Kalani Sitake Speaks Highly About Rich Rodriguez and his Innovative Offenses

The West Virginia Mountaineers (2-3, 0-2) are on the road to take on the BYU Cougars (4-0, 1-0) Friday night at Lavell Edwards Stadium. Kickoff is set for 10:20 p.m. EST and the action will broadcast on ESPN.

BYU head coach Kalani Sitake met with the media on Monday to discuss the upcoming Big 12 Conference game against WVU.

Opening remarks on West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez and the Mountaineers

West Virginia is a really good team and a lot of talent. They’ve been struck down with a lot of injuries and so, I think that hurts any team. We’ve been a part of that happening to us as a program.

I do know that they have an amazing head coach that is proven and has connections, and this is second stint at West Virginia. I admire him, I’ve been around him and I’ve been around him, and I’ve had competed against him quite a bit. And I know he’ll have his guys ready. And they’ll get guys healthy and back again to play for him this week and we’re looking forward to getting their best shot. I just got make sure that we give them our best shot too this weekend. That’s going to be the goal.

A lot of respect for West Virginia and their fanbase.

Sitake’s Respect for Rodirguez

Anyone that knows anything about college football saw what Rich Rod was doing back in the day. He’s been a head coach for a long time, and he had things rolling for quite a long time, especially there at West Virginia. So, anyone that liked football, knew all the talent and the things they were doing offensively there.

And as a program, he ran a great program and his innovative offense a lot of programs started to use his stuff. And so, he’s an innovative and creative coach and so, he’s going to try find ways to get an advantage.

When he was out here in the West, I competed against him – I coach against him. The guy makes his mark anywhere that he goes and finds ways to get things going. I just think they’ve had some bad luck with injuries. We have to prepare because I know he’s extremely smart, and you look at his coaching staff, they’re all bright. So, this is not going to be easy. We just have to be ready to defend our home ground and can lean on our home crowd to give us an advantage, hopefully.

Will Sitake’s previous matchups with Rodriguez help for Friday night’s contest?

Yeah, it helps (BYU offensive coordinator) Jay (Hill) too. I mean, the game has evolved though. It helps only if Rich Rod only ran the stuff back then and hasn’t changed one bit. He’s an innovator, so he’s going to do things different, and the guy knows football. He knows how to put points on the board, and we got to figure out a way to make it difficult for him and his offense. So, that’s going to be the goal. Its easier said than done, but we’re excited about the challenge and excited to be back home.

I think Rich Rod is a great coach and one of the well-known coaches out there in our profession. I look forward to seeing him. We’ve had great interactions. He’s always been super good to me, so I’m excited to for him to be here in Provo and be in our stadium named after my mentor LaVell Edwards.

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