"Winning with culture will happen."
Iowa State is one of the surprise teams in college football. They, like BYU, are undefeated and surging up the polls. Iowa State’s overall team recruiting ranking in the Big 12 last year? Dead last. In 2023, they were second to last in the conference. In 2022 and in 2021, they were third to last in the conference. They have never recruited above the bottom third of the Big 12, yet here they are at the top of the conference standings.
Matt Campbell is a longtime coach. He recognizes that Iowa State is never going to be an elite recruiting school, so he finds guys that fit his culture and he brings them in. He lost 22 players to the transfer portal last cycle, but only signed seven players from the portal. He will never turn Iowa State into an elite recruiting program, so he finds guys that fit his culture. His portal usage and his recruiting style is different from just about everybody else's.
“When your program is built on what’s right, it’s not super challenging. For us, we know who we are. We’ve got great relationships with our kids. There is complete transparency in where they’re at. It allows us to have a great opportunity to build a program forward - a true program. We’re not a rent-a-program where you’re going to rent a team for a year. We’ll never survive that. But we can build a program and try to build a team here and be the best team that we can be here,” Campbell told the media. “As the rest of the (college football) world looks and feels crazy, we’ve just kind of honed in on who we are and don’t try to waver too far off of that. We just keep trying to find the right humans to come into our program and surround ourselves with the right process around them.”
“What I’ve always said about the transfer portal, one way or another, if you build your program the right way with the right people then you have the opportunity to build a football program.”
Campbell is one of the most respected coaches in all of college football. He consistently outperforms the expectations placed on his program and becomes one of the hottest names in coaching circles during every coach job cycle. His explanation about how he handles his program isn’t too different from what Kalani Sitake has said about BYU.
“It feels good to do what you know you’re supposed to do with regards to BYU compared to what everyone else is doing when they are recruiting a whole different way. We’ve gotta stick to what we do and our unique way of who we are. We’ve gotta stick to our standards and the way that we operate. I know it’s not what a lot of fans want to see right away because it’s different from the norm, but it is our competitive advantage and it is what sets us apart. Winning with culture will happen,” Sitake said.
Sitake says ‘winning with culture’ and Campbell says ‘build a true program’ but they’re both basically saying the same thing. BYU and Iowa State are scanning the college football world, figuring out who they are and what their school wants to be within that world, and they are leaning into their unique personalities. And it’s paying off in big ways.
“There’s different forms of recruiting. There are different ways to do it. I think we’ve found our niche and we try to highlight that with recruits. I think the biggest misconception is that we’re not on top of guys - but we’re not to embarrass recruits either. When recruits - when we see what they’re about and they see what we’re about.. if it’s not a great connection, meaning that they’re not committed to the Honor Code and they’re not committed to difficult academics - getting into BYU is just not an easy task. You can’t just say I want to be there for the football program and then you get in. We might have to ask them to do extra classes or retake classes to get a better grade or take an ACT test, which isn’t even a requirement anymore, we might ask them to do that. That just seems like a little bit more and extra work that recruits aren’t willing to do anymore. Some recruits just aren’t committed to what we want to do Honor Code wise. Just because a recruit is a member of the Church doesn’t mean that they’re committed to that. But I’m not in the business of trying to embarrass them. So if they’re not committed to doing that - then don’t come here,” Sitake said. “Go somewhere else where you can play and have a great experience that you’re looking for. We’re going to do what we want as far as the mission of the Church, for our football program, and we’re going to be in alignment with the mission of the Church, the administration, and the athletic department, and we’ll try to promote that. At the same time, we’re not trying to embarrass kids and let people know they aren’t a good fit for BYU. As they go elsewhere, that’s okay. I’m happy for them.”
Okay, but it’s easy to say these kinds of things when you are sitting at 7-0 and at the top of the conference standings.
Except both of these coaches said these things in December in the midst of the transfer portal window and the early signing period. Iowa State had just lost the Liberty Bowl to Memphis. BYU was sitting on their couches watching bowl season after finishing 5-7. But both of these head coaches stood in front of the media and talked about how they do things different from everyone else and both emphatically believed their differences would pay off. Less than a year later, the entire Big 12 is chasing these two coaches.
When you look at the current AP Top 25, it isn’t just BYU and Iowa State that stick out. Army and Navy are both undefeated and ranked inside the Top 25. Do you think that their programs have unique cultures?
