BYU Avoided 'Catastrophic' Injuries During Physical Fall Camp

College football is back. On Saturday, TCU and North Carolina kicked off the 2026 college football season. BYU wrapped up Fall Camp earlier this week and will kickoff the 2026 season against Utah Tech next week. According to BYU head coach Kalani Sitake, BYU's camp was more physical than anticipated.

"It was probably a little bit more physical than we planned, but it's ok," Sitake said. " I think we needed to work on both sides, offense and defense, we needed to work."

A physical camp can come with trade-offs. More live tackling is correlated with more injuries in camp. However, as Kalani Sitake noted, the only way to get better at football is to play real football. "That's, that's the price you pay for going live and going physical in camp, and I don't know any other way to get better at football without playing it."

Fortunately for BYU fans, Sitake noted that the Cougars avoided any "catastrophic" injuries in camp.

"They got a couple of guys banged up, but they'll be ready...we were able to avoid catastrophic injuries...the game of football, it's a physical game and it can be violent at times, especially with the way these guys play. And so I was just really fortunate that we were able to get through this, and, you know, they're not 100% right now, but they, they should be by the time we get to the game next week."

In terms of injuries, all eyes will be on star safety Faletau Satuala. Satuala missed the first few weeks of camp with a foot injury. He was back in action during the last week of camp. BYU's coaching staff has publicly said that Satuala will be ready to go in week one. Most importantly, BYU will need Satuala to be healthy for its week two matchup against Arizona.

Faletau Satuala sighting. Satuala missed the first few weeks of camp due to injury. pic.twitter.com/sUDuxgmWfi
— Casey Lundquist (@casey_lundquist) August 25, 2026

The primary goal for BYU's season opener against Utah Tech will be to stay healthy. The game against week two against Arizona is one of the three or four most important games on BYU's schedule. The Wildcats, who have this game circled on their schedule, are looking to avenge their double overtime loss to BYU last year. BYU is 2-0 against Arizona since the two schools joined the Big 12. If not for the overtime loss to BYU, Arizona would have been in the conference title race last season.

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