Frisco, Texas \u2022 In the immediate aftermath of BYU\u2019s 10th win of the season\u2014a methodical beatdown of Houston last November\u2014Kalani Sitake did his best to hide the rejection.<\/p>\n
He should\u2019ve been happy. Winning 10 games in college football doesn\u2019t come often; this was only the third time in the last decade in Provo. To do so in a Power Four conference was even harder.<\/p>\n
But at halftime that night, he found out his real dreams were dashed: BYU missed the Big 12 title game<\/a> due to a tiebreaker and was firmly on the outside of an at-large playoff bid.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re sitting here at 10-2,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cBut my mind keeps going to what could have been, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n After decimating Colorado in the Alamo Bowl<\/a> a month later, Sitake again tried to put on a brave face. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think [the playoff] is anything you can campaign for. We know the errors that we made,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just ended up, with the tiebreaker system, that we weren\u2019t in it. That\u2019s OK. Sometimes life is disappointing. You are left with your reaction, and we turned it into a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n But as 2025 begins in Provo, Sitake and the Big 12 are revisiting why the 11-2 Cougars were so overlooked by the playoff committee. And many are positing ideas about what changes the conference can make so that the next Big 12 darling can avoid the same fate. <\/p>\n ( Jaren Wilkey | BYU) After beating the Colorado Buffaloes in the 2024 Alamo Bowl, BYU football players celebrate by dumping a cooler on head coach Kalani Sitake.<\/p>\n BYU ended the year sitting 13th in the final Associated Press poll<\/a>. Yet the College Football Playoff selection committee didn\u2019t even consider the Cougars for an at-large bid after they missed out on the Big 12 title game. <\/p>\n Southern Methodist, a team the Cougars beat<\/a> in Dallas, made the playoffs ahead of BYU. Several SEC schools with worse records also landed ahead of BYU. Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina all leapfrogged BYU with three losses. Clemson, from the ACC, was ahead of the Cougars with a 10-3 record. <\/p>\n BYU finished 17th in the final CFP poll that determines the playoffs. <\/p>\n And now Sitake, the man most hurt in all of this, has a solution \u2014 even if it\u2019s unlikely. <\/p>\n Houston quarterback Zeon Chriss (2) runs the ball as BYU defensive end Tyler Batty (92) defends, during the first half of a NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, in Provo. (AP Photo\/Rick Egan)<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s settle it on the field. I don\u2019t have a problem with it. [Big 12 teams] can play three nonconference games [at the start of the year]. I would love to play an ACC team, an SEC team and a Big Ten team. Line them up, let\u2019s do this,\u201d Sitake said, indicating each conference\u2019s cumulative head-to-head would show which league is stronger that year.<\/p>\n At the heart of the issue, as Big 12 coaches see it, is the committee\u2019s lack of respect for the Big 12 compared to other leagues. The SEC had seven teams in the top 15 last year, including three teams with fewer than 10 wins. The Big 12\u2019s best team, an 11-2 Arizona State, was ranked lower than Boise State of the Mountain West Conference. <\/p>\n SEC coaches often boast about the league\u2019s strength of schedule, saying the metric should be heavily considered even over the final win-loss record. The Big Ten goes down this path, too. <\/p>\n Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti went as far as to say that just having a winning record in the Big Ten should garner a playoff spot. <\/p>\n Tony Petitti speaks to the media as he’s introduced as the new commissioner of the Big Ten, Friday, April 28, 2023, in Rosemont, Ill. (AP Photo\/David Banks)<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re 6-3 in the Big Ten, I would argue that\u2019s a great record,\u201d Petitti said at Big Ten media day. \u201c8-4 is a winning percentage. If you project that winning percentage in every other sport, I\u2019m pretty sure you make the postseason.\u201d<\/p>\n But Sitake believes that if every Big 12 team played programs across the SEC, Big Ten and ACC, it would settle the argument of league difficulty and superiority. BYU has played teams from the ACC and SEC since it joined the Big 12. Last season, it beat Arkansas and SMU on the road. <\/p>\n \u201cWhy can\u2019t we do that?