Adapt or get left behind: BYU head coach Kalani Sitake and Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham looking at positives in college football changes
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- Brigham Young University head coach Kalani Sitake and University of Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham embrace one another after the Utes defeated the Cougars on Friday, Aug. 30, 2019, at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo. The game began on Thursday, but due to a lightning delay it ended on Friday. (Isaac Hale, Daily Herald)
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- BYU head football coach Kalani Sitake (left) and Utah head football coach Kyle Whittingham laugh during the banquet after the Coaches Legacy Tournament benefitting the National Kidney Foundation of Utah and Idaho at Hidden Valley Country Club in Draper on Monday, June 3, 2024/
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- BYU head football coach Kalani Sitake and Utah head football coach Kyle Whittingham walk toward the start of the Coaches Legacy Tournament benefitting the National Kidney Foundation of Utah and Idaho at Hidden Valley Country Club in Draper on Monday, June 3, 2024.
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- BYU offensive linemen prepare to run a play during the 26-17 Cougar win over the Utes at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo on Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021. (Courtesy Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo)
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- BYU offensive linemen prepare to run a play during the 26-17 Cougar win over the Utes at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo on Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021. (Courtesy Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo)
Whether college football coaches like BYU’s Kalani Sitake or Utah’s Kyle Whittingham like how the game has changed in recent years is mostly irrelevant.
They simply have to deal with a different playing field now.
“You have to adapt and embrace it or else you will get left behind,” Whittingham said at the Coaches Legacy Invitational benefitting the National Kidney Foundation of Utah and Idaho at Hidden Valley Country Club in Draper on Monday. “You’ve got to figure it out. You can’t complain or whine about it because that won’t do any good. You have to figure out how you are going to do things that are going to be in the best interest of your program.”
Change has become the norm for coaches like Whittingham and Sitake, with the latest seismic shift coming with the settlement of lawsuits opening the door for athletes to be paid by universities.
“The initial plan was the players to be paid off of the revenue, so I think that’s what we’re getting,” Sitake said. “I don’t know all the details on it, because I think there’s still a lot to be decided in terms of who controls it from there and what are the limits. It’s putting all the details together, but I’m glad the players get taken care of.”
His first thought, though, is that now the education efforts need to be elevated to ensure that athletes are able to manage their money well.
“I think the most important thing for us is to make sure that we educate them on how to use the money and on finances,” Sitake said. “I think that is important for them to learn. I don’t know where we’ll be a year from now, but I know that it’s opened the door for quite a bit of movement to happen in NIL world and I’m glad that our players get to be a part of that.”
Whittingham said that he feels like the player benefits are the best thing to come out of a lot of the evolutions in college sports.
“It’s here and it’s not going away,” Whittingham said. “I think it’s great for the players. Anything that benefits the players, I’m all for it. But it would be nice to try to level the playing field a little bit between programs with some sort of caps or some guardrails of some sort.”
He also was quick to point out that he sees more changes on the horizon.
“There’s so much more to come,” Whittingham said. “We’re at the tip of the iceberg and it’s going to be dramatically different in the next two to five years. It’s just constant evolution and it’s not done yet.”
On a more local level, Whittingham and his Utes are going through another conference change as they will join BYU in the Big 12 starting this fall.
“It’s invigorating and energizing,” Whittingham said. “This is the fourth conference I’ve been in, from the WAC to the Mountain West to the Pac 12 to now the Big 12. We have a bunch of new venues that we’re going to go to and a bunch of new teams coming into Rice-Eccles Stadium. It’s a challenge and we’re looking forward to it.”
Sitake said that while that will require Utah to adapt, he things it will be easier than some of the other transitions the schools have made.
“I think the transition will be different than when we went from the Mountain West to the Pac 12,” Sitake said. “Utah will be going from a power conference to another power conference. I think you’ll find a lot of similarities in the talent and the physical part of the game, but it was an eye-opener when we went from the Mountain West to the Pac 12. You go through it and you’re like, OK, this is what we’ve got to get ready for.”
He said that he saw that same adjustment happening with his Cougars last season as they got their first taste of Big 12 play.
“I felt like going through that adjustment, sometimes you just have to learn,” Sitake said. “They’re considered growing pains. I can’t tell them that this was the experience that we had when we were at Utah and so be ready for this. I think people just kind of have to figure it out themselves. I think it will be a lot different in the second year than it was in the first.”
