SAN ANTONIO – If ever there was time for BYU head coach Kalani Sitake to engage in politics, take a shot at the College Football Playoff selection committee or casually roast the apparatus that makes his (for now) 17th-ranked Cougars do well left on the field Outside the first-ever 12-team playoffs, it was Saturday night.

It could have been after BYU defeated No. 23 Colorado and its prime-time stars Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter and coach Deion Sanders (who was gracious as ever in defeat) by 331 yards to 210, the younger Sanders sacked four times and threw two interceptions and forced Colorado to commit twice as many punts as touchdowns in a 36-14 win over the Buffaloes in front of a sellout crowd 64,261 fans in the Alamodome.

But if you’re reading this, you know by now that that’s not Sitake’s style. That hasn’t been the case in recent years, it wasn’t a month ago when back-to-back losses to Kansas and eventual Big 12 champion Arizona State effectively knocked the Cougars out of playoff contention, and it wasn’t Saturday night either .

“Folks, the system is better than it was when there were four, and better than it was when there were two. That’s how it is now,” Sitake said after being doused with a Gatorade bath by his players. “I don’t think it’s something you can advocate for, but I know we know the mistakes we’ve made. We will admit them. We’ll try to find ways to get better.”

In the end, Sitake said it was “a tiebreaker system that we weren’t in, and that’s fine.”

“Sometimes in life there are some disappointments and all you have to do is react,” he said. “So our reaction: We turned it into something positive, and I think you saw a lot of what we did with it tonight.”

Instead of going to the College Football Playoff and likely being one of the last teams in the playoff to travel to a higher seed – a la Clemson or SMU (which lost to BYU 18-15 in September) – the Cougars enjoyed the holiday season in San Antonio in a matchup of Detmers, the alma affairs of former BYU Heisman Trophy winner Ty and his younger brother Koy.

But instead of focusing on where they were after a shocking 17-13 loss to Kansas or a humiliating 28-23 loss to then-No. 21 Arizona State, BYU tried to figure out where it was as a team.

And that’s a pretty good spot for a senior class that has won 11 games twice in their respective tenures.

“The seniors took over,” Sitake said. “They were from the beginning.”

Take it from one of them, and perhaps one of the best of them, who said the 11-2 season started back in January – when BYU was coming off a 5-7 season, a streak of five straight losses and missed a bowl game for the second time in 19 years.

“You want to change that, and that brings courage and fire to our offseason. That’s where it started,” said center Connor Pay, the 315-pound senior from Highland who started 41 of his 51 games in five years at his father’s alma mater. “I think what this final course particularly brought was discipline and resilience, because all that matters is that you have to do things at a high level every day. You have to do the ordinary better than everyone else.” That’s the real challenge.

“Everyone will show up for training. Everyone will be doing the same things across the country. Everyone has an off-season program. But who is going to make the most of every single day and not just go through the motions? Who will join in to do that little bit extra? That’s what we were really trying to push them to do.”

With defensive coordinator Jay Hill’s second-year defense, Kelly Poppinga’s special teams defense and reinforcements from defensive tackles coach Sione Pouha, linebackers coach Justin Ena and cornerbacks coach Jernaro Gilford (among others), BYU rose to become one of the best defenses in the world on land.

The Cougars led the nation with 22 interceptions, including the Football Bowl Subdivision’s top 12 players with one pick. They were top 20 for fewest penalties and first-down defense, sixth in kickoff returns and 20th in total defense (317 yards per game), with the 20th best defense (20.1 points allowed per game).

While underclassmen played their part, like Alamo Bowl defensive MVP Isaiah Glasker, the redshirt sophomore from South Jordan, who had eight tackles, a tackle for loss and an interception against the Buffaloes, became the heart of the Defense led by seniors.

seniors like Tyler Batty, the former Payson High standout who reversed his NFL draft aspirations, returned to BYU for another round and had four tackles in the Alamodome; or Jakob Robinson, the former Orem High star who once transferred from Utah State but was a fixture in a secondary that has only gotten better under a former head coach from Weber State and Gilford.

“I am eternally grateful to Coach Kalani and Coach Tuiaki for the opportunity to play at BYU. It was the chance of a lifetime and it was huge to end like that,” said Batty. “I’m sitting here a year ago after we lost our last game and there’s still a lot of unfinished business. …Honestly, it was a pretty easy decision once I put everything on the table. We still have unfinished business that I wanted to complete.” I’m sure we were able to showcase the skills of our team and I feel like we did it this year.

“It was an absolute success.”