Monson: Can BYU football become nationally relevant again, or is it a fading memory?

How much pressure is BYU and its coach Kalani Sitake under to have a respectable season?

You know the answer, but do you know the definition of respectable?

Sitake has acknowledged the subduction-zone crush at LaVell Edwards Stadium for months now, fully aware that what happened a year ago — a 4-9 slack-off — cannot happen again. If it does … cue the dark, ominous music. It’s the end of the world is our campus as he knows it.

“We’ve got to improve,” he said. “We’ve got to do better.”

At BYU media day, he also said: “We’ve got to toughen these guys up.”

Some have wondered whether the often-affable Sitake himself is tough enough, demanding enough to properly motivate and organize his players. Only those who don’t know the man do the wondering. He growls at the suggestion, but understands what’s prompted it.

Everybody witnessed last season’s football oil spill. The Cougars couldn’t move the ball on the ground or through the air, and nobody could figure out any other way to attempt to advance it. From the game against LSU in New Orleans, when BYU never got past midfield, to the embarrassing home loss to UMass, the whole endeavor blew straight past bad, settling in at humiliating. It held no competitive honor.

You remember. You saw it.

Sitake lived it, saying later: “I really needed to do some things differently, as a leader and a coach.”

What will be different this time around? How different do the results have to be to gain back somebody’s, anybody’s respect?

Let’s start with discipline, which got far too loose last year. The coaching staff made a major mistake, thinking that the players would marshal themselves, as it pertained to on-the-field adherence, and also some off-the-field, to the fundamentals necessary to win.

Much has been said and written lately about certain maniacal coaches around the country who in an effort to control every angle and aspect of their teams go berserk. Not good. On the other hand, letting loose of the reins, allowing too much slack, leads to players making stupid decisions, doing stupid things, committing stupid mistakes, playing stupid football. There was entirely too much of that in 2017.

It was particularly punitive for the Cougars on account of the fact that they weren’t that talented to begin with. Mix that with a staff of assistants that was inexperienced and, in some cases, inept, some failing in an area of coaching that is most important — matching the available talent, limited though it might have been, with the kind of preparation and schemes that are most likely to bring out the best in what BYU had. That was a huge rupture that caused frustration and discouragement. An assortment of player injuries, while no excuse, exacerbated the situation.

Sitake cleaned house, put more teeth to his snarl, added more savvy minds and voices to the coaches’ rooms, leaning on six new hires who are changing rudiments of BYU’s approach and attack, quit spending so much time on the perimeter of the program working with struggling players and concentrating more on the players who are conscientious and diligent, players who have bought into what the coaches are telling them, players who could help him win. He also renewed a notion to find a way to get the best athletes in the program on the field, regardless of whether that meant switching them to new, unfamiliar positions.

Now, he — and others — are in the throes of deciding certain position battles, foremost among them who his starting quarterback will be.

Hovering past all of that is an early schedule that, per the recent norm, runs the risk, no matter what improvements are made, of ripping his team’s arms off and beating it over the head with those bloody appendages. Gross, yes. That illustration might be a little too aggressive. Maybe not.

Arizona, Cal, Wisconsin and Washington are four of BYU’s first five opponents. The Cougars must at least split those first two games, one on the road, one at home, to keep their hopes afloat. Otherwise, starting 1-4 awaits them, the one being a home victory over McNeese State. Not the way to buoy their spirits after the wash, churn and rip of a year ago.

After that comes Utah State at LES, nobody’s gimme, Hawaii, a winnable game, NIU, a challenge that is tougher than some might suspect, and three roadies in their last four games against rocksteady Boise State, last season’s conqueror UMass, and Utah, a team the Cougars haven’t beaten in forever. In the run-up to the rivalry game, New Mexico State gets paid to visit Provo.

Where exactly does that leave Sitake and BYU?

It depends on how much of a difference the changes make. It’s easy to look at that schedule and see a maximum of five or six wins, seven in a dream scenario. Six would be enough to relieve Sitake of the plate-tectonic crush he feels, while a mere four could get him relieved of his duties as BYU’s football CEO.

Coaches — including Sitake — think and say they have enough talent, correctly utilized, to get the Cougars off the schneid. That assertion lands more toward the possible than the probable. But who really knows? Anybody who watched Sitake’s first season can grab some belief. Anybody who watched his second is having a crisis of faith.

The third season is beyond significant, then, with both the reputation and the immediate future of the program hanging in the balance. If that sounds overly dramatic, it isn’t. Is BYU football BYU football anymore?

We’re about to find out.

GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.