Remember BYU's 11-win season for what it was, not what could have been

SAN ANTONIO — If ever there was a time for BYU head coach Kalani Sitake to do some politicking, taking a shot at the College Football Playoff selection committee, or casually roast the apparatus that left his 17th-ranked (for now) Cougars well on the outside of the first-ever 12-team playoff, it was Saturday night.

It could have been after BYU outgained No. 23 Colorado and its Prime Time stars of Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter and coach Deion Sanders (who was gracious as ever in defeat) with 331 yards to 210, sacked the younger Sanders four times, pulled down two interceptions, and forced Colorado to twice as many punts as touchdowns in a 36-14 win over the Buffaloes in front of a capacity crowd of 64,261 fans at the Alamodome.

But if you're reading this, you know by now that isn't Sitake's style. It hasn't been in previous years, it wasn't a month ago when back-to-back losses to Kansas and eventual Big 12 champion Arizona State essentially knocked the Cougars out of playoff contention, and it wasn't Saturday night, either.

"Guys, the system is better than it was when there was four and better than it was when there was two. It is the way that it is now," Sitake said after being doused by his players with a Gatorade bath. "I don't think that's anything that you can campaign for, but I do know that we know the errors that we made. We're going to own them. We're going to try to find ways to get better."

In the end, Sitake said it with "a tiebreaker system that we weren't in it, and that's OK."

"Sometimes life is some disappointments, and you're only left with your reaction," he said. "So our reaction: We turned it into a positive, and I think you saw a lot of what we turned it into tonight."

Instead of going to the College Football Playoff, likely traveling to a higher-seeded team as one of the last teams in the playoff — a la Clemson or SMU (which lost to BYU 18-15 back in September) — the Cougars were enjoying the Christmas season in San Antonio in a duel of Detmers, the alma maters of former BYU Heisman Trophy winner Ty and younger brother, Koy.

But instead of focusing on where they might have been after a shocking 17-13 loss to Kansas or a humbling 28-23 loss to then-No. 21 Arizona State, BYU tried to make sense of where it is as a team.

And that's a pretty good place for a senior class that has won 11 games twice in their respective tenures.

"The seniors took over," Sitake said. "It's been them from the very beginning."

Take it from one of them, and perhaps one of the best of them, who said the 11-2 season started back in January — when BYU was coming off a 5-7 season, a run of five consecutive losses and a missed bowl game for just the second time in 19 years.

"You want to change that, and that brings a grit and a fire to our offseason. That's where it began," said center Connor Pay, the 315-pound senior from Highland who started 41 of his 51 games in five years at his father's alma mater. "I think what this senior class brought in particular was a discipline and a resilience because all it is is you've got to go and do things at a high level every day. You've got to do the ordinary better than everybody else. That's the real challenge.

"Everyone is going to show up to workouts. Everyone is going to do the same things across the whole country. Everyone has an offseason program. But who's going to make the most of every single day and not just go through the motions? Who's going to do that little bit extra? That's what we really tried to push them to do."

In Year 2 of defensive coordinator Jay Hill's defense, of Kelly Poppinga's special teams, and boosted by defensive tackles coach Sione Pouha, linebackers coach Justin Ena and cornerbacks coach Jernaro Gilford (among others), BYU rose to become one of the top defenses in the country.

The Cougars led the nation with 22 interceptions, including a Football Bowl Subdivision-best 12 players with a pick. They were top 20 for fewest penalties and first-down defense, sixth in kickoff returns, and 20th in total defense (317 yards per game), with the 20th-best scoring defense (20.1 points per game allowed).

While underclassmen played their role, like Alamo Bowl defensive MVP Isaiah Glasker, the redshirt-sophomore from South Jordan who had eight tackles, a tackle for loss and an interception against the Buffaloes, the heart of the defense was led by seniors.

Seniors like Tyler Batty, the former Payson High standout who reversed course on his NFL draft ambitions to return to BYU for one more go-round and had four tackles in the Alamodome; or Jakob Robinson, the former Orem High star who once transferred from Utah State but has been a fixture in a secondary that has only gotten better under a former Weber State head coach and Gilford.

"I'm eternally grateful to coach Kalani and coach Tuiaki for the opportunity to come play at BYU. It's been the opportunity of a lifetime, and to end like this has been huge," Batty said. "Sitting here a year ago after losing our final game, there's a lot of unfinished business. ... Honestly, once I put everything out on the table, it was a fairly easy decision. We have unfinished business, and I wanted to make sure that we could display the ability of our team, and I feel like this year we have.

"It's been an absolute success."

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