{"id":373993,"date":"2025-12-28T11:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T11:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/373993\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T11:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T11:53:09","slug":"byu-football-coach-kalani-sitake-on-kyle-whittingham-michigan-and-jay-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/373993\/","title":{"rendered":"BYU football coach Kalani Sitake on Kyle Whittingham, Michigan and Jay Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whittingham touched down in Orlando to start his new job on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption-credit\">(Kevin Kolczynski | AP) BYU head coach Kalani Sitake eats a Pop-Tart during the trophy presentation after defeating Georgia Tech at the Pop-Tarts Bowl on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">Orlando, Fla. \u2022 Just a few miles away from Michigan\u2019s team hotel, where Kyle Whittingham was meeting his new team for the first time, Kalani Sitake said he called it. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">After beating Georgia Tech 25-21 in Orlando, BYU\u2019s head coach insisted he never thought Whittingham could really walk away from football. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">And sure enough, instead of retirement, the former Utah coach inked a five-year deal with Michigan on Friday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">\u201cI made the statement that it is hard to see Kyle not doing something. And there\u2019s the something,\u201d Sitake said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">But Whittingham\u2019s new coaching gig could have significant ramifications for Sitake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">As BYU was playing in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, Whittingham was flying into Florida himself to meet up with the Wolverines as they prepared for their bowl game. Michigan will play Texas in the same stadium just a few days from now. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">Whittingham <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/sports\/byu-cougars\/2025\/12\/26\/kyle-whittingham-michigan-reports\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/sports\/byu-cougars\/2025\/12\/26\/kyle-whittingham-michigan-reports\/\">is rumored to have his eyes on BYU defensive coordinator Jay Hill <\/a>as his top assistant in Ann Arbor. It would be one of the premier coordinator jobs in college football and, potentially, a foot in the door for a head coaching job down the line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">\u201cWhen [Whittingham takes a job], he has a network that he goes to for putting together a staff. That is how football works,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cI feel really good about what we have going here with the players and coaches. We will go with what we\u2019ve got. They established the foundation and Jay was a big part of that defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">When pushed further on whether Sitake could confirm Hill was leaving, he deferred to his coordinator. But he thanked him for his efforts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">\u201cJay is going to make his own statements,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cI\u2019m just acknowledging that Kyle is at Michigan and guys have decisions to make.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">A decision on Hill\u2019s future will likely come quickly as Whittingham puts together a staff. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">Whittingham is in Orlando meeting in person with Michigan\u2019s administration this weekend. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-raw\">\u201cIt\u2019s not me. I\u2019m here to stay,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cThe program is in a really good spot because of a lot of people. It will be an honor for me to keep this thing going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whittingham touched down in Orlando to start his new job on Saturday. (Kevin Kolczynski | AP) BYU head&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4818,4816,4815,4817,99],"class_list":["post-373993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-athletics","tag-brigham-young-university","tag-byu","tag-cougars","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}