Kalani Sitake and BYU find themselves in a complicated situation. They are arguably the second-best team in the Big 12. Their win against TCU on this past Saturday proves this. However, they may still not be one of the 12 teams to make the playoffs.
BYU hurt their chances when they dropped the crucial game to Texas Tech last week with a 7-29 score line. The result was the College Football Playoff Committee dropping them to No. 12. Now, Sitake has addressed whether the committee’s decision was fair.
Kalani Sitake on the College Football Playoff Committee’s Decision Affecting BYU
Sitake appeared before the media after the TCU game. BYU played aggressively, a complete turnaround from their lackluster performance against Texas Tech, where they struggled to run the ball. When asked about the CFP Committee’s Week 11 decision, he clarified that he was not the right person to ask.
“Yeah, I don’t get involved in that. Just going to keep playing ball. So, yeah, I’m probably the wrong guy to ask about that stuff. We just play ball,” Sitake said.
Sitake had also clarified that BYU’s style of play wasn’t done to please the committee, which might have taken note of their sloppy play against Texas Tech. Sitake continued, “I just want to win the game, and I mean, winning is the best style to me. So yeah, I wasn’t thinking about any of that stuff.”
“We were just trying to grind the clock, and we went really conservative at the end, trying to just end the game, you know. So, I was just happy with how the guys responded,” he added.
As per PFSN’s College Football Playoff Meter, BYU has a 61.5% chance to make the playoffs. However, it comes with a strict caveat: Win out in the Big 12. They will face Cincinnati (7-3, 5-2 Conference) and UCF (4-6, 1-6 Conference) on their way to a potential rematch with the Red Raiders to take home the Big 12 title and book their playoff berth.
But if the Cougars lose another game against Texas Tech, they might end up competing with other Big Ten and SEC teams. Given BYU’s strength of schedule, they might have to rely on several results. They would then also hope that none of Tulane, North Texas, Navy, James Madison, and Utah would win the rest of the games.
They might also need some help from the ACC: either Georgia Tech or Miami to drop another game. PFSN’s College Football Playoff Predictor still gives BYU a 37.9% chance of making the CFP as an at-large team. Despite all this, BYU controls its destiny, and the fans will get a better picture when they play Cincinnati on November 22.