Ben Anderson: If Sitake and Detmer can't win at BYU, who can?

Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes

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SALT LAKE CITY — BYU football hit a new low point on Saturday night, falling to the previously 1-6 East Carolina Pirates, in North Carolina.

The Pirates were, and likely still are, one of the worst teams in college football this season, specifically on defense, where before BYU visited, were allowing 50 points per game by their opponents.

BYU’s offense mustered just 17 points against the previously hapless defense while allowing 33 points by the Pirates offense — an offense that played its backup quarterback for a large portion of the second half.

If BYU’s 1-6 start to the season was a nightmare, the loss to East Carolina is the part where you wake up from your slumber, only to realize you weren’t having a nightmare and you’re stuck in this horror show for the rest of the season.

The last time BYU finished the regular season with a losing record was 2004, which resulted in the firing of then head coach Gary Crowton. Crowton took over a healthy Cougar program from the legendary LaVell Edwards, and after a promising 12-2 start in his first season as head coach, allowed the program to flounder into mediocrity. Crowton led the Cougars to three consecutive losing seasons before being replaced by Bronco Mendenhall.

Likewise, Kalani Sitake took over a healthy program from Mendenhall and began his head coaching career with a promising 9-4 start, including a bowl win over former Mountain West Conference rival Wyoming. While it’s impossible to predict what the next two seasons will look like for BYU, this Cougar team shares remarkable similarities with the Crowton’s second-year team in 2002.

Crowton’s second season marked a changing of the guard at quarterback, from an NFL talent in Brandon Doman to junior Bret Engemann. Engemann, once a highly touted recruit, was named BYU’s starter as an underclassman in 2000, didn’t play in 2001 and regained his starting job in 2002, only to lose reps to backups midway through the season.

Sound familiar?

The 2002 team also struggled offensively, scoring 10 points or less in four of their 11 games. Currently, BYU has scored 10 or fewer points in four of their eight outings.

Thankfully, Sitake’s era hasn’t been marred by ugly off-the-field legal and honor code violations like those seen under Crowton, which played a major role in the former coach’s resignation.

When Crowton resigned, BYU's options for replacing the embattled head coach fielded promising candidates. Kyle Whittingham was primed for a head coaching job, having helped lead the University of Utah to an undefeated season as the defensive coordinator under then-head coach Urban Meyer.

Meanwhile, Mendenhall was already a member of the Cougars' coaching staff under Crowton, drawing high praise from members of the team. After Whittingham accepted the job at Utah, the Cougars turned their attention to Mendenhall, who led the team to a remarkable 99 wins over the next 11 seasons.

I’m not advocating for BYU to replace Sitake, or offensive coordinator Ty Detmer, or any of their coaches for that matter. In a sport that is so easily impacted by injuries, which are an inevitable aspect of the game, knee-jerk coaching changes are often incorrectly viewed as a fix-all to other underlying issues.

However, in a sport where recruiting is the lifeblood of a program and reputation is the lifeblood to recruiting, the Cougars may feel forced to make changes to their current staff.

If BYU felt it was in their best interest to make a change, where would they turn? As is always the case, the Cougars head coach must maintain a good standing with the beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That, itself, significantly decreases the number of coaching candidates for BYU to hire.

In 2015, when replacing Mendenhall, the candidates mentioned were Whittingham, Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo, Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, Stanford defensive coordinator Lance Anderson and former BYU offensive coordinator Robert Anae.

Whittingham and Niumatalolo both reportedly turned down the job in favor of their current teams. Why would either coach now take over a program that appears to have significantly more flaws than were previously visible?

Anderson may be hungry to take over a program as head coach, but how would he, a defensive coordinator, fare better than Sitake, who was also a once highly successful defensive coordinator with better ties to instate recruiting?

Bevell may be a realistic option, but last coached in college in 1999 and has no ties to BYU outside of being a member of the LDS Church. Anae would likely deserve another look by BYU, but as has always been the question, does he have the makeup of a modern day head coach?

Another, perhaps more existential question BYU must ask itself before making any changes is: how good of a job is coaching at BYU?

Tasked with recruiting players within the honor code, without a conference affiliation, against an in-state rival operating with a growing gap in resources, what differentiates BYU from other coaching jobs that become available in college football?

Furthermore, if BYU were to replace legends like Sitake and Detmer from the program's past, what would prevent the next set of coaches from being replaced if they suffered a similar level of success?

At this point, I would be surprised if BYU were to make any type of personnel change before the end of the season. If there were ever a time to do it, it would have been this week, before a very winnable game at home against San Jose State, coming off one of the most surprising losses in program history.

The Cougars ought to see their fortunes change over the final five weeks of the season, facing a significantly softer schedule to close the year than they faced the first half of the season. Though a trip to the postseason seems highly unlikely for BYU, it doesn’t necessarily call for an overhaul to all or any of the coaching staff.

Should the Cougars get to the point where coaching changes are considered, they must also ask themselves if the move would serve as an upgrade or a Band-Aid solution to a larger problem for the program.