Arizona Football Coach Sees Parallels Between BYU And Utah
Oct 8, 2024, 2:36 PM
PROVO, Utah – Brent Brennan is in his first year as head coach of the Arizona Wildcats.
The former San Jose State coach is preparing to face BYU for the second time in his head coaching career. His first matchup against BYU and Kalani Sitake was in 2017, in his first year with the Spartans.
BYU won that game 41-20.
Brennan and Sitake were colleagues at Oregon State for a season before Sitake took over as head coach of his alma mater.
“Kalani and I worked together in 2015 at Oregon State. We lived in the same neighborhood, and he’s one of my favorite people on the planet,” Brennan said. “He’s just an incredible human being, a great father, a great husband, and a great football coach.”
The new headman of the Wildcats knows what to expect from a Sitake-coached team. He shared his thoughts on BYU in preparation for Saturday’s afternoon Big 12 clash in Provo.
“A really good football. I think it’s an interesting situation where, coming into this conference, our last four games have all been against really good people, right? All people that have one loss or better, you know what I mean? So, going on the road, another hostile environment, they’re extremely physical. They’re very well-coached. They play hard.”
BYU’s physicality reminds Brent Brennan of Utah
Brennan also drew some comparisons between BYU and their rival Utah.
Arizona pulled off an upset victory over Utah two weeks ago in Salt Lake City.
Brennan added on BYU, “In some ways, like physicality-wise, they’re similar to what you experience when you play Utah.”
BYU enters the game against Arizona with a top-20 defense (292.6 allowed per game) and 21st nationally in turnover margin.
The Wildcats performed well against Utah’s physicality, scoring 23 points on the road in the win and allowing only 10 points. However, Arizona has had underwhelming performances against Kansas State and last week’s Big 12 home opener against Texas Tech.
“I think the cool thing about it is that everybody on the team and on our offensive side of the ball is looking at the small details that had a huge impact in that game, that we could have easily fixed. I love where our defense is at. I think they’re playing with real energy and physicality. It’s really exciting. And I think there’s a couple of plays that we’d all like back, and that’s what happens when you don’t win a football game.”
No. 14 BYU vs. Arizona
Date: Saturday, October 12, 2024
Kickoff: 2 p.m. (MDT)
TV: FOX
Radio: KSL NewsRadio (102.7 FM, 1160 AM)
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.
