The latest model to come out of the BYU Quarterback Factory is different than anything we’ve seen previously. It has vastly different lines, for one thing. Fire-hydrant legs, low to the ground, wider, burlier, bigger. One opposing coach said he looked like a (blankety blank) centaur.
His name is Bear — which ought to tell you something — not Steve or Robbie or Jim or Gifford. Bear. It’s his real name. He has a different license plate, too — jersey No. 47, like a linebacker. He plays like a linebacker. Bear is a football player first, then a quarterback.
In other words: finally, the perfect quarterback for Kalani Sitake.
Bear — everyone is on first-name basis with him — was tailor-made for Sitake. The coach is a former fullback, an extinct position now. He was big, thick and powerful. He had only 86 rushing attempts in three years as a starter. His real job was to block, to mix it up in the trenches. There was no finesse in him and nothing pretty about the way he played (he was voted team captain so apparently he earned the respect of coaches and teammates).
What he needed was a quarterback who played as he did. BYU’s quarterback greats of the past were sports cars; Bear is a 4WD Jeep. Gifford Nielsen, Robbie Bosco, Steve Young, Jim McMahon, Ty Detmer — were passers first, mostly dropback types, 200 pounds or less. Bear, who outweighs the biggest of his famous predecessors by 25 pounds, runs and passes and he doesn’t avoid contact. He trucked Stanford linebacker Matt Rose to score a touchdown. Rose is 230 pounds.
With Bear on the field, the Cougars prefer to run the ball and play nasty defense, all of which must suit Sitake just fine. This is not your father’s BYU team.
During the LaVell Edwards era, teams leaned on finesse out of necessity and it worked brilliantly. They threw 40 to 50 passes a game. Then the rest of the country followed their lead and went crazy with the pass game and BYU lost its edge.
BYU has come full circle. This year’s team has 89 rushing attempts and 45 pass attempts in two games. They’re about as fancy as meat and potatoes — or Ohio State and Nebraska in the ’70s and ’80s.
They’re big and tough and they’re slugging it out in the trenches, as Sitake once did. They’re not trying to pass over and around their opponents as much as trying to run right over and through them. Bear has thrown for three touchdowns and run for three touchdowns.
This story could go south in a hurry, but it’s been fun so far. Bear is The Story of the young season. He faced a big enough challenge as a true freshman, but then he showed up late at BYU.
A year ago he was in high school. He graduated early and participated in spring practice — at Stanford. A weird turn of events led him to become BYU’s next QB. Stanford coach Troy Taylor was fired, which sent Bear to the transfer portal. He didn’t arrive at BYU until mid-May. BYU’s returning starting quarterback, Jake Retzlaff, was suspended and left school.
He still faced long odds. In fall camp, Bear had to beat out two veterans who had participated in BYU’s spring practice — Treyson Bourguet, who started 10 games for Western Michigan, and McCae Hillstead, who played in eight games for Utah State.
Bear didn’t have the benefit of spring practice at BYU and had to learn the BYU playbook in a matter of weeks (either spring practice and the difficulty of learning the playbook is vastly overrated or this guy is just really good).
En voila — here he is.
Players who are months removed from high school are not supposed to do this — especially quarterbacks — but he doesn’t know that. He’s playing with the relaxed air of a kid in a pickup game on the playground.
He’s savvy and poised beyond his years, doesn’t panic in the pocket, possesses a strong and accurate arm, and runs the offense, all at the age of 19. Sitake and his quarterbacks coach, Aaron Roderick, are slowly removing the training wheels — Bear threw just 11 passes in the first game, 27 in the second. The kid will face stiffer tests down the road, like this week at East Carolina, so there will be growing pains.
Maybe?
Meanwhile, Sitake must be enjoying this. As one fan noted in an email to the Deseret News, “Sitake is saying to his opponents, ‘Do you think you’re tougher than me? Let me introduce you to my quarterback, Bear.’”
