‘Dangerous team’: BYU preparing for a ‘four-quarter fight’ against FCS Southern Illinois

When you are on a five-game losing streak and have seen your program criticized, disrespected, dissected and picked apart in every way imaginable the past nine months, you take absolutely nothing for granted.

Not even a season-opening matchup against a team from a lower division of college football.

That’s been BYU coach Kalani Sitake’s message the past couple of weeks as the Cougars have prepared to take on Southern Illinois of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) on Saturday (6 p.m. MDT, ESPN+) at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

“Dangerous team,” Sitake said on Monday after an excruciating, long offseason preceded BYU’s 100th season of football. “They are not going to be coming in here very shy. They are going to be coming in here with excitement and energy to try and get a win.”

The Salukis will get $425,000 from BYU and $135,000 from Kansas (because the Jayhawks cancelled the original game) to appear at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, some 1,450 miles away from Carbondale, Illinois. But this is way more than a paycheck game for the FCS power, which has built its reputation under nine-year coach Nick Hill as a giant-killer, with victories over FBS schools Northwestern and Northern Illinois the past two seasons.

BYU is 18-0 against FCS opponents, but this one feels a little different. Don’t be fooled by the fact that three of BYU’s Big 12 mates — Kansas, Utah and UCF — outscored FCS opponents 154-6 on Thursday night. Lindenwood, Southern Utah and New Hampshire were physically and athletically overwhelmed.

If last season’s performances in the trenches are any indication, BYU won’t enjoy that kind of advantage Saturday against an SIU team that went 8-5 last year and made it to the second round of the FCS playoffs before falling in overtime at Idaho. BYU’s opener will probably more likely resemble Colorado’s 31-26 win over North Dakota State.

At least, that’s what Las Vegas thinks. The Cougars started out as a 20-point favorite, but that spread has shrunk to 14.5 as the first meeting between BYU and the Salukis has been analyzed more closely as kickoff approaches.

“You always respect your opponent,” said BYU offensive lineman Connor Pay. “We knew they were a good team from the second we turned the tape on, and started studying them. And we knew what they were capable of doing, and what they have done in the past. So yeah, we are definitely going in understanding this is a good football team we are about to go play, and we gotta be on our Ps and Qs to get the job done.”

Notwithstanding last year’s 14-0 squeaker over Sam Houston , a former FCS power that was playing its first game as an FBS program, BYU has generally fared well under Sitake in season openers. The Cougars are 7-1 in those contests, the only loss coming to Utah (30-12) in 2019 in Provo.

In the 2022 opener, BYU crushed South Florida 50-21 in Tampa. If BYU somehow manages to hang 50 on a defense that ranked fourth in the FCS last season, a celebratory parade might be in order. Yes, the Cougars’ offense was that bad in 2023 — particularly their rushing attack.

Sitake has spent the last nine months re-tooling his coaching staff and searching for answers before BYU’s second season in the Big 12. He believes he has found them, although one big question won’t be answered until his new starting quarterback takes the field, junior college transfer Jake Retzlaff or well-traveled veteran Gerry Bohanon.

“I am confident in them. This is not uncharted territory before. We have been through this before. And so it is OK. These guys are good. They can handle it. We want to get out there and show what we have been doing, and show that the sacrifices that have been made, and the hard work that has been put into it, and see if we can change some minds, and play the game,” Sitake said Monday.

That said, this is an opener, and anything can happen. Sitake and offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick acknowledged this week that their praise of the Cougars has been muted. They want to see results before they start tossing out flowery bouquets.

“There are some veteran players coming back, and some new players that are going to get opportunities. But until you get in the game — and we have had scrimmages and all that — but until you get into a game you really don’t know how they are going to respond,” Sitake said. “They are all concerning to me as a head coach.

“That is what I am focused on. But I am also focused on depth and making sure that depth is quality. We will be able to count on a lot of players to make plays at all different positions. And if there are any issues, we can go to our depth with that.”

In other words, depth could end up being the difference, which is an area where BYU should have an advantage. Playing at 4,550 feet above sea level, where the air is a bit thinner than at Carbondale’s 415 feet.

From BYU’s perspective, all eyes will be on the starting QB — most indications are that it will be the junior Retzlaff , who started to play well at the end of last year in the close losses to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State — and the offensive line.

Has the emphasis on running the football paid off?

“We will find out,” Roderick said. “I have seen improvement in that group, and I look forward to watching them play Saturday night.”

Defensively, the Cougars have had to do the same thing as SIU has done — prepare for two quarterbacks, returnee Hunter Simmons and transfer D.J. Williams.

“Both are athletic, and they both have good arms,” said BYU defensive coordinator Jay Hill, who coached against SIU once, in a playoff game, when he was at Weber State. “Nick Hill has played with competitive, tough guys at quarterback the last five or six years. They usually do a good job of taking care of the football, and we would expect nothing less of these guys.”

Said BYU linebackers coach Justin Ena: “We are preparing for a four-quarter fight.”