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PROVO — There’s a lot to like about BYU football right now.
The Cougars are ranked No. 15 in the country, their highest ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 since 2009, after three consecutive blowout victories of Navy, Troy and Louisiana Tech. They rank No. 1 in the Football Bowl Subdivision in total offense, averaging 585.7 yards and 49.3 points per game.
BYU also rates first in total defense, with a front that allows just 214.3 yards per game and 3.92 yards per play en route to 8.0 points per game.
Individually, quarterback Zach Wilson is off to the best start of his three-year career, completing 84.5% of his passes for 13.37 yards per attempt and rates No. 3 nationally in being responsible for 66 points (passing and rushing). After a five-touchdown effort against LA Tech, the junior signal-caller was named Walter Camp national player of the week Monday.
So it’s not just the Cougars' 3-0 record that is gaudy; the squad — both individually and collectively — is putting up big numbers while winning.
And head coach Kalani Sitake didn’t want to mention any of it when he met with local media Monday in advance of the Cougars' Saturday tilt with UT San Antonio (1:30 p.m. MT, ESPN2).
"We don’t need to talk about ourselves; let everybody else do it," Sitake said. "Whether it’s positive or negative, let everyone else talk about it.
"The balance is you guys (the media) keep the balance in what you say. We just focus on the game and getting things done."
That doesn’t mean there isn’t some semblance of gratitude for the promotion and expectations hefted on the program. Everyone that plays football wants to win, and winning football games brings attention — to the program, to the university, and to its sponsoring institution, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Maybe most important, it brings attention to the players who have labored in a system for three-straight years and starting to see results of those labors, BYU defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki said during his weekly Coordinators' Corner show on BYUtv.
"It’s a great credit to the boys and everything they’ve worked for. I feel like the boys deserve it; the boys have earned it," Tuiaki said. "When we finally had games and were playing, they showed up and played. They could’ve laid an egg, and just been another team playing. But they showed up and played."
Still, BYU won’t be reading its press clippings. They understand the media machine, the need for constant content, and the insatiable fan appetite — especially among BYU fans, who have endured back-to-back 7-6 seasons following a disastrous 4-9 campaign in 2017.
They also take each weekend the same way: by celebrating a win or mourning a loss, reviewing the mistakes on film every Monday morning — and then not talking about that game of the rest of the week. Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes said he even sometimes posts a poster or PowerPoint in offensive meeting rooms that reads, "0-0" a constant reminder that the Cougars haven’t done anything yet, he said during the Coordinators' Corner.
"The way that the media is talking, we’ve got to keep ourselves humble and be ready to play," Tuiaki added.
To paraphrase the oft-quoted offensive line coach Eric Mateos, the Cougars don’t want any part of that "poison."
"I think the biggest thing for us is improving on what we can do to improve every week," said freshman edge rusher Tyler Batty, who broke out with three sacks in the Cougars' 45-14 win over the Bulldogs. "The coaches have said it: we’re 0-0 and have to fight every week for the win. That’s the biggest factor: just staying motivated."
The poison of promise and accolades is a double-edged sword. BYU has seen that, after big wins over teams like Wisconsin and Boise State, among others, the last few years.
"I think we’ve learned a lot from our past experiences, and those ups and downs, specifically last year," linebacker Isaiah Kaufusi said. "We won a lot of bigger games, and then had games that we overlooked — specifically, Toledo and South Florida.
"But the experience that we gained has really been the catalyst for our success this year. We have guys who have been through the ups and downs."
The Cougars won’t be drinking the poison marked with a No. 15 bottle. At least, they’ll try not to drink anything connected to it. So much of that No. 15 ranking is based on a 3-0 schedule — which came against three teams that weren’t on BYU’s schedule before the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to blow up the 2020 season entirely.
The program responded, came back, and has learned to thrive in its amended situation.
The next step — responding to that success — is the hard part.
"We’re ranked No. 15 now, we’ve got that target on our back, and they’re going to come in and try to get after us," Kaufusi said, referring to UTSA. "But the strength of schedule can be misleading, because of the variables that don’t all get captured there."
No. 15 BYU (3-0) vs. UT San Antonio (3-1)
Saturday, Oct. 10
Kickoff: 1:30 p.m. MT
TV: ESPN2
Radio: BYU Radio, KSL Newsradio