\u201d Sitake said of the head-to-head battles. <\/p>\n Other coaches around the Big 12 agree. <\/p>\n \u201cKalani brought it up. Let\u2019s decide it on the field,\u201d Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire said. \u201cCross-conference games, I think that would be a great way to do it. [LSU coach] Brian Kelly said he\u2019d love to play a Big Ten team. I\u2019d love to play LSU in a home-and-home.\u201d<\/p>\n Utah coach Kyle Whittingham is also on board. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have to win the out-of-conference games to strengthen the conference. I think that will help,\u201d he said. \u201cThere has never really been a level playing field. … I want more access for more teams.\u201d<\/p>\n BYU will play Stanford<\/a> of the ACC this preseason. The Utes will play at UCLA<\/a>, a Big Ten team.<\/p>\n But the nonconference solution is highly unlikely. Most teams in the Power Four have their nonconference schedules set for at least the next eight years. By the time those schedules are up, the college football playoff format is likely to have changed. It isn\u2019t an immediate solution. <\/p>\n \u201cOne of the challenges is all these games are scheduled so far in advance, contracted out for the next six to eight years,\u201d Arizona coach Brent Brennan said. \u201cSo how do you readjust all of those games? But I\u2019m all for anything that gets college football on an even, or more level, playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n So the league is trying to fight this perception battle on other fronts for now. It is playing politics by pointing out that the SEC is more top heavy than the Big 12. <\/p>\n TCU coach Sonny Dykes reacts to a penalty during the second half the team’s NCAA college football game against West Virginia in Fort Worth, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023. (Chris Torres\/Star-Telegram via AP)<\/p>\n TCU head coach Sonny Dykes pleaded with the playoff committee to stop equating the strength of the league with the strength of the top traditional powers like Georgia, Alabama and Texas. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have to do a great job of selling parity in the Big 12. Because quite frankly, that does not happen in some of the other leagues,\u201d Dykes said. \u201cThose are very top-heavy leagues. The same teams represent those leagues year in and year out as champions.\u201d<\/p>\n Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark eliminated the preseason Big 12 poll to fight the perception battle. Last year BYU and Arizona State, two of the league\u2019s top playoff contenders, were predicted to be at the bottom of the conference. Coaches thought it affected the playoff rankings. Even as BYU jumped out to a 9-0 start, it spent most of the time ranked outside the top 12. <\/p>\n \u201cThe narrative really hurt the Big 12 last year. It hurt it with Kalani and it hurt it with [Arizona State coach] Kenny [Dillingham],\u201d Kansas State coach Chris Kleinman said. \u201cI\u2019d like to see the first polls come out when the CFP comes out so you have seven or eight games rather than, \u2018This team is supposed to be good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But the Big 12, and Sitake, are acknowledging there isn\u2019t a perfect solution. <\/p>\n If BYU, or another unexpected program, jumps out to a dream season in the Big 12, the same fate is likely to follow. Sitake knows that.<\/p>\n So for now, Sitake is landing back where he did in San Antonio last year. <\/p>\n He isn\u2019t going to campaign for respect. He\u2019s not going to focus on what happens with the next 10-2 Big 12 team. <\/p>\n He\u2019s going to focus on what happens on the field, where he hopes every team\u2019s fate is eventually decided. <\/p>\n But he still hopes his solution happens, even if it\u2019s a long shot. <\/p>\n Note to readers \u2022 This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frisco, Texas \u2022 In the immediate aftermath of BYU\u2019s 10th win of the season\u2014a methodical beatdown of Houston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5270,9061,973,7702,7,49,48,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-237562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-brigham-young-university","10":"tag-byu","11":"tag-cougars","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-football","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114919452506153448","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}