playAdam RittenbergOct 16, 2026, 07:42 PM ETCloseCollege football reporter; joined ESPN in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsEditor’s note: This story was originally published on Aug. 16.PROVO, Utah — When Kalani Sitake sees another coach, he simply can’t stop himself.Sitake, the BYU coach entering his 11th season at his alma mater, will beeline for his colleagues, usually with outstretched arms. He welcomes any opportunity to interact with other coaches, regardless of the stakes. He doesn’t engage just to be polite (he famously is), or to gain some competitive insight or edge for an impending game.He just likes hanging out with other coaches and they like him.Sitake, who turns 51 in October, often wants to learn about their lives and backgrounds, teams and philosophies.
Sitake has won more games in the past two seasons (23) than all but four other FBS coaches. But at heart, he’s still a football enthusiast, living in what he describes as a “dream state.””Before I was the head coach of BYU, before I was a player for LaVell Edwards, I was always a fan, so the fan is the one that wins out,” Sitake told ESPN this spring. “Maybe my style can be a little uncomfortable, but I don’t know how uncomfortable it can be when I’m just trying to be your friend.”Sitake has become a friend to many around the coaching ranks. There’s a good chance he’s your favorite coach’s favorite coach, especially if you root for another Big 12 team.
Even as BYU has become a league title contender, knocking on the door of its first College Football Playoff appearance, Sitake’s popularity among his primary competitors continues to grow.”The beauty of Kalani is that he’s just authentic and he’s just always himself,” Arizona coach Brent Brennan said. “He doesn’t worry about whether that comes off good or not. But he’s a really good dude. He treats everybody with respect and kindness.
He’s just got a great way about him.”Added West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez: “He’s a football person first and foremost, but you could just tell he’s got a great heart.”Sitake’s style resonates in a cohort known for competitiveness, standoffishness and, for some, suspicion of anyone wearing another color. He’s not seeking popularity or praise, though. His desire to connect has been nurtured at BYU, going back to Edwards, whose name is on the stadium where Sitake now coaches.Edwards won a lot — 257 victories, 19 league titles and the 1984 national championship — but his success didn’t sully interactions with coaches. Sitake, who played fullback for Edwards in the 1990s, has tried to walk a similar path.”I know we’re supposed to be competitors, we’re supposed to want to beat each other, but that doesn’t mean I have to dislike you,” Sitake said.
“I couldn’t even try to hate somebody. There’s always a level of respect. I’m not doing it to get it reciprocated. I’m doing it because it makes me feel good, and I’m doing it because I love how LaVell did it.”That’s been my main motivation.”Sitake is carrying on his coach’s legacy at the school they both loved, and he has the chance to become the first BYU coach since Edwards to get the program within range of another national title.But nine months ago, he was nearly out the door.JOEY MCGUIRE WANTS to make one thing clear about his friend Kalani Sitake.”He wants to beat the hell out of you,” the Texas Tech coach said.McGuire is wired the same way.
He also coaches the team to beat in the Big 12, the deep-pocketed defending league champion that thumped Sitake’s BYU team 34-7 in the title game Dec. 6. If there’s any Big 12 colleague Sitake wouldn’t want to buddy up to, McGuire might be the one.But the two have grown close. Their interaction on the field at AT&T Stadium before the Big 12 championship was not unlike those at league meetings or at functions put on by the agency they share.”We’re always messing with each other, and we get along really well because we’re a lot alike,” McGuire told ESPN. “He’s got a big personality.
I just love him, man. He’s always so positive.”Their origin stories couldn’t be more different. Sitake was born in Tonga before moving to Hawai’i and then attending high school outside St. Louis, while McGuire is a lifelong Texan who didn’t play college ball but became a “legend in high school coaching,” as Sitake put it.
But they bonded easily.For McGuire, being around Sitake is similar to how he feels hanging with his Texas high school coaching buddies.”We’re just football geeks,” McGuire said.Sitake knows the backgrounds of his colleagues, whether they were championship high school coaches like McGuire, sons of longtime college coaches like TCU Sonny Dykes or Pro Football Hall of Famers like Colorado’s Deion Sanders. When Sitake met Sanders, he told him: Coach Prime, I loved watching you play. I actually loved you more as a Niner than when you were a Cowboy.”Getting stories from him, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the best corner that ever played the game, and I’m talking to him, and he’s a coach,'” Sitake continued. “How can you not geek out over that moment?”Sitake’s approach has resonated with Sanders.
Before facing BYU last year, he called Sitake “a dear, dear friend and a God-fearing man, which I adore, a man of standard and a man of principle, a darn good coach and a good dude.”Get Sitake away from the field, however, and he fully blossoms.At coaches’ retreats (often sponsored by Nike) to places like Hawai’i and Pebble Beach, where coaches are looser than on game days, Sitake really lets go.”He’ll go up at the Pebble Beach coach’s trip and sing a song. He’ll dance. On the Nike trip, he’ll do all the cool, fun stuff that you look at and you go, ‘Man, I wish I could do that,'” Dykes said. “And he does it.
He doesn’t care. He’s very comfortable in his own skin and who he is and what he stands for and what he’s all about. So it gives him a freedom to be himself, and I think everybody really respects him for it.”Sitake ends up being the star of the show.”A lot of coaches hate going to those coaches’ meetings or the Nike trip, but Kalani, it makes him happy,” said Tom Holmoe, the longtime BYU athletic director and former college coach who hired Sitake to lead the Cougars program. “…
It’s such a throwback to the old days.”Sitake’s approach toward other coaches isn’t noticed only in their circles. “His kids feed off of it, too,” said former Kansas State coach Chris Klieman, who became good friends with Sitake while leading the Wildcats from 2019 to 2025. “Everybody’s watching everybody. Everybody sees how head coaches interact, and when our players see coaches that can get along — we’re all competitive, but not be a-holes to each other and genuinely care about each other — players respect that.”BRIAN SANTIAGO WAS worried.
He has been at BYU since 1997, taking over as athletic director in May of last year, and had witnessed Sitake’s growth as a coach. Santiago knew other schools would come calling.After firing longtime coach James Franklin in October, Penn State soon targeted Sitake and fully believed it had its replacement by mid-November. Those around Sitake felt the same. A move to State College seemed inevitable following the Big 12 title game.”I was super concerned,” Santiago said.Sitake’s name didn’t leak as a Penn State candidate, perhaps because he didn’t really profile as one.
He seemed like an outsider, never having coached east of Utah or lived east of St. Louis. Plus, he was BYU through and through.But Penn State loved his success and his character and saw him as the type of coach who could win the big national games where Franklin had fallen short. Penn State also had gone all-in institutionally to contend for national championships and could offer more resources than BYU.
As a source familiar with Penn State’s search told ESPN, “Kalani was 100%” the top candidate.Sitake never thought he would leave BYU when he returned in late 2015. But he turned 50 on Oct. 10, two days befor
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