BYU's Kalani Sitake Faces Highest Roster Turnover of His Tenure in 2023

BYU's roster will include more newcomers than any previous season under Kalani Sitake

Casey Lundquist | Jul 18, 2023

The 2023 season will include a lot of firsts for the BYU football program. BYU will play in the Big 12 conference and have a Power Five logo on its jerseys for the first time. BYU will host the likes of Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Iowa State, and Cincinnati in conference play for the first time. Jay Hill will coordinate BYU's defense for the first time, and BYU will play 10 consecutive Power Five programs for the first time.

The list of firsts doesn't stop there. In 2023, BYU head coach Kalani Sitake will face a new challenge in his eighth season as head coach: he will face the highest roster turnover of his tenure. As part of Big 12 Media Days, BYU released a roster for the 2023 football season. Of the 121 players listed on the roster, 58 are newcomers. In total, 48% of the players on BYU's 2023 roster are newcomers. That is the highest in the Sitake era by a wide margin - the next highest was in 2019 when 42% of the roster was comprised of newcomers. It's also the highest dating back to 2011 when we started tracking this data point.

Compared to the final years of Mendenhall's BYU tenure, roster turnover has been minimal under Kalani Sitake. BYU was averaging 45% roster turnover every year from 2012-2015. The Sitake era has averaged 37% roster turnover, making the 2023 especially unique for Kalani Sitake in his eighth season. Sitake's ability to retain players is especially noteworthy considering recent rule changes involving the transfer portal and one-time transfer rules. Players are changing teams more than ever before, and BYU has been less impacted by those changes in general. This past offseason was the exception, however, as BYU saw more players enter the transfer portal than ever before.

BYU responded by adding more transfers than ever before. Can BYU offset the downsides of roster turnover by bringing in experienced transfers? Time will certainly tell. Some of the most experienced players on BYU's roster will be new to the program this season. At best, BYU could hit the ground running in the Big 12 if the many transfers can replicate their past success. If those transfers struggle, most notably quarterback Kedon Slovis, the Cougars will be in for a long season.

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Published Jul 18, 2023

CASEY LUNDQUIST

Casey Lundquist is the publisher and lead editor of Cougs Daily. He has covered BYU athletics for the last four years. During that time, he has published over 2,000 stories that have reached more than three million people.