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POINSETTIA BOWL: BYU VS WYOMINGDecember 14, 2016Kalani SitakeSan Diego, California THE MODERATOR: We have BYU Coach Kalani Sitake here with us. COACH SITAKE: First off, I would like to thank Ted and Mark and the red coats for having us out here and being a part of the Holiday Bowl. We're extremely excited. It's the first time since 1962 that the University of Minnesota is back in California for a bowl game. Our fans are excited, our players are excited. Would like to congratulate Mike, Coach Mike Leach and Washington State for a great season they have had. As coaches, when you find out where you're going, you get on the phone right away and call other people who have been to those bowls, and nobody has had anything but great things to say about the way they've been treated here and the way the bowl is done. We're excited to be here. Hopefully we can make it a competitive and exciting game, like it's been known to be in the past. Q. Do you see offenses like Washington State in the Big Ten? Is it completely different? Are there similarities? COACH SITAKE: You know, we see some spread and hurry-up but most of it is still run game based. So this will be the first one with the heavy throw base off of it and hurry-up. We played Texas Tech in a bowl game a few years ago and that's been our only real experience with this type of offense. It will be a challenge for us, a little different for us. That's one thing, at least with the bowl you have a few more practices to prepare for it rather than on a short week. Q. Coach, can you say what affect the suspensions might have on bowl preparation and maybe the game itself? As I understand, two of them are starters and two were key reserves. COACH SITAKE: I don't know that, you know, due to obviously there are privacy laws and things, I cannot comment a lot but as far as bowl prep in football it's a team sport and next person has to step up and we'll be fine. We've got a competitive group of kids, and we'll get 'em ready to play and look forward to the game. Q. Could this be a distraction, though, that many kids? COACH SITAKE: No, no, nope. Q. Can you tell me how many of those ten players were contributors in the rotation? COACH SITAKE: I'm not going to answer anymore questions about them. This is about the game and the University of Minnesota versus Washington State. So we'll have enough guys to lineup and play, last I checked. Only takes 11 on each side of the ball, and a few more special teams, so we got enough left to do that, and we'll get 'em prepared to go, and our kids will play hard. Q. How many prep days do you have for a game like this and how do you use them? Do you work young players in early on during the preparation period? COACH SITAKE: They give you 15, and to be honest we don't get 15 in, because those first two weeks and the week after the bowl is announced we spend all our time on recruiting. You only get to go out two weeks we make sure that we do that. We'll get in 12 or 13 practices, and what I like to do, and what we've done at the University of Minnesota is, on days we want to work the younger guys is we bring them out about forty minutes early, stretch 'em and have a 30 minute workout where they're in full pads and while they go in and change into what we're practicing, whether that's shells or whatever, it gives them a break, the older kids. They stretch and get loosened up and that way you don't have to put your whole team in full pads for the whole time, if you don't want to when you are getting prepared for a bowl game. It's a fine line between how much hitting and being physical that you do as opposed to also having your best and healthy team on game day. I think that's the thing that all of us juggle around with and try to find that right formula. Q. So 12, 13 days you're not going to put in a whole new offense? COACH SITAKE: No. It gives you a chance to practice your younger kids who have been scout team players all year and haven't had a chance to run your offense. You get 30 minutes a day to work with them, and that gives you a jump on spring ball. So when you get to spring ball, your younger players are farther head. Like Craig said, we watch too much film and sit around too long and drink too much coffee, and you come up with some stuff that you practice an awful lot and sometimes you run it and sometimes you don't. What I like about the long amount of time is it lets our kids recover. For the two weeks after the season we did nothing but academics, lifting and conditioning, and it allows your kids body to recover before you jump into a bowl game. Q. Could you talk about your quarterback? I heard before the season that he was a potential pro-type guy. Give us a background and strengths and weaknesses. COACH SITAKE: Mitch is one that has worked extremely hard. Three years now he's started for us and he definitely has the size and can make the throws. He's a good threat on the running game, also. Just like any of them in college, and I don't know if it's like this in the pro's, but we spend all our Sundays watching film, getting ready for the next game, don't get a lot of chance to watch pro football. But I would say Mitch's biggest weakness is, if you want to call it that, is all quarterbacks in college get their favorite guy or guys that they want to throw it to, and rather than go through their progressions reads and throw what the defense gives them, and that's probably the only thing that's got us in trouble with him. But the at the same time he's throwing to our best guys and hoping they will make a play. I'm just told those guys in the league that if you don't go through your progressions and do like you're supposed to, you will be on the next bus out of town. So that's something he is going to have to get more consistent at. Thank you. THE MODERATOR: Coach Leach from Washington State. COACH SITAKE: We're really excited to be in the Holiday Bowl. Was here a couple of years ago when I was coaching Texas Tech; it's one of my favorite bowls of all time and we're thrilled to death. Any questions? Q. With what do you know about Minnesota? Will the suspensions hurt them, do you think? They lost two starter and two key reserves. COACH SITAKE: I don't know anything about the suspensions. Suspensions from my experience over the years have a funny way