‘Keep the rat poison away from the boys’: No. 2 BYU not dwelling on rankings, big upset of Notre Dame

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BYU football coach Kalani Sitake doesn’t have time to talk about the national college football rankings.

Not at this point of the season, anyway.

Exactly 24 hours after the undefeated Cougars ascended to No. 2 in the AP Top 25 media poll, Sitake was asked about the Cougars (6-0) vault from No. 8 to within a whisker of No. 1 on Monday in his weekly press briefing.

Not surprisingly, BYU’s 11th-year coach brushed off the recognition, saying it will do nothing to help the Cougars beat well-rested UCF (3-3, 1-2) on Saturday in Orlando, Florida. Kickoff at the Acrisure Bounce House is at 1:30 p.m. MDT on Fox television.

“Nope, never cared about it before. So why would I start now? You guys like it, so I’ll let you guys handle that stuff,” Sitake said. “Just keep the rat poison away from the boys.

“We’re fine. This is no disrespect to the voters and everyone that puts it together. Appreciate it. But we’re talking about (staying) humble and hungry, so talking about rankings isn’t going to get us there.”

It is BYU’s highest ranking since the 1984 national championship season, and the first time in history it has been ranked No. 2. In 1984, BYU leaped from No. 3 to No. 1 after defeating Utah 24-14 and Utah State 38-13 in the final two regular-season games.

“Just keep the rat poison away from the boys. We’re fine. This is no disrespect to the voters and everyone that puts it together. Appreciate it. But we’re talking about (staying) humble and hungry, so talking about rankings isn’t going to get us there.”

BYU football coach Kalani Sitake

“We are halfway through the season. We plan on playing 12 regular-season games, and then if we do our part, we’ll see how it goes,” Sitake said. “Right now, it’s a week-to-week type of deal, and (we) don’t really have time for that stuff, to be honest with you.

“… We had a good weekend, and guys had a good day of worship yesterday, and so now it’s going to be a day of work. The work doesn’t care what number you are ranked.”

Freshman receiver Legend Glasker may be young, but he’s also savvy enough to follow the lead of his coach. Asked for his reaction to the No. 2 ranking, the Lehi High product called it “crazy” that BYU is “the No. 2 team in the whole country.”

However, he said that’s not the end goal for the Cougars, who are No. 3 in the coaches poll.

“We’re blessed to be there, and I mean, we’re all happy about it. But our team knows that we got way more work to do, and new things to accomplish,” Glasker said. “That’s not really the only thing we’re chasing for. … We always stay hungry.”

Tight end Walker Lyons, who caught the game-winning touchdown pass from AP National Player of the Week Bear Bachmeier with 1:47 remaining, said the Cougars aren’t surprised where they are at, or that they beat Notre Dame, but also mentioned it can’t be the pinnacle of the season.

“And so halfway through, I think we’re in a spot that we thought we were going to be,” Lyons said. “We’re grateful to be here, but there’s also a lot of football left, and we know that.”

Lyons is the brother of four-star BYU QB recruit Ryder Lyons — who happens to be serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Orlando — and is also dating one of America’s hottest celebrities, Rylee Arnold of ABCs “Dancing with the Stars.”

Walker Lyons called the weekend “surreal” but said the BYU offense is still a work in progress, despite it having put up more points on Notre Dame, 28, than any Irish opponent since a 41-40 loss to Texas A&M in 2025.

“There’s still so much more that we can get better at,” Lyons said. “Offensively, the last two weeks, I think we’ve kind of started to see things click a little bit more. We have started to see some chemistry being built.

“We have started to see people kind of get more comfortable in the offense, and I think it’s been a good testament to our team as a whole, but also the mindset that we try to play with as an offense.

“We’re trying to be physical. We’re trying to be fast. We’re trying to make the plays when they come our way, and I thought we did that.”

Junior safety Faletua Satuala, who helped BYU hold the Irish to their lowest point total, 24, since that Week 2 game last year, said the Cougars can’t afford to let their lofty ranking go to their heads.

“There’s still a lot more to go in the season, and being ranked No. 2, as we’ve seen the past couple weeks, is (no guarantee),” Satuala said. “You could drop pretty quickly just with one loss. So we just got to focus on going 1-0 every week.”

Kalani Sitake on final play controversy — ‘over 4 seconds’

Hours after what many were calling BYU’s most impactful regular-season win in school history, Big 12 officials issued a statement saying after “a review of the final play … that time remained on the clock when the ball hit the ground and the play was incorrectly cleared by the replay officiating crew.”

In essence, the Big 12 said Notre Dame should have gotten another chance.

But on Monday, Sitake disagreed, saying that there were 4 seconds remaining on the clock when the ball was snapped and that the play Notre Dame ran took more than 4 seconds before the ball hit the ground.

“I heard about it later, about the release the Big 12 made, and all that,” Sitake said. “It was 4 seconds on the clock, and the play was a sprint-out play.

“So I don’t know exactly the details of the game clock according to the real clock and the clock that was in the stadium. I had no idea. But from what I saw, it looked like the play was over 4 seconds,” Sitake continued. “I think everybody assumed that that was going to be the final play of the game.”

Asked later if the Big 12 reached out to give him an explanation for its statement, Sitake shook his head.

“No, (but) I don’t care about that,” he said. “I have moved on already. I had started watching film on UCF already, around the time that the release came out.”

BYU’s secondary still intact

BYU was forced to play multiple cornerbacks against the Irish after starters Trey Alexander and Jayven Williams left the game with potential injuries. Alexander returned, but Williams did not after getting dinged up in the third quarter. Redshirt sophomore Matthias Leach and redshirt freshman Jordyn Criss were among those who filled in on the secondary, and Leach was in at the end when CJ Carr’s pass sailed past receiver Jaden Greathouse — who was tangled up with BYU defender Evan Johnson.

Sitake said Monday that Alexander and Williams should be good to go this week.

“None of those (injuries) should be an issue for this week,” he said.

He also mentioned that guard Kyle Sfarcioc was briefly shaken up but Zak Yamauchi filled in well and got a pancake block on a Notre Dame defensive lineman.

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