What BYU HC Kalani Sitake and DC Jay Hill said about Kansas State’s offense

Kansas State‘s offense will have the full attention of BYU’s coaching staff as the Wildcats head to Provo to open up conference play on Saturday night.

After scoring 31 points against Arizona, BYU head coach Kalani Sitake and defensive coordinator Jay Hill both touched on the problems that K-State’s offense will present during their media availability this week.

Here is what Sitake and Hill said about facing Kansas State.

Head Coach Kalani Sitake on his relationship with Chris Klieman… “I have a lot of respect for Chris Klieman, and what he does as a head coach. He’s a good friend. I actually got to know him and his wife Rhonda on the Nike retreat with the coaches. We got to connect.

I’ve always known about him as a coach. You see what he’s done, what he’s done at North Dakota State. I have tons of respect for what he’s doing as a head coach there, now at Kansas State. Just really, really admire his work and to get to meet him in person, and he is a great person. Was able to spend some time with him and his wife with other coaches, but really got to connect with him. Looking forward to seeing him with our friendship but this is going to be a game, our team against theirs, but looking forward to the matchup.

He has a really good coaching staff that he’s hired. Guys like Matt Wells is on his staff, people that I knew from before. Wells, he’s there, and then you have Mike Tuiasosopo, the d-line coach, as well.”

HC Kalani Sitake on QB Avery Johnson… “Avery is a dynamic runner. They have the ability to just call QB runs, and he can take a small, little gap and turn it into a big-time play. And then he’s super athletic, so he can create on his feet even in the pass game. He can create more time for himself in the pocket, and then he’s always a threat to scramble and hurt you that way. He’s a complete player when it comes to quarterbacks. You look at all the different types of threats, he’s got a lot of different weapons. Tough kid, too. I think he’s got a great command of the offense, and they’ve done a great job at setting him up to have success.”

HC Kalani Sitake on the environment on Saturday… “I want to show off our fans. That’s a big part of our program. And a big part of the athletic department here is that our fans will park the house. You guys saw our game against Southern Illinois, and it was a full house. So, there’s already a lot of energy going on leading up to this game because our fans are awesome.

We knew that Kansas State had a really good team coming back, and we knew they’re well-coached and they’re going to be ready for this game. I’ve said it every week, we’re going to get everybody’s best shot. I felt like Wyoming did some things that were difficult, and we got their best shot. And did we give them ours? I think at times. Was it consistent enough? For me, probably not, but I thought we played our best ball of the year last week, and I’m looking forward to us playing our best ball of the year this weekend.”

DC Jay Hill on K-State… “They’ve got our full attention and focus, obviously. Super good team coming in here Saturday. Very well coached, they’re good on all three phases. Offensively speaking, the quarterback is a very good athlete, the offensive line does a good job. He’s got targets to throw to. I’m excited for the matchup.

DC Jay Hill on stopping Avery Johnson… “We’re going to use a lot of different things with him. There’s going to times where we’re trying to bring pressure to keep him on his toes, coverage to keep him on his toes. There’s going to be a lot of different things that we use.”

DC Jay Hill on the challenge of defending Avery Johnson… “It reminds me a lot of the SMU quarterback [Kevin Jennings] that we just faced. He was a good thrower, he had really good athleticism, could run the ball. I think we did a really good job at containing him. We have the same challenge this week.

Avery Johnson can run it, he can throw it. He’s got good weapons around him, and he’s got a really good offensive line. There’s challenges, but we like our preparation right now, and we like where our players are at mentally, and I think we’ll play good against him.”

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