After rejecting Big Ten offers to stay in Provo, Sitake is demanding the competitive resources necessary to lead the Cougars.
The BYU Cougars football team has risen to new heights behind Kalani Sitake. By coaching standards, the BYU alum is unconventional. He has remained loyal to the team, despite pulling in lucrative offers to leave.
Penn State had envisioned him as their next head coach and got serious to the point of making an offer. Still, Sitake wasn't swayed to leave like many other coaches would have been in the same situation. One side of the deal with him staying was that BYU was going to give him more support behind the scenes. The extension and reported pay bump was nice for Sitake. But he wants to put him and his staff in a position to win.
Sitake hasn't made it a secret that he's frustrated about the lack of resources being provided. Especially right before one of the biggest seasons in program history.
There's no blame game to be played here. Sitake is doing right by the terms of his contract and the people who depend on him. You can't fault him for calling out what needs attention.
"I still want more resources for these guys. Because then for me, the frustrating part is, like, yeah, we've been able to do so much, and it was like, okay, keep doing it... but we can do way more at a faster rate," Sitake said. "I'm not going to be the one that's making high demands. These are very simple demands. So people that our opponents have in the conference and not even Texas Tech, the others. So, if we can get on an even playing field with that stuff, then I should be able to do more."
This is a new era in college sports where more of an operating budget is needed to compete. Nobody has to tell that to Sitake, who has traditionally done more with less up until this point. While few people will know definitively what was agreed upon for Sitake to stay in Provo and not start over in Happy Valley, BYU officials should have a deep desire to keep him happy and flooded with support. Whether that means a bigger budget for NIL, better facilities and a deeper assistant coaches pool, so be it. It's the cost of winning in college football, and will only become more competitive from here on out.
As one former Power Four team director of operations told me recently, "These colleges and universities need to understand that programs are now a marketing arm for their respective institutions. They don't make money unless the teams are competitive above and just before making the postseason."
The same rule applies for BYU. Cougars athletic director Brian Santiago has to start thinking about what the landscape is going to look like five years from now.
Just think about how it was five years ago.
There has been significant progress that no legislation is going to fix overnight. The players are mean business and the market is going to have some course correction or revert to the days when the student-athlete fits the description. Those days are gone.
The best thing BYU can do for themselves and the health of the program is to give Sitake everything he needs. This isn't a situation where you can avoid it. If that's the case, Sitake can go find somewhere else to win a national championship. He wants to stay in Provo because he has invested too much of his life not to live out his dreams with the Cougars.
Sitake is the rare exception to the coaching ranks in a few different ways. The ball is in BYU's court at this point. Give him what he needs to be successful or be comfortable with the possibility of him leaving the next time a major opportunity opens up. That's the reality here.
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