Kalani Sitake: ‘Bowl Eligibility Is An Important Part Of Building A Program’

PROVO, Utah — The BYU Cougars will look to win their sixth game of the season on Saturday when they face New Mexico State on senior night. If the Cougars pull off the win, they will become bowl eligible.

BYU is coming off of a 35-16 win over UMass in their previous game. The Cougars are looking to get back to a bowl game after missing last season with a four win season. Before that, the Cougars didn’t miss a bowl game since 2004.

Importance Of Bowl Eligibility

While BYU head coach Kalani Sitake is focused solely on the game against New Mexico State, he knows how important it is to get to a bowl game.

“If you look at the amount of practices that you get from being bowl eligible, that really helps the program, especially for the young guys and inexperienced players,” Sitake added. “It gives you basically another spring ball. That’s an important part of building a program. But we have to win that game (on Saturday) and we’ll find out the rest later.

The Cougars have a lot of players that could benefit from practicing for a month that will go with preparing for a bowl game. They have 49 freshman and 22 sophomores on the roster.

Bowl Projections

ESPN.com and Sporting News has BYU projected to play in the First Responder Bowl, playing North Texas on December 26.

USA Today and Yahoo Sports have both predicted the Cougars to participate in the Frisco Bowl against Houston on December 19.

Bleacher Report has BYU playing against Louisiana-Monroe in the Cure Nation Bowl on December 15.

BYU will face New Mexico State on Saturday on senior night at LaVell Edwards Stadium. Kickoff is at 8:15 p.m. on ESPN2 and can be heard on KSL News Radio.