of no telling who you end up playing against so that's pretty much as far as I'm concerned, going in one ear and out the other. I think they're a good, physical team. They're big, they're probably one of the biggest teams we will have played this year, so they do a great job there in the Big Ten. I think it will be a good challenge. Q. Would you give us a rundown of the health of your squad now and your key people? COACH SITAKE: We're pretty healthy, I'm going to have you drop a bunch of pass plays to try to get some new stuff here and there. No. We are healthy! We are healthy. We've had a few practices. We're finessing finals right now. But getting fresher and sharper as we get a little more work as it gets closer, it will accelerate for us a little bit. We're in good shape. Really excited to be in a bowl, excited to go out and keep things going, keep everybody together and keep working. Q. How do you approach the time between games? You have a big spread of time there. COACH SITAKE: Well, the first portion is a lot like spring football. You work those young guys as much as you can and keep your older guys sharp. Then from there as it gets closer and closer to the game, start working, you know, integrate more toward, you know, your guys -- your starters and things. As it gets even closer then of course you start implementing and working on your game plan. So you kinda transition. I guess the quick answer would be you transition from sort of a spring football to, you know, game mode for that week. Q. Will River Cracraft be able to play? COACH SITAKE: No. Q. The weather in Pullman compared to weather in San Diego? COACH SITAKE: It's colder in Pullman than it is in San Diego. It's definitely different weather. Raise your hand if you guys didn't know that! (Laughter.) When we left there it was probably, I don't know, 10 degrees and kinda snowy. It's real pretty out there, the type of thing where the air collects to the trees and all that so it is really pretty, I will say that, it's gorgeous there right now, and I would like the change as long as it doesn't last too long. That's one great thing about Pullman, throughout the year it looks a little different, so that's exciting. It's exciting for us and all of our players to come down here and come to San Diego, and we have an awful lot of guys from Southern California, not San Diego necessarily, but we have a lot of Southern California guys and outside of Washington that's probably our biggest single demographics, so they're excited to get down here and play. Q. I'm impressed with how fast you turned things around coming from the Big 12 to the PAC 12. Are you surprised by that? COACH SITAKE: I never think about it. I kind of try to move ahead. We won eight games, and we were upset four times, and I'm disappointed we were upset by anybody, but the way I look at it as a coach, and I guess our room, you know, I try not to put ceilings on anything, just do the best you can, make sure you are getting better every day and expect to win and expect good things to happen. Just constantly instill that and sometimes early in the week, you know, make sure you're well talked into it by Thursday or Friday and then go let it fry, let it rip after that. We have a real good group, that's the one thing is we have a good, hard-working group. We're a young team, a young team and we're not real deep. We work real hard together and for how old we are we have quite a few snaps because we're sophomores and juniors, and we have quite a few snaps under our belt because a lot of them played early. As we get more experience we're getting better all the time. I don't know, I guess I wasn't surprised, just kept hoping for the best, really. Q. Can you talk about your last bowl game here. How was that experience? COACH SITAKE: It was a great bowl. It was an exciting bowl. We played a good Cal team, and nowadays if I mention the names that we played on that team it's pretty scary. Aaron Rodgers was their quarterback, Marshawn Lynch was their running back, DeSean Jackson was their receiver, and there were five or six guys on defense -- if you want to check on their work you have to look on Sunday, also, you know, just switch on the TV and you can see how those guys are doing. We were excited to be in the bowl, and we had a big day in the Holiday Bowl, proud of our team. We beat Cal that day and it was a great experience. It's just exciting to be back here. It was kind of funny. There was a book there, kind of the previous Holiday Bowls, and you didn't want to be behind to Cal, but you looked at that book and whoever was ahead at halftime lost the Holiday Bowl, you know? So you didn't know if you wanted to be ahead or behind. Well, we're ahead at halftime and I'm thinking that's good, and then I'm thinking, yeah but that's bad! Then we came out at the half and there's smoke everywhere from the fireworks, which according to my wife, that was a heck of a fireworks show. So there's smoke all over, and we had a big second half and I was really proud of our guys and had a great experience here. All right, thanks so much. THE MODERATOR: We have BYU Coach Kalani Sitake here with us. COACH SITAKE: Good evening, I want to express our gratitude and let you know how thankful we are to be invited, and I want to thank the committee and I want to thank the community sharing this week with us, and we look forward to spending a nice, warm week here in San Diego. Much better weather here than in Provo. Looking forward to the game and looking forward to playing in the match-up against Wyoming. We have tons of respect for Wyoming, and myself being a former player, used to playing against Wyoming and the Cowboys and I know they have great passionate fans, and I know our players have watched them this season and been really impressed with the style of football that they play. They show a lot of sportsmanship and class and it's a reflection of their head coach, Craig Bohl, that I followed closely as a football coaching nerd and have been impressed with his career. We're looking forward to sharing the field with them and looking forward to this week. I just want to say thank you once again. Q. One of your San Diego guys, Nick Kurtz has had a couple solid seasons for you. What are your impressions of what he's meant to the team this year? COACH SITAKE: He's battled some injuries; I