Last year, BYU had a bye during the third week of the season, but folks didn’t complain too much because the Cougars got another week off in early November before traveling to play No. 9 Texas Tech.
This year, BYU has another early bye week — this week, actually — after having played only three games in 2026, but then the Cougars have to play for nine straight weeks, beginning Oct. 3 at TCU.
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That would not appear to be optimal, but coach Kalani Sitake isn’t concerned, he said in his weekly press briefing on Monday.
“We will make it a competitive advantage for us,” he said.
Obviously, that means the Cougars (1-0, 3-0) will get an early start on preparing for the Horned Frogs, who play at UCF on Saturday. Monday, it was announced that the BYU-TCU game in Fort Worth will kick off at 5 p.m. MDT and be televised by either ESPN or ESPN2.
It will mark the first time in 21 years that BYU will play on the Saturday of the semiannual general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The game at Amon G. Carter Stadium will begin an hour after the second session (2 to 4 p.m.) of conference concludes.
“We prayed for him as a team and we prayed pregame and we prayed postgame, and we also prayed at the hotel before we left to go to our game. We just really, really love everything that Harrison’s about.”
TCU downed BYU 44-11 two years ago in Fort Worth, but first things first, Sitake said. The Cougars will treat this week like they do every week during the season. They just won’t have a game to play on Saturday.
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“We’ll have our meetings and practice and lift (weights) and everything, and then we’ll go throughout the whole week (doing that),” Sitake said. “… This will be another work week for us. I’m excited to see our team get better this week, and then … get an early start on our opponent.”
Sitake acknowledged that most coaches would prefer to have their bye in the middle of the season, but said he’s not in charge of making the schedule and will make the most of it. Last year, after beating Portland State and Stanford before getting a Week 3 bye, the Cougars traveled to East Carolina and downed the Pirates 34-13.
“The fact that (the bye) comes after three games is not a bad thing,” he said. “We have been prepping ourselves to go 13 weeks straight. That’s what we did from the very beginning, and then we adjusted the schedule and our workload according to where the bye fell in. … It’s not really that big of a deal because our guys are trained. We’ve worked all offseason to be ready for 14 weeks straight, or 13 weeks straight with a championship game at the end of it.”
Next year, college football will have a 14-week regular season and begin one week earlier in late August, rather than starting over the Labor Day weekend. That means teams will receive two bye weeks per season and the regular season will conclude the Saturday following Thanksgiving.
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Along with developing younger players this week, BYU’s coaches will use the time to do some recruiting, and decide which players will make the travel squad for TCU.
“I thought the guys responded well to being on the road, and so now they have had that experience. Now we go to TCU, and we can only take 74 on the travel squad,” he said. “We have to iron those guys out and then get that roster ready to roll by the time we get to to Texas.”
A week after losing 29-7 at Texas Tech last year, BYU returned home and walloped TCU 44-13, so Sitake expects that the Horned Frogs (2-1) will be looking for revenge.
“We are happy to be 3-0, and I am just really proud of the guys,” Sitake said. “We watched the film (of the CSU game) and evaluated it and graded it, and we’ve obviously got some work to do still. But for the first three games, I feel good about where we’re at.”
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Sitake on LB Harrison Taggart’s recovery
Before the Cougars drubbed Colorado State 41-23 in Fort Collins last Saturday, many players and coaches tuned in to the Utah-Utah State game and watched former Cougar linebacker Harrison Taggart — now at USU — get carted off the field at Rice-Eccles Stadium via an ambulance.
Sunday, Taggart made a post on social media saying he is progressing quickly after sustaining the scary injury during the Aggies’ 33-0 loss to the Utes.
Sitake said he reached out to Taggart on Saturday and that they communicated on Sunday.
“We prayed for him as a team and we prayed pregame and we prayed postgame, and we also prayed at the hotel before we left to go to our game,” Sitake said. “We just really, really love everything that Harrison’s about.”
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Taggart began his college career at Oregon and transferred to BYU in 2023, making 16 starts for the Cougars in 2023 and 2024. He transferred to Cal in 2025 and Utah State in 2026 and was voted a team captain for the Aggies this season.
“We just wanted to wish him the best and a speedy recovery, and just thank him for the things that he was able to do here. I always say, ‘Once a Cougar, always a Cougar,'” Sitake said. “So we’ll always cheer for him and always wish the best for him, and that means definitely for him being healthy. Hopefully, he can get back on the field as soon as he can.
“He’s got a lot of guys here that love him and I know a lot of people in Cougar Nation are really thankful for what he did for us, and we still wish him the best and cheer for him while he plays for Bronco (Mendenhall) and the Aggies,” Sitake concluded.
Utah State Aggies linebacker Harrison Taggart (0) is injured and taken out in an ambulance during a football game against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
