigham Young Cougars and the Kansas State Wildcats in Provo on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024.
The coach is proud of that, and gives his defensive assistants and his athletes high praise for an elevated level of play over last season’s mostly abysmal showing. He’s happy, sort of, with what’s happening on offense, but sees room for growth there.
With his isolated high expectations being fulfilled to this juncture, the last thing Sitake can stomach enduring is a collapse similar to last season’s flop, when the Cougars lost five consecutive games to finish 2-7 in conference.
While he beams during postgame interviews after every win, sporting a kind of expression that screams, “I told all you fools that we’d be formidable this year, and you wouldn’t listen,” there’s also an evident postgame drag, an unmistakable feeling he gives off that he’s fully aware that his team must press forward and upward in the weeks ahead, and that it will.
Sitake hit the mark in August, when so many missed it. Will he still hit it in November?
“We got to be ready, keep working, and be humble,” the man reiterated the other night.
“I believe in this team,” the coach said as he peered into his preseason crystal ball. “I see a bright future. I see success. We have work ahead of us. And I’m looking forward to what’s to come.”
