A spark kindled the already-stacked tinder, leading to the burn felt by Kalani Sitake in the run-up to BYU’s current football season, and now that the regular season is a quarter of the way done, maybe it doesn’t really matter anymore.

But then, maybe it does, maybe it will.

Nobody knows, not Sitake himself, how this promising football go-round will turn out for BYU and, just as importantly, regardless of the eventual win-loss record, precisely what Sitake will do when the season is over.

Broken promises, even perceived broken promises, tend to rupture goodwill, and ruptured goodwill leads to wills of a different kind, such as …

Will he stay or will he go?

Will he go, or will he go on coaching the team he loves at the school he’s always said he loves? Or is the thin line that separates love from getting the hell out of Dodge on account of distrust and dishonesty now too slim, too fragile to restore over the long haul what’s been lost over the short?

Sitake is all in on making everything he can out of his team’s current run, and nothing that’s transpired on the field thus far gives any hint of doubt about that. The Cougars are on schedule, at 3-0 heading into a bye week, to be what a lot of people thought they’d be before the Sitake-Brian Santiago hubbub erupted last month.

Sitake was the one who introduced the public to his dissatisfaction, something that had been whispered about in not-so-quiet corners of BYU football for some time.

When he told everyone he was disappointed that he was expected to do the most with the least at BYU, outsiders were blown away by that, on account of Sitake’s previous heartfelt statements regarding his connection to the school, what the school had meant to him, what he wanted to do for the school.

During an interview with me in July, an expansive interaction that lasted nearly two hours as the coach reviewed and revisited his overall experience at BYU and what his vision was for the future, Sitake became emotional. At one point, he broke down and cried. His weren’t faux tears. He wasn’t putting on an act. If he was, he deserved an Oscar. He felt earnestly and deeply what he was saying about his relationship with BYU, his team, his football program. But there was a side to it that seemed off, almost fractured.

Tough guys like Sitake, even in their tender moments, don’t usually have the plumbing in their eyes back up and spill over like that. I’d known the man in one way or another for the better part of three decades, having had him for a time as a weekly guest on my radio show and having talked with him about personal subjects far beyond just football at other times.

So, on this particular occasion, Sitake poured out his feelings without getting into the specifics of his frustrations. Looking back, I should have dug deeper.

There was another oddity that occurred during that interview, one I noted as a bit different, but it didn’t scream to me the way it should have. As the conversation with the coach went on and on, as we sat in a comfortable lounge adjacent to the football coaches’ offices overlooking BYU’s outdoor practice field, an interloper entered the room, unexpected and unannounced.

It was BYU’s athletic director.

Santiago cordially interrupted the chat, coming over and greeting me with a handshake and some small talk — which was a bit unusual compared to my previous interactions with the man — and then he hovered around for a bit. This is speculation on my part, but, in hindsight, I think he might have been reminding Sitake that he was present or nearby or just checking out what the coach was saying to a columnist who in the past had been willing to put into print both the good and the bad about the way things went down at BYU.

By then and long before, the two of them had been feuding, Sitake wanting Santiago out as the leader of BYU sports, certainly as the boss of BYU football, in part because he hadn’t come through on the aforementioned promises that Sitake thought had been extended to him when he turned down the Penn State head coaching job, lured as he was into staying in Provo.

Back to the spark.

When Sitake was presented with the Penn State job, which would have afforded the coach more money, more resources, more everything football-related, Santiago passed along to BYU’s top [church] authorities what it would take to keep him. Those authorities, according to sources, initially rejected the idea of matching what was being offered.

Santiago, meanwhile, approached then-defensive coordinator Jay Hill about his interest in replacing Sitake.

Then, something strange happened. The aforementioned authorities, upon further review, changed their minds. They thought it best for Sitake to stay in place as the face of BYU football. A smart decision, but one that was a tad bit delayed. Sitake was made aware of Santiago’s move toward Hill, and let’s just say that didn’t go over so well.

Sitake’s concerns about the treatment of BYU football and the role Santiago played in that treatment had stirred for some time, as had other issues that caused friction, matters that caused a sort of drying out of flammable conditions. But the real flashpoint was the initial indecision on the part of top school leadership.

From there, the fire and frustration flared, and the alarm and adventure accelerated.