I am a Sitake defender and one of the most vexing comments repeated often on this board is something along the lines of 'Sitake is clearly a mediocre to poor coach, and nothing will convince his defenders otherwise'.

As a rejoinder to this oft-repeated diatribe, I propose a simple, straightforward, apples to apples metric by which I can judge the efficacy of Sitakes tenure as head coach:

Compare his conference record in three years vs the conference records during that period to Cincinatti, Houston, and Central Florida.

All four programs jumped in status and resources at the same time to the same conference: apples to apples.

The following will be my rough evaluation based on what order BYU finishes in that group:

1. BYU is ahead of the curve and Sitake is doing a great job.

2. BYU is doing ok but there are likely many areas to be identified for improvement.

3. BYU is likely falling short of expectations, and it probably is time to start looking for a successor unless things swing upward dramatically.

4. Find a new head coach.

Programs are not going to have consistent success at the P4 level unless they have the overall program resources on par with their competition. BYU is just barely starting to get those resources. To demand that BYU can immediately compete(or dominate) week in and week out with programs who have had them for years is to tacitly assert that BYU should operate according to magical principles, or that Sitake needs to be the best coach in college football just to keep his job. I don't think fans like that are worth taking seriously, and I don't think Holmoe gives those fans a moments worth of thought (thankfully).