The BYU-Utah battle is raging. And most compelling it is to watch.
Football is not war, not even close, but it is a fight to the freaking finish, a fight among friends.
Kalani Sitake and Kyle Whittingham are, indeed, friends, have always been pals, the kind who can hang out together, who can hold a backyard barbecue, sitting down across the table from one another, eating properly grilled brats and roasted chicken, swapping their stories and their laughs. They are buds who can unabashedly hug each other, but who also, like brothers, can slap each other around a bit.
So slap they will.
And steal from each other they will.
Sitake has swiped three of Whittingham’s players in recent days. Not just random, run-of-the-mill dudes. We’re talking guys who can make a real difference for BYU and who will leave a gaping hole along the waterline of the Utes.
Four-star recruit Hunter Clegg, an edge rusher who just returned from a church mission, is one of them. According to scouting reports, Clegg could have played for any of the nation’s top programs. He was slated for Utah, and now he’s veering down to help Jay Hill improve a Cougar defense that is on the rise.
On the offensive side, tight end Carsen Ryan, who bolted from UCLA to join the Utes this past season, has decided now to move south, where the team down there can really use him, can use him at a position that used to be highlighted on the regular, but that of late has been strangely if not invisible, entirely too … clear. Not now, not anymore.
And on Monday, it became known that Keanu Tanuvasa, an anchor of Utah’s defense in 2024, a big, bad defensive lineman who can more than capably fill a cavity created by a number of Cougars vacating their spots along the D-line due to used-up eligibility. He can star in it.
There have been other Utes BYU has targeted, which they have — so far, at least — failed to reel in. The Cougars will wait … and lurk, chanting on and on that there’s a new emerging presence in the fold, a new sheriff by the name of Hill, who BYU is paying a wagonload of money to stick around as defensive guru.
Whatever other money is being handed out to players is for Cougar coaches to know and for the rest of us to guess at. Not sure that great football players are all about spiritual growth, about taking, say, Book of Mormon classes available exclusively on the Provo campus. They might be, but BYU’s recent success and its come-hither look, with an extended palm holding the green goods of the world, are heavy incentives to seek a more celestial college experience.
Whittingham has had his successes going the other way in the past. He’s lifted a few Cougars through the years. And he’s always said, to his credit, that a winning program is more about the talents and mental approaches of the players than it is about the acumen of the coaches. He’s called the players the lifeblood of his program. And the Utes have been busy since their season blew apart, taking in players from here, there, everywhere.
But it is Sitake, with transfer rules currently as loose as they’ve ever been before, who is taking players away from Whittingham now, more than it is the other way around.
Sitake was able to look past Utah’s thievery heretofore, staying tight with the man for which he once worked as a defensive coordinator, a man he proclaims as one of the main influences in his coaching career. How Whittingham, one of the most competitive individuals ever to prowl a sideline, will respond as Sitake strikes back is anybody’s guess. But there’s no guessing needed to determine that Utah’s lead dog is growling right now.
Friend or no, barbecue or no, grilled brats and roasted chicken or no, you don’t sneak into the Utes’ backyard, sit down at their table, eat their food, swap stories, and leave with the very thing that has made their football so successful — their players.
Yeah, Whittingham is growling right now. He’s absconding with other programs’ stars, a lot of them, and that’s all fine and good. But BYU taking his guys is a whole other thing.
The fight to the freaking finish, rather literally in the veteran Utah coach’s case, is on, the battle is raging. The friends might still be willing to embrace each other, sharing stories and laughs, but Brutus was famously Julius Caesar’s huggable chum, too.
Whew. Sitake-Whittingham. A friend in blue. A friend in red. BYU-Utah. Thievery here, thievery there.
Most compelling it is to watch.
