Kalani Sitake feels that the BYU Cougars are on the precipice of greatness, or at the very least on the precipice of the College Football Playoff.
Sitake and the Cougars went 12-2 last season with a win in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. They made the Big 12 championship game and could have very well been a CFP team, but their two losses to Texas Tech in 2025 killed them.
They lost 29-7 in Lubbock and then 34-7 in the Big 12 title game.
It was, all in all, a great season for the Cougars, though, and Sitake has improved his overall record to 84-45 and 6-2 in bowl games.
He’s undoubtedly one of the best coaches in college football, as evidenced by the Penn State Nittany Lions’ all-out blitz to steal him away last season to replace James Franklin. Penn State settled on Matt Campbell after getting spurned by Sitake, but now the former BYU fullback is asking for the school to reward his loyalty with a little bit more investment.
It’s not money for him. And it’s really not all about money, either. He’s looking for more investment from BYU into his football program. He wants the Cougars to compete in the NIL space, and that takes money to win over players, but it sounds like he’s also interested in other upgrades for the program.
“I said before, I don’t want to be the highest bidder, but I’d like to have access to stuff like that, and that’s a reminder to the administration that you can count on us to do things right and be responsible with the finances to get the right program in place,” Sitake recently said, per Cougar Sports Media (h/t On3). “Sometimes, you kind of go through these things. You’re like, ‘OK, this is going well.’ And I’ve always just been appreciative of everything. But then, when I look back at it and my agent tells me, ‘Hey, this is the stuff that everybody else has.’ … It just gives me a whole different appreciation for them.”