Flipping through the archives of BYU sports, you can find a big win or a painful loss on every day of the week, except for Sunday. For the Cougars, Sunday is undefeated. It always has been and it always will be.
With much of society conceding Sunday to mirror the other six, BYU stands firm in its observance of Sunday as a day free from organized practices and games. The Cougars pick culture over any perceived competitive edge they might be losing by resting on the Sabbath.
“It’s balance. There are more important things than football,” BYU special teams coordinator Justin Ena told the “Y’s Guys” livestream show. “All I’m saying is the exact same thing Kalani (Sitake) says to every recruit and every coach that comes in there. We are different that way.”
For Ena, who serves in his ward bishopric in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sunday is far from a day of rest, but it’s a different kind of busy. He sees serving others and spending time with family instead of wrangling over practice drills helps him be a better coach — and he’s not alone.
In the last two seasons, against the stiffest competition in program history, the Cougars are 23-4 without having a single Sunday workout.
“Having Sundays off and being with family — just being able to take a step back,” he said. “Again, (football) is really important when you are there, but your family is (also) really important when you are there trying to be a great father and great husband.”
Observing and defending Sunday isn’t the only thing that keeps BYU peculiar in the eyes of many. The Cougars pray, too. A lot.
“We have team prayer, but then we’ll have our own position group prayer,” Ena said. “To be able to pray, you can’t do that anywhere else unless you are a private university. ... We take that as a huge advantage.”
Ena and the Cougars recruit to the culture, not against it. BYU just signed its highest-rated recruiting class in program history, and when the transfer portal door opened in January, not one starter bolted for somewhere else.
“People understand that BYU is different and different in a great way, when they see the culture that is built from all the different coaches,” Ena said. “But it all stems from the mission plan of our university. As long as you emulate Jesus Christ somewhere, somehow, people are going to find their way here.”
BYU is not a perfect place and there are no perfect people walking the campus, but the vibe of its uniqueness is real, and thousands of students and athletes from all faiths are finding their bearings there.
“That’s the miracle of BYU football. I think that’s the purpose of why we have Brigham Young University,” Ena said. “We are looking for people who are trying to progress and get better. We are not asking for perfection, that won’t happen in this life.
“But as long as people are trying to progress to be the very best they can be, that’s what we are trying to do right now, and I think Kalani hits the nail on the head by not only emulating it, but by living it.”
Sitake’s culture also includes empowering his staff, and Ena is charged with the new task of bringing his own imagination to BYU’s special teams.
“(Kalani) said, ‘Be inventive. Let’s try some new things out,’” said Ena of his marching orders. “It’s really nice. He was a special teams coordinator when he was at Eastern Arizona. We bounced a few things off each other. He’s been around football a long time.”
After switching from his previous assignment with the linebackers, Ena will break in a new kicker, punter, holder, snapper and punt returner when the Cougars take the field Sept. 5 against Utah Tech. His goal is like those of every other coach on Sitake’s staff: to win in Arlington and do it without sacrificing what the school stands for — including its observance of the Sabbath Day.
“We need to win the Big 12 championship now. No one is satisfied. You got to see the whole team from last year that had eligibility, the starters, what did they do? They returned because they believe in it,” Ena said. “They believe in the culture, but they (also) believe in each other.
“The team, the chemistry, and the culture that we have at BYU is different. It’s second to none. When all the guys decided to come back and rally, it’s the coolest thing. The other cool thing is when you have guys who do take off — they are banging down the door to come back. They really are.”
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.