Another week, another close loss for BYU football.
It’s a trying time for first-year head coach Kalani Sitake and his staff. The Cougars are 1-3 on the season, with each loss decided by three points or less.
After BYU fell to West Virginia on Saturday, Sept. 24, Sitake vented his frustration.
“I just am really disappointed that we’re 1-3 because we had three close losses,” Sitake said. “I thought that if we would’ve played a lot more sound as a team, we would be in a different situation, but it’s easy to sit there and say, ‘I wish we would’ve done things differently.’ That’s kind of the story of life.”
The story of the 2016 BYU football team so far has been one of squandered chances and missed opportunities.
Against Utah, a questionable play call on a two-point conversion resulted in another Holy War loss. Against UCLA, the offense sputtered and stalled for most of the night. Against West Virginia, Taysom Hill made some key mistakes.
Before the game, Hill said he “needed to be better” and “everything starts with the quarterback.”
Unfortunately for the Cougars, that didn’t happen against the Mountaineers.
Hill threw three interceptions— including a pick six — effectively dooming the Cougars.
“When you go against quality opponents like we’ve had, you got to find ways, this one play here and one play there,” Sitake said. “That makes a difference and we were on the wrong end of it three games in a row, so we got to find ways to flip it.”
Flipping it won’t be easy for Sitake and his team. The Cougars’ 2016 schedule is a difficult one. The Cougars’ next contest is against 3-0 Toledo and the Rockets are averaging 41.4 points per game. Next they’ll travel to Michigan State, host Mississippi State for Homecoming and travel to Boise State, all within a span of 12 days.
But despite the brutal schedule and losing streak, Sitake believes the best is yet to come for BYU football.
“I just know we haven’t played our best game yet,” Sitake said. “I’m waiting for that to happen. We want to play our best game.”
The Cougars will host the Toledo Rockets on Friday, Sept. 30 at 8:15 p.m. The game can be viewed on ESPN2.
