Kalani Sitake ‘the right coach for the job,’ AD Tom Holmoe says

PROVO — It’s been two months since BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe ceremoniously announced a three-month contract extension for head football coach Kalani Sitake.

Three months of excitement, or three months of second-guessing the decision, depending on which side of Sitake’s fence one stands.

But Holmoe made it exceptionally clear where he stands Thursday during a 45-minute question-and-answer session with local media. He feels the same as he did then, and hopes to feel the same way months (and years) down the road.

“In my experience, being around him, around the team, around all aspects of the program and the organization, he’s the right coach for the job,” Holmoe said. “Whether it was the week we did it or the week before or a month after, I don’t think that was important. Certainly, it could have been the right day of the contract.

“But I just feel that when it happened ended up being good for our program.”

Relationships matter to Holmoe, and that includes the hiring (and firing, but mostly the former during his tenure) he’s had to make amongst his head coaches.

Sitake is arguably the biggest hire Holmoe has made, because of the stature of the Cougars’ football program. But it’s not the only one. In April, Mark Pope succeeded former boss Dave Rose as head coach of the men’s basketball program, and Holmoe has also made head coaching changes in men’s and women’s volleyball (the former of which, multiple times), gymnastics, women’s track and cross country, and women’s tennis in recent years.

Here are a few more key moments from Holmoe’s sit-down with the press. Listen to the full conversation in the audio clip below.

Utah, Notre Dame and future opponents

BYU recently announced an extension to its series with Stanford that will schedule the Cardinal in varying years through the 2035 season. With the deal in place, the Cougars will have faced or scheduled nearly every Pac-12 team since 2011 (the lone exception is Colorado).

But that doesn’t mean changes won’t be made to upcoming schedules. Among the potential curveballs could be more postponements of the near-annual rivalry game with Utah.

The Utes recently postponed two games with the Cougars to make way for a series with Florida, and Holmoe said the Cougars “have the option” to do the same, if a future scheduling series requires it.

“Mark (Harlan, Utah athletic director) and I have an agreement that if that were to happen, where we might need to move something, I can call him and make it happen,” Holmoe said. “I feel good about that. I talked to him this morning about a matter that has nothing to do with football but with the best interest of BYU and Utah moving forward. And I feel good about that.”

One of those games could be the return contest of at least one home (or near-home) game against Notre Dame, announced the year BYU joined the Fighting Irish as an FBS independent but having since gone dormant.

Not dead, though.

“It is alive,” Holmoe said. “I think people are wondering if we have a contract with them, but I think one of the things that we are looking at realistically … is making that a neutral-site football game, with us as the home team. They’re intrigued by that.”

Holmoe added that the Cougars are always looking for new football opponents to fill out the schedule. That includes an unnamed school that BYU has never played, a deal that was nearly signed before falling through at the last minute.

'The other side of University Avenue is our campus'

Like any athletic director in his position would, Holmoe has kept a keen eye on the former Provo High site that BYU recently purchased from Provo School District as a place to house its athletic facilities.

But that final decision hasn’t been made — and it’s not an athletics decision, in the end.

“The university and the church haven’t quite solidified what’s going to go there, in that regard,” Holmoe said. “But like any other athletic director, you are always looking at your facilities. You’re looking at your competitive game facilities and your practice facilities. That’s what we’re focused on right now — we don’t have a lot of space, and we aren’t going to build a new stadium, so we have to upgrade.

“People come to the Marriott Center for the first time, and they can’t believe that we built it in 1971. I think the school has done a really good job of keeping that fresh and alive, bringing in amenities and hospitality, and that’s really key.”

Could those upgrades include other sports, equivalent to the University of Utah’s recent addition of a men’s lacrosse program or Utah Valley’s rapid extension of its athletic department to include non-traditional sports like men’s soccer?

Possibly — but not likely, at least in the near future.

“If I were to start a brand-new program right now, we might not have the menu of sports we have,” Holmoe said. “It’s extraordinarily difficult to drop a program, and that is not an intention of mine. To add programs costs money, and we want to make sure — if we do it — that we have the resources, both human and financial.

“I don’t want to do it just for the sake of doing it. But it would have to be programs that we feel 100% certain we can be great in.”

New boss (sort of)

Holmoe will soon have a new boss, as BYU vice president of advancement Matthew O. Richardson has been called to serveto serve as mission president in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with his wife Lisa. Their service will begin in July.

It’s still unknown who will succeed Richardson, who previously served in the church’s Sunday School general presidency (among other positions). But there’s no doubt it will mark a change in the athletic department’s tenure.

“With a change there, it will definitely affect us,” Holmoe said. “We’ve worked together for five years, and you get to know how he operates and how we operate. We’ll have to work with a new vice president soon.”

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