PROVO — Isaiah Kaufusi was a redshirt freshman returned missionary on the 2016 BYU football team that featured current NFL players Fred Warner, Sione Takitaki, Jamaal Williams and Taysom Hill and went 9-4, losing those four games by a combined eight points.
The senior linebacker says the 2020 team could be better.
“This is the best team I have been a part of here at BYU,” Kaufusi said in a video teleconference with reporters after practice Thursday night. “We have kinda bridged it together. It has been a work in progress the last few years. Guys have bought into the culture. They have bought into what we do as players. We love one another and we are united in what we do. So I think that is the biggest difference.”
The Cougars certainly looked the part last Monday, blasting Navy 55-3 in a game that was never close. BYU (1-0) was hoping to continue that momentum next weekend, but its Sept. 19 game at Navy was postponed Saturday afternoon due to a “small number of positive COVID-19 test results and the resulting tracing exposures within the BYU football program,” according to a school news release.
It will be interesting to see how pollsters react to the news. Heading into Saturday, many predicted that BYU will crack the Associated Press Top 25 college football rankings when they are released Sunday morning, given that it played well on national TV and the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Mountain West aren’t playing — yet.
Head coach Kalani Sitake was quick to point out immediately after the walloping of the unprepared Midshipmen that one game doesn’t come close to making a season, or establishing the identity of a team, but he acknowledged Thursday that precious little went wrong against a Navy team that went 11-2 last year and was undefeated at home.
“I don’t know if anything really surprised me, other than just the fact that our guys were all focused on that game,” Sitake said. “I keep going back to the fact that there is a lot of experience on our team.”
It’s not like the Cougars suddenly decided they have a chance for another special season, like they did in 2016, Sitake’s first year.
Junior quarterback Zach Wilson, who completed 13 of 18 passes for 232 yards and two touchdowns against Navy, has been saying since last spring that all the ducks were in order for an outstanding year.
“We have the potential to be a really, really good football team,” he told the Deseret News in June.
Of course, the schedule has been drastically altered and made much easier due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so comparing this season to any other in recent BYU history is mostly pointless. But on paper, the talent, depth and experience is impressive, even after season-ending injuries to tight end Matt Bushman and running backs Hinckley Ropati and Jackson McChesney cut into that depth.
“So I have been on a really good team and I mean, this offense, I think, is the best I have seen,” Kaufusi said. “The offensive line, phenomenal. They are the best O line in the country.
“And Zach really just takes control of the offense. It is his offense, he runs it, and he is just a phenomenal quarterback. We really trust him.”
“This is the best team that I have been a part of here at BYU, We have kinda bridged it together. It has been a work in progress the last few years. Guys have bought into the culture. They have bought into what we do as players. We love one another and we are united in what we do. So I think that is the biggest difference.” — BYU senior linebacker Isaiah Kaufusi.
Offensive lineman Brady Christensen, who was on his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hamilton, New Zealand, when the Cougars were really good in 2016, said getting back to that type of dominance has been a process paved by hard work.
“I think especially the O line we are very experienced compared to past years. But what I notice the most about this team is we just love being out there with each other. This was the most energetic, fun fall camp I have ever been a part of,” Christensen said. “It usually is a grind, and it was a grind again this year, but we were just having fun out there with each other. We were battling, we are super competitive with each other. And so we are always trying to make each other better; I think that is the biggest difference I have noticed from this team.”
BYU’s specialists appear to have improved, after misfiring several times the past two seasons, both 7-6 campaigns, with missed field goals and PATs and whatnot that cost the Cougars games. Freshman Ryan Rehkow unleashed a 56-yard punt and sophomore Jake Oldroyd was 2 for 2 on field goals against Navy.
“There have been times (in past years) that we were sitting there trying to prep a kid for his first time being on the field or being away from football for awhile, being on a mission or whatever,” Sitake acknowledged. “Now we have a good number of guys we feel like have been on the field, and now we are just focusing on the details of their assignment or technique and not having to teach them a play or a scheme.”
Defensively, the Cougars appear to have added another outstanding linebacker in Navy transfer Pepe Tanuvasa — who had eight tackles against his former team — and showed the versatility Sitake preached in putting out a 14-position defensive depth chart.
“We are trying to promote … the idea of players knowing more about football,” Sitake said. “That goes hand in hand with recruiting guys that love the game, and love being here at BYU. Because they think if you have those types of individuals around them they are going to get better. And then that, combined with the leadership we have on our team, should give us success.”
So far, so good.
But everyone affiliated with BYU football knows the Cougars looked like world-beaters last year during stretches, beating Tennessee and USC for instance. But those losses at South Florida and Toledo illustrated the maddening inconsistency that has plagued Sitake’s last three seasons.
If this team is truly great, it should roll over the six remaining opponents on the schedule, with the possible exception of Houston on Oct. 16. Then again, Saturday’s postponement could be a sign of more to come if schools don’t get a handle on the coronavirus pandemic.
Sitake confirmed Thursday that athletic director Tom Holmoe continues to search for more games and hinted that the Cougars want the best competition they can find.
“I think Tom is always talking about that and has a plan,” Sitake said. “I know where there are open spots, and I know what we are hoping for, and Tom has delivered (so far). He has done a great job getting the schedule going, and so I am just going to wait for what he does.”
Another solid outing against a service academy team on national television would have pushed BYU into the national spotlight even more, but had to be scratched. The only possible date it could be made up is Nov. 28, unless both schools’ opponents cancel games on the same date.
Before Saturday, BYU was starting to eke into the conversation about what it would take for a non-Power Five program to get a sniff of the College Football Playoff.
That was ESPN college football analyst Bill Connelly’s take as he threw BYU out there as a long shot for the No. 4 spot in the CFP in an article published Friday.
Connelly put BYU at No. 10 in the teams most likely to get the fourth playoff spot behind the favorites — Alabama, Clemson and Oklahoma. — and wrote this:
“A stretch? Maybe. But you’ve got to grant Kalani Sitake’s team this: The Cougars were absolutely terrifying on Monday night against an unprepared Navy team. … Better yet, the Cougars have about the easiest schedule known to mankind. … If they look the part, and the CFP committee is choosing between them and a bunch of two- or three-loss conference non-champions, do the Cougs get the benefit of the doubt? If they keep looking the way they did on Labor Day, they might have a case.”
Just don’t say Isaiah Kaufusi, Zach Wilson and friends didn’t warn you.