Anonymous Coaches Weigh In On Direction Of BYU Football Under Kalani Sitake

PROVO, Utah – Who doesn’t love some good old-fashioned anonymous gossip, especially when it’s about BYU football?

You can find some of this anonymous gossip each year in the Athlon Sports College Football Preview.

Choose from 23 different covers when you order the Athlon Sports 2021 National College Football Annual, including the Mountain West version with @BYUfootball's Tyler Algeier, @CUBuffsFootball's Nate Landman, and @Utah_Football's Brant Kuithe.https://t.co/uho4xcKz09 pic.twitter.com/QgxdTbWA8C

— Athlon Sports (@AthlonSports) May 19, 2021

The 2021 edition featuring BYU RB Tyler Allgeier on the cover hit newsstands last week and there is some interesting anonymous commentary from “opposing coaches” in this year’s issue. You can also purchase the magazine online.

Remember last year; anonymous opposing coaches believed Zach Wilson might not be BYU’s best option at quarterback. Obviously, that was a huge swing and a miss.

We had @38Godfrey read anonymous coach gossip about a bunch of unnamed teams, then guessed the teams. See if you do better than @alex_kirshner did:

Spotify: https://t.co/kNzyEXt8AD
Stitcher: https://t.co/v6DW72bBeG
Google: https://t.co/iXvK4LdoDS
Apple: https://t.co/QDHmUUpEVO pic.twitter.com/ttKpA3URnR

— Split Zone Duo (@SplitZoneDuo) May 26, 2021

What are these anonymous coaches saying this year? Steven Godfrey from Split Zone Duo compiled the quotes for the Athlon preview and here is a snippet.

Anonymous college coaches size up BYU Football in 2021

“The program is better than when Kalani Sitake got there, for sure. It’s not just Wilson. The offensive line is more talented and better developed. This isn’t the old, dirty play BYU lines. … The skill positions are solid, a little bit faster than in recent years we’d seen. … The front seven is very good. The weakness is the secondary; you can hit them big there. … There’s going to be a regression for sure because they don’t have Wilson, but even if they lose four games, they’re still going in the right direction because you can see better development across the board.”

BYU has definitely shown an ability to develop prospects. The Cougars produced five NFL draft picks last April. All five of the draft picks were no higher than a three-star recruit from high school when they signed with BYU.

Anonymous coaches noted that regression would likely happen this year due to Zach Wilson moving on to the NFL and taking his talents to the New York Jets. Every BYU fan asks how big the regression will be from an 11-1 campaign to a 2021 schedule that features seven Power 5 opponents.

During the spring, Sitake was confident about his team’s roster heading into his sixth year as head coach. In large part because of the game experience and practice reps his team had compared to most teams around the country last fall.

While many programs experienced abbreviated seasons, Sitake’s BYU team played a full 12 game schedule and only had one week interrupt practice time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now can Sitake and BYU continue to build on the positive trajectory they are currently on in 2021 and beyond? That’s the big question everyone, anonymous or not, is waiting on from BYU football this fall.

BYU opens the 2021 season against Arizona in Las Vegas on September 4th. Fall camp will begin on August 5th in Provo.

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12-3 pm) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.

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