There is something happening in college football right now that I’ve never seen in my lifetime as a college football fan. It’s something that Sitake predicted back in December, but it’s something that is becoming more and more apparent. You can win college football games with culture. In a landscape where things have changed, there are teams that are able to clearly and confidently be exactly who they are while still having a ton of success.
“Player retention is built on money. If we go 3-9 and right now you’re making $12,000 but we say, ‘Hey, if you come back we’ll give you $250,000, what are you going to do?’ Player retention is probably 90% built on money right now, not anything else. It’s changed,” Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy told the media this week.
Gundy’s thought process isn’t wrong. For the vast majority of schools, money has become the name of the game. If you have the ability to write and cash big checks, then you are going to have the ability to win a lot of football games.
But there is something happening at schools that have a clearer identity. Whether that is schools like Iowa State where they have an unwavering coach who is completely confident with who he is and completely understands the program he wants to lead, or it’s schools like BYU that have an intrinsic belief that they are more than just a football program, those schools are finding success.
The landscape of college football changes with every new moon, but as things stand right now, I believe we’re in an era where BYU’s Honor Code could be the thing that helps BYU consistently compete at the top of the rankings.
The Honor Code is never going to allow BYU to recruit the best of the best in football (basketball is a different story… hello AJ Dybantsa… because a one-and-done player in hoops only stays in Provo for a few months, but an All-American football player is here for three years). I’m not claiming that the Honor Code is going to open doors that had been previously closed to BYU.
But what the Honor Code will do is help filter players who don’t want to be at BYU. More importantly, the Honor Code will help ensure that the players who do commit and sign to play for BYU really want to be at BYU. These are players who are already making life sacrifices in order to put on the Stretch Y logo.
In the past, playing for the love of the game and a shot at the NFL were the primary reasons that any college football player played the game. That meant that every head coach was operating with a similar set of clay to start. It was up to the head coach to mold that clay into whatever he wanted it to be. Players came to college to win football games and get to the NFL. If a coach proved he could do that, then he had a seemingly never-ending well of talented football players lined up at his door that wanted to join his program.
Today, though, that’s different. Money changes the entire complexion of the game and the roster for most programs throughout the country. Money is now the top priority for players. That means that coaches - like Nick Saban - who were rigid in their approach, suddenly had less control. If money is my motivator, why would I play for a hard-nosed coach like Saban when I could play for a laid-back coach like Lane Kiffin? Ultimately, the changes in the game were enough that Saban hung up his whistle and retired.
But a school like BYU has a north star that will never change. No matter how much money is offered or how little money is offered, BYU’s recruiting pitch to football players will start with the Honor Code and committing to live a college life that is different from anywhere else in the country. BYU starts the entire conversation by focusing on something different. When that pitch resonates with players, it allows Sitake to make an assumption that most of the rest of the country can’t make. Sitake gets to safely assume that his players aren’t playing for money - they are playing for something else.
When times get tough and there are a few losses, Sitake can count on his players to rally around each other to help make tomorrow better than today. He doesn’t have to worry (as much) about players running into hard times, jumping ship, and abandoning the team when they need them the most. Why can he make that assumption? Because those players have already sacrificed a lot in order to be at BYU and therefore, they must care about the success of BYU at least as much as they do about the success of themselves.
A friend of the newsletter talked about a conversation he had with a longtime former BYU staffer. This person made the claim that, provided the time to make it happen, Sitake would ultimately be the perfect coach for BYU in the new era of college football. This person believed that Sitake was the perfect blend of a player's coach and football guru who also embodied, embraced, and enjoyed all of the things that BYU the university stands for - that he was humble enough to put a bigger cause ahead of himself in order to help advance the mission.
As this year continues to move along, it’s becoming clear that Sitake is loading up his locker room with players that have that same kind of humility and belief too.
College football is changing every day. However, the mission and principles that guide BYU remain unchanged. Someone like Sitake can help magnify that mission and find players who are also willing to commit to furthering that cause.
The majority of college football is grappling with players who want to get paid above all else. Coaches are having to balance egos and salary caps in addition to preparing for game plans on Saturdays. They have to fundraise and rally the troops in order to make enough money to make payroll at the end of the season before the Transfer Portal window opens up. But, as long as Sitake can help players keep BYU’s greater cause at the forefront of their minds, the culture of the BYU locker room will be a step ahead of the vast majority of college football.
“Winning with culture will happen.”
Kalani Sitake is proving himself right.