think he missed most of camp. I think it's sad, but we were hoping to get him to 100% earlier, but with the extra time and seeing how he was able to connect with what we're doing with our scheme, offensive scheme, I think he's starting to go flourish a little bit. Hopefully he has a big game. He has a role, he understands that as a receiver sometimes a lot of his role depends on him running the right route and blocking down field, so he is a great teammate, and it's not always about his stats, and he understands that. It's awesome to have him be a great leader for our program for our young kids, and he's excited to be home, too. All the guys are really excited about being here in San Diego. Q. You were here as an assistant coach, now as a head coach. What changes do you anticipate as far as responsibilities and your role? COACH SITAKE: As a head coach I had great mentors along the way, and I was just visiting with LaVell a couple days ago and his wife Patty is a Wyoming girl. She keeps reminding me of that one. Just to be able to reflect on things that LaVell has been able to help me with. I know that my past ten years that I put into Utah with Kyle Whittingham has done some great things in bowl games and bowl prep. Being able to manage that with the finals and giving them some time to rest a little bit as well, so getting the bowl prep ready. I was able to draw on the experience as a player and as a coach and an assistant. As a head coach our program is more than one coach and definitely more than one player. My role is to facilitate the dreams of these young men and that means to have the best experience in this bowl game, and then when we play the game that they have fun and play it the right way and respect our opponents and see what happens. Q. You mentioned rest for the players. How about rest for the coaches, did you get any of that in? COACH SITAKE: It's a year-round thing. People that understand how coaching works, it's a year-round thing for us, too. For us coaching is 24/7, you know? There are times that we have to be there for our young men and recruiting never stops, so the rest you find time for it, and I think it's an honor for our coaches to honor their roles as husband's and father's and also their role in society. We try to balance it as much as possible but, you know, football and coaching football is what they love the most. I think it's a little bit -- for me it's a little bit cheating. We get to go home and be around people that we love and go to work and be around people that we love and do what we love to do. Don't tell our AD this, but it's almost -- I almost feel bad getting paid to do it. Don't tell him that. You can edit that out. Q. Do you have any sort of subtle pressure from the history of BYU and the bowl games here in San Diego? Like LaVell, other coaches, you have work to do here? COACH SITAKE: I don't believe so. I don't look at the past. I don't look at anything as far as streaks and say we have to do this and put pressure on ourselves. I think that the pressure is only what you allow it to be. For us, we're just built on the present and the future. I think looking back at the past doesn't really do anything for you unless you're willing to learn from the mistakes. That's all our approach is, is to have fun and be grateful for the position that they're in. Our players, there is not a lot of guys that get to do what they do and have this experience. They get to represent their families on the field so we want to make sure is that they understand that although we want to win the game, we want to compete. There is so much more to it than just that one day and the fact that they get to be out here together with all the other teammates. I think the best part about this game is that we get to bring out a lot of the guys on the scout team and a lot of guys that sacrifice that you don't get to see all their hard work. We get to give them a little bit of a break and show them how much we care about them and their sacrifice. Definitely we get to show our families a good time, too. So this is one of those moments that -- my kids remember when we were here last time, when I was at Utah, and they reflect on those moments and those memories. So we're hoping to make more memories. Q. Talk about a rivalry with you and Wyoming. I get the feeling that geographically you aren't that far apart, and it's really important to the folks in Wyoming when they play a BYU team. COACH SITAKE: We want to play great opponents, and I talked about the Wyoming program. We have a lot of respect for them. If you look at what North Dakota State is doing right now, and basically the lasting affects of having Craig Bohl there. If you're a Wyoming fan and anyone that's interested in Wyoming, they should be really excited that he is their coach. We see it on the football field. We see the improvement and the things that they do. The fundamentals, the technique, the stuff that they -- the little things that maybe aren't too flashy but the way they play the game, and we love it. We're excited. Wherever we can play great opponents like that, I'm all in for it but I'm excited that we're here and not in Laramie, and excited we are here and not in Provo, too. I think Coach Bohl would tell you the same thing. If we can play in San Diego every year, I definitely want to do that. Q. You guys started 1-3 then won 7 out of 8. Was there any particular turning point or it just happened that way? Is there any reason you could point to for that? COACH SITAKE: There wasn't one reason for it. I think we just stay the course. If you look at what our coaches and our approach and everything, I mean, when we were 1-0 we were the same that we were at 1-3, and definitely that we are at 8-4, being consistent and approaching the game the same way. I've said before, I think when you win games you overlook the details that really matter because you won. When you lose you make things more than it is because you lost. How about evaluate it as it is and improve. I think we improved every week and our coaches worked extremely hard, our players bought in. It's not like a secret ingredient that I had. We have great young men and great coaches and lucky to be a part of it. Thank you guys, appreciate it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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