This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Provo

BYU football is not all that good. That's meant in the best sense. It's meant as a compliment.

No, no, really.

The Cougars are … how you say? … limited.

But they work past those limitations.

By top-level standards, they're not fast. They're not athletic. They're not dominant. They're not deep. They don't have great players at every position. Their backups are OK. Their backups' backups are lucky to be playing college football. Their offensive line is down to guys whose moms didn't even think would ever play. Their receivers are on the slow side and sometimes run bad routes. Their quarterback can't throw consistently. Their defensive secondary is hit-and-miss. They have a couple of fistfuls of players with superior abilities, and a whole bunch of guys who are just kind of … guys.

But here's the thing: They play hard, they don't give in or up, and they win more often than they lose. They are, in their coach's word, resilient.

And that's a big thing, better than a group of great talents who don't play with such resolve, especially in a season that has seen the Cougars go against three teams from the Pac-12, one team from the Big Ten, one from the Big 12, and one from the SEC.

And they're 4-and-freaking-3.

They could have been better.

The games they've lost have been as tight as losses can be, the combined deficit totaling seven points. Most of the games they've won have been similar, their margin of victory totaling 28. They've made some great plays. They've made mistakes. And either way, they've hung in through precarious situations. And it's not just the players. Their offensive and defensive coordinators are learning on the job, admitting, at times, to making errors. Everything their head coach is doing, he's doing for the first time.

The overall effect is a herky-jerky one.

Watching the Cougars play this season is like watching a golfer stroke a 50-foot putt that's rolling across a vast, bumpy green toward the hole, everything on the line. It spins, it undulates, it breaks, it bounces, and you're never quite sure until the end if it's going to drop in the cup.

It's notable that those putts have dropped as often as they have.

"These guys will play until the clock says zero," Kalani Sitake said after Friday night's double overtime win over Mississippi State. "I'm pleased with the resiliency of our players."

Sitake knows what he's got. He knows what the challenge is. He knows he needs more players, more playmakers to properly run his offense and his defense. But he's not waiting around for that day, looking ahead. He's dialed in on the now — and the players already in the fold are responding in a way that has given the 2016 Cougars their identity.

They are a reflection of Sitake himself: Tough, smart, emotional, optimistic. They grind and grind and they don't surrender, in spite of their limitations.

Late Friday night against Mississippi State, their putt rolled in.

Bronco Mendenhall's Cougars would have missed that putt, would have lost that game. But not Sitake's.

The inconsistencies that hurt BYU in earlier defeats against Utah, UCLA and West Virginia were evident. Mississippi State's game plan was to stop Jamaal Williams and force Taysom Hill to beat it via the pass and to use its team speed on offense.

It almost worked. Hill struggled to find consistency in his throws, his receivers ran undisciplined routes, the offense was hardly prolific. All told, the Cougars gained 311 yards. The Bulldogs got 386.

In double overtime, BYU mastered the undulations and got its win.

Sitake beamed afterward, happy to have survived another heart attack. But in a quiet moment, he confided that things have to improve. Everything has to improve. But he said he's proud that his players are hanging tough, giving what they've got, not shrinking away.

He cannot abide mistakes that blow his own team's toes off — a player during an opponent's punt on fourth-and-4 not getting off the field in time, giving that opponent a first down on the penalty, leading to a subsequent 44-yard touchdown. Or receivers getting goofy when they need to be precise, making the quarterback look worse than he is. Or blocking assignments up front being missed, wrecking plays.

Like everybody else, he sees those imperfections — "Yeah, too many mistakes," he said, "Got to get better" — but he also sees the plow horses at the end of his reins moving forward, turning soil, lathering up, not stopping.

BYU may not have many thoroughbreds, but the dirt is getting tilled.

Sitake wouldn't say it, but he has to know his players are keying off of him, motivated and inspired by him.

They aren't world-beaters. Friday night, they defeated an SEC team that ranked 10th in the conference in scoring offense, ninth in defense, ninth in total offense, 13th in penalties, 12th in red zone conversions, 13th in third-down conversions, 119th in the country in third-down conversions, and that had lost to South Alabama.

Which is to say, Mississippi State isn't all that good.

Neither is BYU.

But it isn't bad, either. It wins more often than it loses.

And for the time being, at least, that's good enough.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on the Zone Sports Network, 97.5 FM and 1280 AM. Twitter: @GordonMonson.