Last year, when BYU lost 5 games in a row and missed a bowl game a lot of things were going wrong. The preseason hyped O-line was vastly underperforming which, along with injuries, made our senior transfer QB1 and RB1 ineffective. When Retzy took over, he was a basket case and had the same struggling O-line hindering his effort. The defense with Hill was more watchable than under Tuiaki, but still wasn't performing in a way that would win us many games. We lost 5 games in a row to end the season, looked bad most of that time, and missed the postseason. Nevertheless, the team hung together and the players took responsibility with poise and leadership.

This year, Utah is in an eerily similar situation. Injuries in key positions, including QB, an underperforming O-line that is limiting their star RB and their inexperienced QB. They've lost 3 in a row and are almost certainly on track for more L's. So far the Utes are crumbling under the pressure of underperforming. Players are publicly expressing dissatisfaction on social media and one of their most experienced coaches is leaving midseason. I just saw the Utah AD tweet a thank you to Ludwig and there are multiple replies from Utah fans essentailly saying the AD should be fired (in much more coarse language).

To me, this season is showing the stark difference between the two coaching philosophies. Whittingham has always been transactional in philosophy. Basically, treating players and coaches as replaceable parts of a success machine. It's a dystopian meritocracy where performance is the only virtue at the expense of the person. And he's been pretty good at turning that into success in the PAC the last few years. But it can only work as long as short-term success is happening. The players are brought in on the promise that if you perform, they'll get you NFL ready with some national attention. Once that success becomes unlikely, they abandon ship, lose confidence, and don't have anything to play for. Watch the Utah transfer portal after this season for confirmation.

By contrast, Sitake has some serious cojones to take last year's team and basically double down, keeping the same players that lost all of those games, and giving them the opportunity to get better. He believed in them and in his staff to right the ship, and it was really a huge gamble. He went to the portal for Bohannon to have a QB that can push Retzlaff and be a safety net in case of injury, but it appears to me he wanted it to be Rezlaff all along. Mostly, he took what was left of last year's underperforming guys and got them to overperform in a way that nobody saw coming. That's old school and kind of unheard of in modern college football. He's always talking about BYU recruiting players differently and getting the right guys that fit the culture and I think I'm finally realizing what that means. Typical 20-year-olds aren't capable of the kind of transformation BYU has seen this year. What's crazy to me is that the whole "Love One Another" thing we fans complained about is, I think, the main driver of our success this year. Players want to play for each other, put a lot of pride in their effort, and don't get down and deflated when things aren't going perfectly. It's beautiful to watch!

Anyways, I'm a few more wins away from being ride or die with Sitake, and I've been one of his more skeptical fans. Go Cougs!