alt=Jay DrewPROVO — After blowing a 20-point lead in the second half and suffering a heartbreaking 35-27 loss to rival Utah in their 2018 college football regular-season finale, the BYU Cougars used that stinging defeat as motivation for their performance in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl and walloped Western Michigan 49-18 in Boise last December.
Coach Kalani Sitake said Wednesday as the Cougars returned to practice for the first time since falling 13-3 to San Diego State that he is doing everything he can to ensure history repeats itself. The Cougars (7-5) will face a yet-to-be-named opponent in the SoFi Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve at Aloha Stadium.
“Last year, we lost the game going into the bowl game and used that as a huge catalyst to get our team rolling,” Sitake said as practice concluded at the Indoor Practice Facility on campus. “And from what I saw today, in meetings and practice, I think there’s going to be a really good bowl prep for our team. It is going to be a huge step for our program.”
With most of his assistant coaches on the recruiting trail, Sitake ran most of the practice by himself and turned several segments over to the players to run. He said the Cougars “have to utilize all the practice time they can” to make sure they don’t play as poorly as they did in their first loss to SDSU since 2005.
“Last year, we lost the game going into the bowl game, and used that as a huge catalyst to get our team rolling. And from what I saw today, in meetings and practice, I think there’s going to be a really good bowl prep for our team. It is going to be a huge step for our program.” — BYU coach Kalani Sitake
“So, all three phases — special teams, offense and defense — is what we need to improve on and get better,” he said.
Although they won’t find out until Sunday who they will play in the bowl game — most prognosticators believe it will be Hawaii — the Cougars will practice on Thursday and Friday with the focus on improving their base packages and fundamentals.
“Right now, it is a waste of time to project (who they will play) for the players,” Sitake said. “For the coaches, we kinda hope that we are installing something to face a certain kind of offense. But it could go so many different ways.”
Sitake reiterated that he has no preference on which team the Cougars face on Dec. 24. Receiver Talon Shumway and backup quarterback Baylor Romney — who acknowledged he will be put on scholarship in January — echoed those sentiments, although Shumway agreed that playing Hawaii on its home field would be “a little different” than the usual bowl game.
If Hawaii beats Boise State in the Mountain West championship game Saturday, the Rainbow Warriors would almost certainly go to the Las Vegas Bowl and then BYU would likely see a team from the American Athletic Conference.
“We might be over-preparing as coaches, but that’s OK,” Sitake said.
Teams that don’t know yet who they are playing usually use this week to focus on conditioning and weightlifting, but the aforementioned players said there was some physical contact and competition in practice Wednesday.
“I have been really pleased with how hard our guys have worked all season,” Sitake said. “They give us all the effort that we ask for. That’s never been an issue, right? I have to do a better job to make sure our guys are consistent as a team and make sure that we get more production and give ourselves a better chance to have success, and that means to win.”
As far as the quarterback situation is concerned, Sitake said the “competition is always going to be there” for the starting spot, his familiar refrain. Zach Wilson said a “bunch of little things” kept the offense out of the end zone against the Aztecs, while crediting SDSU’s defense for being particularly stout inside the 20.
Wilson, Joe Critchlow, Jaren Hall and fifth-stringer Rhett Reilly all practiced, while Romney was sidelined by a case of turf toe that has hampered him since the Utah State game.
Hall said he has been cleared to practice, but not play. He expects to be cleared to play in the bowl game within a week. Sitake said Romney could have played against SDSU but was dealing with the toe injury and also had a “terrible sickness” that swept through the team the week before the game that cut into his practice time.