Technically, the No. 8 BYU Cougars are idle this week, enjoying a much-deserved bye after playing football games for seven consecutive weeks in the middle of a pandemic with key players missing in almost every contest.
But Kalani Sitake’s undefeated team still faces an ever-present opponent every day until it hosts North Alabama on Nov. 21 and throughout the remainder of the season, the fifth-year coach said Monday in his weekly press briefing.
That enemy is the COVID-19 virus, which threatens to derail 8-0 BYU’s special season as much as any foe left on the schedule. After playing the Lions, the Cougars will host San Diego State on Dec. 12, but Sitake reiterated Monday that BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe is hard at work trying to find possible opponents the last weekend in November or first weekend in December, or both.
“You can’t afford to let your guard down,” Sitake said. Cancellations due to the coronavirus “are part of the sports world right now. You are seeing games being postponed or canceled in a lot of different arenas. It is not just college football. It happens everywhere, right?”
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency Sunday night and ordered a statewide mask mandate because Utah is seeing an average of more than 2,200 COVID-19 cases a day and a positive test rate of more than 20%. Infections have soared and death counts have reached record highs.
“We are going to trust our government officials and support them as much as we can. We will follow it. We will try to educate our players and ourselves and make sure we do what we can to keep people safe. Regardless of how you feel about it, and personal feelings, it doesn’t really matter for us. We want to do things the right way and do what people are asking of us.” — BYU football coach Kalani Sitake.
Although the high school football playoffs have not been canceled, most other extracurricular activities and social activities have been halted for the next two weeks at Herbert’s command. It is not clear yet whether fans will be allowed to attend the North Alabama game at LaVell Edwards Stadium (1 p.m., BYUtv), but Sitake said his focus is on keeping his players and staff free of more infections and not how many spectators can watch the next game in person.
“We are going to trust our government officials and support them as much as we can. We will follow it,” Sitake said. “We will try to educate our players and ourselves and make sure we do what we can to keep people safe. Regardless of how you feel about it, and personal feelings, it doesn’t really matter for us. We want to do things the right way and do what people are asking of us.”
That said, Sitake and his players are well aware that they can do everything humanly possible to avoid the virus, but have it strike anyway. They’ve already had one game postponed (and possibly canceled) because they couldn’t travel to Army back in mid-September due to positive tests and contact tracing within the team.
“I have said it before: you can do everything right. You can wear a mask, social distance from each other, and this virus has shown that it doesn’t really matter sometimes,” Sitake said. “You can still pick it up and still test positive. The key is for us to try to minimize it as much as possible and do what our leaders have asked us to do.”
Aside from seeing his team wallop Boise State 51-17 on Friday, it was a tough weekend for Sitake because one of his coaching mentors, Gary Andersen, parted ways with Utah State, and another mentor, Kyle Whittingham, had the start to his season pushed back another week when Utah was forced to cancel its game against Arizona due to multiple positive COVID-19 tests and ensuing contact tracing.
“That’s just the world we live in now and I don’t think any team is going to go into a game being full strength,” Sitake said. “You just have to look at what happens in dealing with the pandemic knowing that every team out there in college football isn’t going to be at their best because of the test results and things like that.”
BYU’s Isaac Rex, who caught two touchdown passes against BSU, has several friends on Utah’s team, most notably fellow tight end Cole Fotheringham, and he expressed dismay Monday that the Cougars’ biggest rival hasn’t been able to get on the field yet. Rex said the Utah-Arizona cancellation — Utah’s game at UCLA this week is still on, but moved back a day to Saturday — is just another reminder that the invisible opponent referred to as the ’rona around BYU’s football facilities is always lurking.
Rex said the Cougars have to resist the temptation to let their hair down a bit because they don’t have a game this week.
“We are trying to stay away from any social scene possible, really, no parties,” Rex said. “I mean, you see those parties all over campus, but we are trying to stay away from that. We try to keep this thing going. We are 8-0, we are a top-10 team. We don’t want to take any chances of getting the virus.
“We could still get it, and it may happen, but we are going to take every precaution possible so we don’t get it,” he continued. “And so it was kinda tough seeing some of my friends not being able to play up north, but down here we are trying to stay away from the virus and try to not be in the situations where we might get it.”
As for the bye week, Sitake said they will treat it like most others — with the notable exception that coaches won’t be out on the road recruiting as the NCAA has stopped all off-campus recruiting during the pandemic.
“We are going to move on to the next transition, which is taking advantage of the bye week and see what we can do to get our guys healed up properly. but also make sure we maintain our strength and our conditioning and that we are on top of our academics and our personal and social lives, and that we are smart with it,” Sitake said.
Offensive lineman Brady Christensen, who was recently added to the watch list for the Outland Trophy, said getting healthier and stronger will be priorities.
“Obviously, we are through a large portion of our season, so it is not like we can make major improvements of any one thing,” he said. “But we can definitely improve on some of the small techniques.”
Sitake said running back Lopini Katoa, who sprained an ankle against Boise State, probably wouldn’t be able to play if the Cougars had a game this week, but is hopeful for the UNA game. He said safety Zayne Anderson (ankle) and defensive end Tyler Batty (undisclosed injury) should be able to return soon.