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BYU football fans and Big 12 football journalists know this much: Kalani Sitake doesn't waste time politicking or campaigning for College Football Playoff berths. Some would say Sitake should lean into the politics of college football a little more, given that BYU has been snubbed for at-large berths the past two years. In 2025, BYU had a very good case. In 2024, BYU had an even stronger argument.
Still, the Cougars were left out because they're not part of the SEC or Big Ten, the two conferences which get the benefit of the doubt in this sport. Yet, while Sitake doesn't complain, the coaches of the SEC are seemingly always complaining. Consider Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz at SEC media days, as College Sports Wire noted:
"National college football reporter Brandon Marcello noted that on Monday morning at SEC media days, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz expressed regret over the SEC's new nine-game conference schedule. Part of the problem, according to Drinkwitz, is that the Big Ten doesn't have to play an A4 (another label for the Power Four conferences) nonconference game."
The article later continued:
"The Big Ten, Pac-12 (before USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington left), and Big 12 have been playing nine games for a very long time. They were constantly operating on an uneven playing field, with the SEC and ACC playing only eight conference games. What the SEC has done is actually fair and long overdue, but SEC coaches are wasting no time (or rather, wasting everyone's time) bellyaching about joining the other power conferences. Pathetic."
It really is a stark contrast: Kalani Sitake and BYU keep their mouths shut and get snubbed by the system. The SEC got five teams into the College Football Playoff last season, and yet its member coaches are groaning and moaning about how unfair their new setup is.
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This article originally appeared on BYU Cougars Wire: How SEC football coaches are very different from BYU's Kalani Sitake
