No. 17 BYU touches down in San Antonio with same Alamo Bowl goals as No. 23 Colorado

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — The first thing jumped out to BYU coach Kalani Sitake when the Cougars arrived Tuesday in San Antonio ahead of Saturday's Alamo Bowl against No. 23 Colorado was the food.

The ninth-year head coach joked (once again) that he was going to find the best Tex Mex and other local cuisines to make his New Year's resolution of losing weight that much more difficult.

But then his mind shifted quickly to Saturday's task against the reigning Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, the nation's leading passer in quarterback Shedeur Sanders, and a Buffaloes team making its first bowl appearance since 2020 in head coach Deion Sanders' second season in Boulder.

"We're looking forward to the matchup," Sitake said. "These can be really good for us, get the most out of us, and they'll see how we match up.

"They have some of the most premier players in the conference, and also in college football ... This is a complete team, so a lot of what they do, they do it the right way."

The Cougars are back in a bowl game after missing out on the postseason in 2023, when the newly joined Big 12 program went 5-7 with five consecutive losses to end the year.

But just 365 days later, BYU (10-2, 7-2 Big 12) is among the top teams in the conference, tied atop the league with Big 12 champion Arizona State, Iowa State and Colorado, who went 9-3 in the regular season. The Cougars were the first pick from the non-College Football Playoff bowl teams from the Big 12, while Colorado is filling the slot under the game's current contract with the Pac-12.

What a difference the past year has made, in a lot of ways.

A disappointing finish to the season cost the Cougars a shot at a Big 12 title, but BYU has rallied to retain its entire coaching staff (so far) during the jump on the annual carousel, and have added a number of quality transfers from the portal — most notably, former four-star tight end Carsen Ryan from Utah, four-star edge rusher Tausili Akana from Texas, and four-star offensive tackle Andrew Gentry from Michigan.

That's all for next season, obviously. But several BYU players have a reason to kick the proverbial tires on a jump start into 2025 this week in San Antonio.

"Bowl games are often considered the start of the next season, right?" said quarterback Jake Retzlaff, who threw for 2,796 yards and 20 touchdowns with 10 interceptions as a redshirt junior. "Because this is the seniors' last game, but all the young guys will have chances to step up in games like these, so it's going to be a blast. I'm excited to use this game as momentum to push into the offseason, and so it is a big opportunity, and we're beyond excited for it."

The same can be said for Colorado, which went 4-8 in Coach Prime's first season and has won the most games since finished 10-4 in 2016. If bowl games are celebrations for a team's season, the Buffs' third-consecutive Alamo Bowl trip also serves as a celebration of Sanders' rising career.

And yet ...

"The purpose is to win the game. It's like the main course," Coach Prime said. "You know, the appetizers and all, is all the other stuff. So we're happy to go through what we need to go thorugh to get to what we need to get to. But the young men know what we're here for.

"We're not here for the festivities. We're not here for all other things, the intangibles. We're here to win this football game."

Ditto for the Cougars, who find themselves in a completely different place than last year — both metaphorically, and geographically in south Texas.

"Missing last year was really hard for us, especially not having those extra practices," Sitake said. "But we didn't just want to get back to it and be in a position where we can just play in the bowl game. We want to make sure that we performed in all our games and have the extra time.

"I think it's important for us to try and end it the right way, and end it the right way means giving the best effort, playing our best game, and then we'll see if it was good enough to get the victory."

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