© Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports
On Wednesday, BYU AD Tom Holmoe joined BYU Sports Nation to discuss the recent hiring of basketball coach Kevin Young. In the interview, Holmoe talked about the need to have a succession plan at every sport and he brought up football as an example. Holmoe dropped a nugget in the interview that has long been assumed but never confirmed: Kalani Sitake has turned down competing job offers during his tenure at BYU.
“We have a success plan and you have to be able to anticipate that you could lose a coach now at anytime,” Holmoe said. “I mean Coach Kalani [Sitake], he’s had offers to go to other places and turned them down. You have to understand that those things are moving and we’ve gone through that before.”
Coach Sitake has been linked to various jobs over the past few years. After the 2021 season, BYU was coming off consecutive double-digit win seasons and a 20-4 record over two years. When Oregon coach Mario Cristobal left Oregon for Miami, Sitake was one of the primary candidates for the Oregon job. While Holmoe didn’t confirm specifically, it’s likely that Oregon was one of the schools that offered Kalani a job.
Retaining Kalani, even though BYU went 5-7 last year, was critical to maintaining the direction of the program heading into the Big 12. BYU is a unique job and there’s no replacement for BYU specific experience. BYU needed an experience coach to take them into the Big 12. Kalani has proven to be an effective coach when he has the right coordinators at his side. The expectations, however, for Kalani will continue to grow. Last year, the hope was a bowl game. This year, the expectation is a bowl game. Next year, there will be a higher expectation than that. It’s part of the transition into a Power Five conference. Slow, incremental progress is important.
