Brian Santiago addresses Kalani Sitake relationship, outlines investment into BYU football
Oct 23, 2026, 9:26 PM
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — BYU athletic director Brian Santiago says the university is investing unprecedented resources into football, and he remains committed to supporting Kalani Sitake amid changes to the program’s administrative oversight.
During an interview on the Cougar Tracks Podcast at Big 12 Basketball Media Day, Santiago discussed the athletic department shakeup before the football season, where Vice President Keith Vorkink was assigned to oversee BYU football, his relationship with Kalani Sitake, more than $25 million in ongoing football capital projects, and the responsibility to build on BYU’s national momentum.
The conversation came following BYU football’s win over Notre Dame, with the Cougars ranked No. 2 in the country at the time of the interview.
“We’re going to continue to make good on the commitments that we’ve made,” Santiago said to KSL Sports. “We’re going to continue to do everything we can to elevate Kalani and this program.”
Brian Santiago on his relationship with Kalani Sitake
Asked directly how he would describe his relationship with Sitake, Santiago pointed to their years working together and a shared desire to elevate BYU football.
“Kalani and I have been together for 11 years, and we’ve always had a good relationship,” Santiago said. “And I’m going to continue to focus on the positives.”
That shared objective, Santiago said, includes reaching heights the football program hasn’t seen since its 1984 national championship, 42 years ago.
BYU football’s No. 2 ranking this week is the highest the Cougars have reached in the AP Top 25 since that title run in ’84.
“We all want the same thing,” he said. “We all want to continue to elevate this program to heights that haven’t happened since 1984.”
Santiago also emphasized his personal commitment to maintaining the relationship.
“I’m going to continue to do everything I can to have a great rapport and relationship with Kalani,” he said.
BYU football oversight is a “group effort”
Santiago was asked about the university’s August announcement that Advancement Vice President Keith Vorkink would oversee football and what that change meant for his involvement.
He acknowledged Vorkink’s oversight while describing the work surrounding football as collaborative.
“The university announced that Keith would be overseeing the football program, but I’m still the athletic director,” Santiago said. “I work every day with the Big 12. We’ve got initiatives happening every day that we’ve all got to lean into.”
Santiago did not lay out a detailed division of responsibilities for scheduling or reporting relationships. Instead, he emphasized a common purpose.
“From our perspective, I’m just looking at it as a group effort, and we together are going to continue to try to elevate BYU,” he said.
“This is bigger than any individual. This is about BYU.”
More than $25 million in football capital projects
One of Santiago’s most specific disclosures involved investment in football facilities.
“We’re heavily invested, and we’ve invested unprecedented resources in our coach, in our coaching staff, in the football program,” Santiago said. “We’ve got 25-plus million dollars of capital projects going on right now in the football program.”
Santiago did not identify the individual projects or provide a percentage increase in spending since BYU joined the Big 12. But he said continued investment is part of helping Sitake sustain success.
“Kalani Sitake wants to be great, and so he’s going to continue to press for us to put resources in place to help him be successful,” Santiago said.
Asked about areas Sitake wants to improve, Santiago described a coach evaluating every aspect of his program rather than identifying specific unmet requests.
“What I take from that is we have a coach that wants to have sustained excellence at the very highest level of college football,” Santiago said. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“He’s super competitive. I’m super, super competitive, and I’m going to continue to lean in to do everything I can as the athletic director to help this program be the best in the country.”
Football success does not have to come at other sports’ expense at BYU
Santiago acknowledged football’s leading role while defending BYU’s commitment to a broad-based athletic department.
“Everybody knows football is the king,” he said. “So, we need to pour resources in and help him be wildly successful.”
But Santiago rejected the idea that success in football and success elsewhere are mutually exclusive.
“We want to be wildly successful in football and be wildly successful in our other sports,” he said. “And we can.”
He pointed to seven BYU fall teams ranked in the top 25 at the time of the interview and credited coaches, athletes, donors, corporate sponsors, and years of work building the department.
Editor’s note: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSL and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast daily on KSL Sports YouTube and KSL NewsRadio (SUBSCRIBE). Harper also co-hosts Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL NewsRadio.
Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU athletics in the Big 12 Conference on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram: @Mitch_Harper.
