PROVO — Known for his love of dancing, Kalani Sitake stayed in character when asked about his connection to the vacant Penn State head coaching position.
Speaking on Monday during a Big 12 media availability promoting the conference championship game, Sitake danced around direct questions involving his interest in the prestigious Big Ten job.
Multiple media outlets and websites list the BYU coach as the leading candidate to replace James Franklin, who was fired earlier this season despite taking his team to the national playoffs last year.
With a pending playoff invitation likely riding on the outcome, the Cougars will face Texas Tech at the Dallas Cowboys stadium on Saturday. Commissioner Brett Yormark and Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire answered questions on the game, but the matchup between the two 11-win teams played second fiddle behind Sitake’s surprising flirtations with Penn State.
Aware of the rampant speculation swirling on social media, Sitake admits he will address the issue with the team. He called it a “good distraction,” meaning BYU has played well enough for him to draw attention from other programs.
“I will say this isn’t about me,” Sitake said. “What I’ve asked our team to do is to be focused on what we’re trying to accomplish.”
If only it were as simple as Sitake makes it sound. The distinct possibility of losing the coach, who follows the industry standard of demanding a singular focus each week, is a major — and not good — distraction.
Even if Sitake’s interest is only to use as leverage to better his current situation and for his staff at BYU, it can’t help the program vying for its first playoff bid against the heavily favored Red Raiders. Texas Tech dominated BYU in Lubbock in October, leaving a mark that may prevent BYU from getting an at-large bid into the playoff.
“I’ve asked our team to be focused on what we can control,” Sitake said. “Right now, we control what we’re doing as a team and not worry about all the distraction. This is a great distraction to have, let’s be honest, but right now we need to be focused on making sure we’re giving our best shot in this game against Texas Tech.”
History usually is not kind to teams in these situations. Four years ago, as rumors swirled that Oregon coach Mario Cristobal was going home to take the Miami job, Utah crushed the distracted Ducks in the Pac-12 championship game.
In what turned out to be Lincoln Riley’s last game as the Oklahoma coach four years ago, the Sooners lost to Oklahoma State for the first time in seven seasons. The next day Riley officially was announced as the new USC coach.
Pressed a second time, Sitake gave a short answer that likely doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation. “I’m all about the Big 12 championship, so I’m going to avoid all the distractions,” he said.
Too late.
Critics can howl at the rotten timing, but this is far from an isolated case. The coaching carousel circulates annually with new jobs getting filled long before seasons end, often leaving assistants to run teams during postseason preparations.
For BYU, the best scenario is Sitake’s allegiance that began as young boy and continued as a player wins out in the end. To get there, the university needs to bump up his salary along with other improvements to make the program more competitive financially with the likes of deep-pocketed Texas Tech.
After BYU went 11-2 last season, Sitake got a long-term contract extension that had then-athletic director Tom Holmoe saying in a statement “it’s good to know we will have a consistent leader for a long time.” Even with the new deal, Sitake’s salary is regarded as well below what Penn State would offer.
In December 2021, BYU signed Sitake to contract through the 2027 season. Around the same time, basketball coach Mark Pope had received reworked contracts before leaving for Kentucky. BYU then poured a substantial amount of money into the program to lure Kevin Young away from his job as an assistant coach in the NBA.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
