The first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2025 season will be released Tuesday night, but for one coach whose team figures to be in the mix, they will come and go with no fanfare whatsoever.
That would be BYU coach Kalani Sitake, whose No. 8-ranked Cougars have more pressing matters of which to attend. Coming off a much-needed bye, undefeated BYU (8-0, 5-0) cannot afford to waste any time on anything but preparation for its historic matchup with No. 9 Texas Tech (8-1, 5-1) on Saturday in Lubbock, Texas, Sitake said in his weekly press briefing on Monday.
The 10 a.m. MST kickoff at Jones AT&T Stadium will mark the first-ever matchup of top-10 programs in BYU football history, and the eyes of the college football world will be upon the Big 12 combatants, beginning Saturday morning when “College GameDay” will air from the Hub City.
“We haven’t talked about it before and we probably won’t talk about it again,” Sitake said of the CFP rankings release. “We just focus on one thing, and that’s having the right mindset and making sure that we avoid all distractions before we get to that game. The focus this entire week is going into that game against Texas Tech in Lubbock.”
Although BYU has the better record and ranking, and has had an extra week to prepare for the long-awaited showdown, Texas Tech is a 10.5-point favorite. Sitake said it is easy to see why the Red Raiders are so highly thought of, having watched film of all nine of their previous games.
“I am not a voter in the polls or any of that stuff. All we know is that when we saw the schedule and we knew that we were going to go out to Lubbock this time, that we had to prep for that opportunity to play that game. I am looking forward to the matchup. They have an awesome fanbase there, and obviously they won’t be cheering for us, but it’s a lot of fun to go see these places that you’ve never been able to play at before.”
The series is tied 1-1, with Texas Tech winning at home in 1940 and BYU winning 27-14 two years ago in Provo in its first season in the Big 12. The highest-ranked teams BYU has played while being in the top 10 was No. 14 Coastal Carolina in 2020 (BYU was No. 8) and No. 14 Kansas State in the 1997 Cotton Bowl (BYU was No. 5).
It is the Big 12’s first conference game pitting two top-10 teams since No. 5 Oklahoma State played No. 9 Baylor in 2021.
There are huge Big 12 title implications in the game as well, although Sitake said that topic has not been discussed in Provo, either. The Cougars still have to play at second-place Cincinnati on Nov. 22 and will host TCU on Nov. 15 and UCF on Nov. 29. It was announced Monday that the BYU-TCU game will kick off at 8:15 p.m. and be televised by ESPN.
“I don’t teach (paying attention to conference standings),” Sitake said. “I teach trying to get better fundamentally. I know that it’s out there and everything. Everybody talks about it. Me personally, I don’t care about that. My job is to get these guys to play at their best every week.
“I think we did enough to be 8-0 right now, but I still feel like there’s a lot that we can improve at,” Sitake continued. “My job is to make sure that we play at our best and can play a full 60 minutes this Saturday.”
Here are more takeaways from Sitake’s 15-minute chat with reporters Monday:
Sitake not tipping hand on BYU’s injury situation
All of Cougar Nation has held its collective breath since star running back LJ Martin left the Iowa State game with an apparent upper-body injury and did not return. Linebacker Jack Kelly also got dinged up late in the game.
How are they doing?
“Yeah, they’re doing great. I mean, we’ll see how they progress during practice this week. So they’re not out. They’re practicing and we’ll see by the time Wednesday (comes),” Sitake said, alluding to the release of the availability report Wednesday night. “Hopefully it works in our favor, but the fact that they’re not out is a good sign.”
As for two offensive players who have been out for more than a month, receiver JoJo Phillips and running back Sione Moa, Sitake said Phillips has been practicing for a couple of weeks and is close to returning. Moa has not been practicing.
“We will evaluate it and see if it is the right thing to do for (Phillips), for us to play him on Saturday,” Sitake said. “Sione’s (comeback) has been slower, but can’t really say anything until we see what happens in the next couple days. So with JoJo, we feel really good about (it), and Sione probably not.”
Sitake huge fan of Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire
Sitake said he has been in “many, many meetings and dinners” with Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire, and considers him a close friend.
“He’s a great builder of culture and character. I was really impressed with Texas Tech and their entire group, all their players, that they brought to the media day this summer (in Frisco, Texas) and they carried themselves in a really respectful (way) and carry themselves with a lot of confidence,” Sitake said. “You can see a lot of that working through what they’ve done this season, what they’ve accomplished.”
Texas Tech associate head coach and special teams coordinator Kenny Perry was one of McGuire’s first hires when he took over in 2022 and has also been a big part of the Red Raiders’ recent success. Perry played for legendary Utah high school coach Mike Fraser at Granger High in West Valley City his sophomore season, before his family moved to Texas.
He returned to Granger a few years later and was an assistant coach on Ray Groth’s staff there.
