Sitake

[Utes 69]

You are all delusional. There are very very few. Candidates for tspp sitake is not going anywhere and no I do not want him back at Utah. He is a turn coat and went on record saying he bleeds blue always has always will stay down south

[Roy Rangum]

I would absolutely take Sitake as a position coach. But not head coach. And honestly, unless Bronco is looking for his old job back, I don’t think BYU should let sitake go.

[OldAsDirtUte]

Bronco just signed on as New Mexico coach.

[Roy Rangum]

For sure, but all that means to me is Bronco is now ready to be a coach again (which means BYU could be in play for him). Although, I’m not sure if Bronco would want to go back either. It seemed like in the end, even he couldn’t stand BYU fans either.

[Crow]

Sitaki was a joke and Whit had to call the defense then turned it over to Scalley. Also like at byu he was a disaster at recruiting. Sitaki was supposed to be the expert at recruiting the Polynesian players he wasn’t. Utah should never bring him back

[Italy88]

I don’t want him anywhere near the program ever again.

[Ute2]

Genuinely curious about why we wouldn’t want stake?

I can think of some reasons it’d be great to have him on Utah’s staff. Not sure about the downsides… enlighten me?

[Utah#1]

He’s no Whittingham, and his defenses suck! This is pre-Big 12.

[Hahnenwk]

Aside from Covid year and the post Covid year he has a .500 record

[Utah]

Our defense got better when he left.

There was always drama between him and Polynesian defensive players.

Our recruiting got better when he left.

He has sucked everywhere else he has coached.

No thanks.

[Ute2]

I don’t know anything about drama between him and poly players. Could you elaborate?

I do remember he was a very good dc here. He was a very good recruiter. I remember his rep was that he was very well liked by players and we were all bummed when he went to osu.

Scalley will need a dc someday. If kalani and byu weren’t working out… id bet you could do a lot worse…

[Roy Rangum]

Some people felt like sitake played favorites with Polynesian players. On the flip side, he was helpful in recruiting Polynesian players too.

To everyone else’s points:

I agree that Scalley has been an upgrade over Sitake, but that doesn’t mean Sitake is bad either. And while Oregon state was an inexplicable disaster, perhaps in hindsight that had more to do with Gary Anderson than anything. Sitake has been OK at BYU, but given the limitations of BYU, I don’t fully hold that against him either.

Bottom line is – Sitake was pretty successful when he was previously at Utah, he’s a dude that came from Utah football “culture” (which I think is really important to our teams success), and Whittingham and him still appear to be friends. If Scalley becomes the next head coach and Sitake were to fill the D coordinator role, I would be good with that. (It seems unlikely though.)

Too many of you are getting butt hurt about the fact that he’s the coach of our rival. But the truth is that BYU is his Alma mater. It’s whitts Alma Mater too. Given the proximity to each other, BYU and Utah are always going to share some coaching DNA so to speak. But that’s fine. I have no issues with BYU’s current coaches, it’s the fans that drive me crazy.

[Ute2]

Agreed.

[Central Coast Ute]

Is this even a possibility? Why are we bringing this up?

[Ute2]

Haha… true.

[Ted Lasso]

Please take Sitake from us. I think he’s a great dude and would probably be a good position coach, but he is not a good head coach.

[MotherJabubu]

I don’t care that he went to BYU. Ridiculous to hold becoming a HC against him just because they are a rival. I do hold his move to Oregon St. against him. A complete sideways move that reportedly didn’t even net him a substantial raise was a huge middle finger to our program.

[Central Coast Ute]

I agree to a point. At that point, everyone was always talking about Whittinghams defense. I think he wanted out from Whitts shadow to prove he could do it without Whitt. His one season at OSU wasn’t promising, however.
The program was kinda weird at that time with Dave Christensen around. Sitake bailed, and Christensen “parted ways”. Part of me wonders if he took off partly because of his toxicity. Time would go on to prove he went to a much worse situation and was lucky to land the BYU job when he did.
I agree with you on the part about the hate for him going to be HC at BYU. i don’t understand it. He’s even been very complimentary of the university. And he’s a genuine guy he’s not just saying that to not burn bridges.

[chinngiskhaan]

I don’t care that he coaches at TSPP. He’s a nice enough guy. I have no problem with him as a person, but he wasn’t a great coach for us. Those of you saying he was a good DC need to go back and look at how things went for us back then. It was clear that he was a placeholder DC until Scalley was ready.

[Ute2]

That’s revisionist. It was a big deal when he left. And the defense was awesome. We won alot of low scoring games in 2014 where the defense kept us in it. And lost some low scoring games too where our offense couldn’t put up points in the high teens.

[Central Coast Ute]

At the time, it was a big deal. But it turns out it was good for Utah football. Pease coming in was crucial to Scalleys development, and as others have said, the defense immediately got better. I don’t think what Ching is saying is revisionist, more of hindsight being 20/20.

[Ute2]

I don’t disagree that please/Scalley took things up a notch. But sitake did a really good job. The defense kept us in sooooo many games early on in the pac. So many low scoring wins. So many close one score losses. Any one remember the 19-3 loss to USC in 2013 and the 21-24 win the next year? Two sitake masterpieces. Lots of games went down in similar fashion around that time.

[Onlyu]

Sitake wanted the UNLV job prior to moving to BYU. Didn’t even get an interview based on his results (or lack thereof) at OSU. He left with GA because Gary convinced him (correctly) that everyone in football knew he was running Kyle’s defense and didn’t give Kalani any credit for that. The problem grew because he was a disaster at OSU. TDS out of options, bailed him out and of course touted “poly recruiting and legacy” to sell to their delusional fan base but the reality is they didn’t have many options besides Ken N. and the fan base couldn’t fathom running the option. The legacy part was correct but the recruiting piece clearly was not.

Outside of 2 years – the CoVid year and the one following (where the Pac was still in disarray from some heavy lockdown policy). He has been an abject failure as the head guy. He a good person, a loyal follower of those he respects (Lavell/Whitt) but he’s not overly intelligent or creative and he has still only interviewed for one HC job in his career.

Sitake will never have a winning record against Utah…we want him down there as long as he is able to continue to pull the wool over their eyes.

[Crow]

Sitaki is a joke of a coach byu is a great example. He can’t recruit as well see byu again

[chinngiskhaan]

It is not revisionist, its just correct. Sitake wasn’t a bad DC, he wasn’t great though. He was just fine… and with Whitt as head coach I think just about any DC that was willing to do what Whitt wanted would be at least average.

There was at least one very important game every year where he completely crapped the bed with his game plan. It is no coincidence that the defense has only gotten better since he left.