"That Shouldn't Happen" Says Kalani Sitake After Costly Penalties

The Cougars were penalized eight times against Colorado State

BYU offensive line against Colorado StateBYU Football | BYU Photo

Costly penalties were one of the few negatives from BYU's dominant win over Colorado State on Saturday night. BYU was penalized eight times for 74 yards. A few of the penalties were especially impactful. One wiped a touchdown off the board and another extended a Colorado State drive.

After the game, Kalani Sitake addressed the "sloppy" penalties in his post game press conference.

"I did like the fight in all of them. I mean, the literal effort that they're putting on the field," Sitake said. "I think if [the backups] just play more assignment sound, [we] would be in a better position. Just a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes that shouldn't happen from our guys."

Sitake continued, saying this will be a teaching moment for his team. "This is a good moment for us to learn from and to win comfortably and still be able to have those things happen. So yeah, it got a little sloppy, but we'll be fine. This is stuff that we can easily fix."

When the starting offense was on the field, penalties were the only thing that could slow down them down.

Outside of the final drive of the first half where BYU took a knee, Bear Bachmeier played eight drives. Five of those eight drives ended in touhdowns. The other three drives were slowed down by penalties.

On BYU's only three-and-out in the first half, a false start by Andrew Gentry turned 3rd & 6 into 3rd & 11. After the penalty, BYU opted for a conservative play call and ran the ball to punt it away.

In the second quarter, BYU had to settle for a field goal. An illegal formation penalty offset a first down that would have extended the drive.

The third and final stalled drive was an interception thrown by Bear Bachmeier. Bachmeier forced one into Kyler Kasper and it was intercepted. Before that throw, BYU running back Journee Tonga had a touchdown run that was called back when Andrew Gentry was flagged for holding.

The penalties on the defensive side were more worrisome, since three of them were personal fouls that were entirely preventable. Tausili Akana was flagged for roughing the passer when he hit the quarterback well after the ball had been thrown. Braxton Lindsey was also called for roughing the passer when he hit the quraterback above the shoulders. Hunter Clegg gave Colorado State a free first down when he shoved a ballcarrier that was already out of bounds.

"We got enough of a lead and still made mistakes and still felt like the game was under control the entire time," Sitake said. "This is something that we can build on, but I'd like to see some improvement, mostly from the backups when they get in there. I felt like there's a lot of mistakes and we had a couple of turnovers that weren't good...but we'll learn from it and get better as a team."

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