1. What are your thoughts on BYU’s new deal made with Kalani Sitake and greater financial commitments to BYU football?

GURNEY: It was an absolute necessity given BYU’s recent success on top of how well Kalani Sitake represents the program’s stated mission. BYU has proven to have extraordinary buy-in from a fanbase that suffered through the wilderness of independence, and a handful of these fans just happen to be worth a boatload of money.

What I’m saying is that BYU has enormous potential given the current state of college athletics, and perhaps no one understands this better than Kalani, which is why he put the screws to the the BYU Administration respond to not only his market value, relative to his reported offer from Penn State, but the value and potential of the entire football program.

DICKSON: The stunning changes that have taken place in college sports over the past five years are just the beginning. If BYU wants to be a competitive program in the future, this move was absolutely essential. Going 22-3 over the past two seasons has provided great forward momentum and there’s no standing still now. All in, right? It was also nice to see Sitake take care of his assistant coaches and staff. Whenever there’s a coaching change, the ripple effect rips through assistants and coaches who aren’t getting millions.

2. What’s the most important thing the BYU football team needs to change in order to prove competitive against Texas Tech and perhaps even win the game come Saturday?

DICKSON: All three phases need to show up together for the Cougars to be in this game. In the last meeting, the defense was good but the offense was inept and the special teams were absolutely catastrophic. The way BYU has won all season is complementary football, and that equation was not what we saw last month in Lubbock. If all three units are solid, the game will be close and the Cougars can laugh in the face of the CFP committee.

If they lose again and by several scores, all the committee members will congratulate themselves on how smart they are and forget about BYU altogether. So no pressure, right?

GURNEY: BYU absolutely has to get off to a good start. It has to set the tone and can’t get in the position to play catch up like it has during too many games played this season. Sure, that script can work, and has worked against the likes of UCF, Colorado and Arizona, but Texas Tech is way too good of a team to mess around during the first quarter of play while incurring a significant deficit to overcome.

The Cougars need to be on top of the gameplan and come out swinging early an often if they’re to have a chance at getting by a Red Raider team that I think could be the best team in the entire country.

3. Outside of Bear Bachmeier, who is the one BYU player who needs to step up most come Saturday in order for BYU to secure a win?

GURNEY: In my opinion, it’s Chase Roberts. This one’s tricky given Roberts’ issues with an apparent gimpy hamstring which forced him to the sidelines early in the win over Cincinnati and kept him completely out-of-action versus UCF. Roberts is listed as probable for Saturday’s game, but soft tissues have a knack to flare up at inopportune moments.

BYU needs to show a downfield threat against a Red Raider defense that poses perhaps the best defensive front in the entire country. Roberts has that ability and needs to provide perhaps his best performance to date should the Cougars hope to come out on top and secure a coveted spot in the College Football Playoff.

DICKSON: It has to be running back LJ Martin, the newly crowned Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year. He wasn’t quite healthy the last time the two teams played but he’s shown all season how important he is to a successful game plan. He doesn’t have to break 30 or 40-yard runs. He just has to do what he always does, which is get 4, 5, 6-yard gains leaning forward all the while. That will keep the Texas Tech defense honest and out of the backfield when the Cougars decide to throw.

4. Does BYU have a legitimate shot at an at-large bid to the CFP if it loses to Texas Tech on Saturday?

DICKSON: I’m not sure how anyone would think they do. The CFP committee has made it pretty clear that they aren’t impressed at all with any of BYU’s resume building numbers; It’s all about the 29-7 loss to the Red Raiders last month. The Cougars didn’t pass the “eye test” and nothing short of a victory in the Big 12 Championship Game means any different.

It certainly can be a galvanizing moment for the players, who should feel the ultimate disrespect and be completely focused on making a good showing. The old “nobody believed in us” mantra applies here. Texas Tech is a very good football team, but the Cougars didn’t show their best selves in the last meeting. Saturday is the time.

GURNEY: Remember way back when former BYU Coach Bronco Mendenhall made a rare joke during a press conference and followed up by saying, “That was a joke, by the way.” Yes, my question is sort of a joke, sort of, but what I want to say about this is that should BYU give Texas Tech a game, and prove competitive then the committee should have no choice but to grant BYU an at-large bid.

Almost every metric dictates that BYU should be ranked higher than the likes of Notre Dame, Alabama and Oklahoma, but the one stated aspect the committee is holding against the Cougars is how they biffed in their last game against Texas Tech. Should BYU upend this narrative on Saturday, then the other metrics should dictate that BYU receive an at-large bid.

But of course that won’t be the case. The committee has revealed itself and the only path for BYU to be included into the CFP is with a win over Texas Tech on Saturday.

5. BYU signed a 2026 recruiting class ranked No. 21 nationally currently by the 247 Sports Network. Is this the best BYU recruiting class you’ve seen since covering the program?

GURNEY: As the former publisher of the 247 BYU affiliate, I’ve covered BYU recruiting intensely throughout the years, and can confidently state that this is top-to-bottom the best Cougar recruiting class I’ve covered.

BYU’s signing list includes six 4-star rated prospects, which includes standouts like offensive lineman Bott Mulitalo (Lone Peak) and Lopeti Moala (Orem), not to mention top quarterback prospect Ryder Lyons, who was downgraded from a 5-star to a 4-star prospect just prior to signing day, for whatever reason. The signing class is full of prospects that has impressive competing offers and is exactly the level of talent BYU needs to harvest to prove legitimate contenders in the near future.

DICKSON: Who am I to disagree with Gurney and his pedigree? Yeah, it was fun going to a sports bar in Salt Lake City and seeing Jake Heaps, Ross Apo and Zac Stout pledge to the Cougars back in 2009. They all wanted to win a national title for BYU. They fell short, but there was a lot of excitement among Cougar fans when they committed. That class didn’t have the depth of the 2025 class and I think that’s important to note.

Also, it’s getting harder and harder for high school seniors to make the grade because all of the attention on the transfer portal, so this class is the elite of the elite.