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SALT LAKE CITY — Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: the University of Utah won its sixth-straight rivalry game against BYU, 20-19 Saturday night in a game that featured nine turnovers and only three total offensive touchdowns.
Kalani Sitake’s first head coaching job starts with a 0-1 record against the Cougars’ biggest rival.
But on Saturday night, the new coach won more than a football game.
Sitake showed the enthusiasm, energy and excitement — not to mention the class — of a head coach in Division I FBS. The third head coach at BYU since the legendary LaVell Edwards retired in 2000, Sitake brought dignity back to the school with the way he handled himself.
On the field, BYU (1-1) will take a loss into next Saturday’s meeting against UCLA (1-1), the third-straight Pac 12 South school the Cougars will face in a brutal opening to the 2016 season that includes six Power 5 teams in the first seven weeks and a dozen postseason teams from a year ago.
“It’s just a tough battle,” Sitake said after losing on a failed two-point conversion. “But it was a lot of fun. I’m really proud of our guys at the end of the game.
“We’ll keep working, and I think we’ll build on this. This will make us a better team.”
To use a phrase coined by Generations X and Y and adopted profusely by millennials, Sitake earned his street cred Saturday night. After the Utes (2-0) took a 20-13 lead following an 11-minute, 21-second drive in the final quarter on Andy Phillips’ 29-yard field goal, Sitake’s team didn’t panic.
Instead, Taysom Hill led the Cougars down the field 75 yards in 2:30 with the calm of a fifth-year senior quarterback. The drive was capped by Hill’s 7-yard rush for a touchdown, his second rushing score of the game in an otherwise pedestrian night for the offense.
On the final drive, Hill completed passes to four different receivers, gobbling chunks of yardage even as star running back Jamaal Williams remained on the sideline with a minor leg injury.
When the Cougars scored the decisive touchdown, no one left the field. They had already decided they would try for a two-point conversion — and the win, rather than kick a PAT and head to overtime.
“I think we all were confident that we would get into the end zone,” said receiver Mitchell Juergens, who had a team-high eight catches for 52 yards. “That’s who Taysom is, and unfortunately it just wasn’t good enough.”
After the game, Sitake did not mince words with the Utes — many of them his former players. He warmly embraced head coach Kyle Whittingham, and stopped several times to hug defensive standouts like Dominique Hatfield and Isaac Asiata, telling each player, “Go win the Pac-12 now.”
But the BYU coach was unapologetic about the two-point conversion try.
“Yeah, I’d do it again,” he said with authority. “When we scored a touchdown, nobody ran off. They planned on scoring a touchdown, we did, and we planned on going for two.
“Utah made a play, and we didn’t. I loved the ball being in Taysom’s hands. He had a couple of options, and it ended up the way it did. Utah just made a great play. But yeah, I’d do it again.”
Earlier in the game, Sitake earned the trust of his players in an even bigger way. When safety Kai Nacua was ejected for targeting on a controversial hit against Utah receiver Demari Simpkins, the cries of indignation could be heard from Salt Lake City to Provo.
Even Fox Sports color analyst Joel Klatt was upset with the call. But that didn’t sway the officials from ruling Nacua out for the remainder of the contest (and the first half of next week’s home opener against UCLA) following a lengthy review.
No one voiced their displeasure louder than Sitake. The first-year coach ran several yards onto the field where he spent a decade as a linebackers coach, defensive coordinator and assistant head coach to berate one of the referees about the call. Assistant head coach Ed Lamb followed Sitake, allowed him to give his piece, and then ushered him off the field.
A look at the targeting sequence on BYU defenders Kai Nacua and Austin McChesney in the third quarter #BYUvsUtahpic.twitter.com/HrF2m3gZrK
— Brandon Judd (@brandonljudd) September 11, 2016
No other player or coach followed Sitake and Lamb. No one needed to say a word or make a gesture.
“I’ll always fight for our guys. They know that,” Sitake said. “I was fired up, and I got a little carried away. But I get carried away when we celebrate and my emotions go crazy. I’m not going to pull that back; that’s the way of football.”
The Cougars were charged a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty — but it was well worth it in the end. Francis Bernard pulled down an interception on the next play (at the same time reserve cornerback Austin McChesney was ejected for targeting), and the Cougars ended the drive.
In some ways, Sitake’s penalty combined with Bernard’s pick served up a net positive, linebacker Butch Pau’u said.
“It lets us know as players that he really cares for us,” said Pau’u, who had a team-high nine tackles for the second-straight game. “He was angry, because he knew it was a bad call and we all knew it was a bad call. But the refs said otherwise. Just to see that fire in him sparked us to play our game and play with even more intensity than when we were playing before.”
Sitake’s sideline fire was reminiscent of another coach on the Wasatch Front — legendary Utah Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan. When the former Illinois farmer felt he needed to spark the Jazz in their glory days, he would force actions that he knew would lead to a technical foul, or even an ejection. The Hall of Fame coach also led the Jazz to back-to-back NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998 with those tactics.
Sitake wasn’t ejected for his antics, but the message was just as clear. The Cougars were ready to fight — and no player or assistant coach had to say a single word.
BYU has split the first two games of the Sitake era after picking up an opening weekend win over Arizona. But the Cougars have 10 more games left on the schedule, and the lessons learned Saturday night at Rice-Eccles Stadium may be more valuable than a loss — despite the circumstances under which it came.
“If you had told me they would turn the ball over six times and win the game, I would’ve said you are crazy,” Hill said. “We played too well defensively to lose that football game.”
