Over a hundred players will report to BYU’s fall camp next Tuesday. The roster includes a bevy of returning stars on both sides of the ball, including five transfers that former Cougar Hans Olsen contends will have a big impact on the season ahead.
“If Cade Uluave can pick up 80% of what Jack Kelly is leaving on the table, and Roger Saleapaga can pick up 80% of what Carson Ryan left on the table, this is going to be a much better all-around team,” Olsen told the “Y’s Guys” livestream show this week. “I think it has more depth, more experience, and more unified coaching. If those two can pick up 80%, this team is 20% better. I can’t help but set the expectation so high because these guys are so good.”
Olsen’s top transfers
- Cade Uluave (Cal), 6-foot-1, 235-pound linebacker: “He was the No. 1-ranked linebacker out of the transfer portal. He was first team All-ACC. He’s got to find a way to be the quarterback-killer off the edge. He has to work contains and he has to fill gaps. He is an exceptional human being, and he is so excited to play for Cougar Nation.”
- Roger Saleapaga Jr. (Oregon), 6-4, 235-pound tight end: “I got out to three spring ball practices. Nobody outshined Roger Saleapaga. He stood out more than any other player on the field. Period. He is a hustler. He is looking for contact. He wants to hurt you. He has to replace a ton of the production that you are losing from Carson Ryan.”
- Paki Finau (Washington), 6-5, 310-pound offensive tackle: “Paki is undersized, but he has Penei Sewell (former Oregon star) feet. He is so quick to the spot. He’s low hips. As those defensive ends press into him, he’ll sink the hips, he’ll absorb the push. He’ll absorb the bull (rush). If he can do that, no one is going to hit the inside spins on him, nobody is going to hit the speed rush on him. It’s not going to happen. His feet are too good.”
Additionally, Olsen believes 6-6, 212-pound Oregon transfer Kyler Kasper will emerge as BYU’s lead producer at receiver. “He has a lot of Chase Roberts-like qualities,” he said. “When he attacks the corners, it’s great long-arm and good strong-arm hand battles. I like him.”
Olsen, a defensive standout at BYU (1996-2000) before a brief stint with the Indianapolis Colts, also likes the addition of 6-2, 175-pound Jayven Williams from Mississippi State as his fifth-most impactful transfer to add support to Evan Johnson and Tre Alexander at the corners.
Game changers
Olsen played for LaVell Edwards. He played with Sitake and now he broadcasts Sitake’s games on BYU Radio. His timely vantage point provided a good look at how both men built their programs.
Edwards came into Olsen’s life first. He was also the last coach to recruit the Weiser, Idaho, lineman — and nearly arrived too late. Olsen had given a verbal commitment to Tom Osborne and Nebraska, but the legendary Cougar coach knocked on his door anyway.
“He’s in the house for five minutes and you just feel the spirit,” Olsen said. “I’m not gonna beat around the bush. He brings the spirit. I was a roughneck kid up to no good — no good. I knew I needed the spirit and he brought the spirit.”
Two weeks before signing day, Olsen flipped his commitment to BYU and turned his self-described upside-down trajectory right side up.
“It was a kick in the backside from God. I had made the decision that I wouldn’t be serving a mission, and I’d be going right into football. God was like, ‘OK, no mission, but we are going to convert you,’” Olsen said. “I was very strongly prompted to go to BYU and, as you know, it was the greatest decision of my life. It changed everything. Everything. I’m not saying it was all rainbows and sunshine, but my goodness did it give me the direction that I needed.”
Sitake’s style
Edwards also made a late-in-the-game recruiting pitch to Sitake and won him over during a visit to his Missouri home. Years later, Sitake and Olsen were teammates on the field when BYU beat Utah in Edwards’ final game as head coach in 2000.
Sitake was named the Cougars’ head coach in 2015.
“Kalani has a unique ability, just like LaVell did, to make football the most important thing without making it the most important thing,” Olsen said. “He does that with the kids, and the kids buy into it and play hard for him.”
Developing, reinforcing and selling a culture of love and respect at BYU during the NIL era of “getting mine” is how Sitake is consistently beating the system to land and retain high-end athletes.
“I think you get in there and you start to learn to keep the important things important — family, wives, friendships, love and trying to fulfill your obligations, but doing it in a way that brings light, brings the spirit and changes lives,” he said. “You keep thinking, ‘You can’t do it. BYU can’t do it that way.
“‘You are going to have to get out of the spirit-making business and you are going to have to get out of the church-making business and you are going to have to get into the football business if you want to compete,’ and Kalani is proving all of that wrong.”
A big dream
Enthusiasm and optimism reverberate in Olsen’s voice when he breaks down a big play as Greg Wrubell’s analyst on BYU Radio. Still towering at 6-4, but slimmer than his glory days, Olsen is a big man with big dreams and his desire to call a Sitake vs. Kyle Whittingham/Jay Hill/Jernaro Gilford/BYU-Michigan game is at the top of his big wish list.
“This is the scenario — all of my hopes and dreams stuffed into one season. BYU and Michigan making it to the College Football Playoff,” he said. “My hope is that BYU and Michigan are ranked below the top four and BYU has a higher ranking and Michigan has to come to LaVell Edwards Stadium.”
Notre Dame and Michigan playing in Provo in the same season?
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” Olsen said. “There is a real possible chance that it could happen. I am openly rooting for that.”
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