BYU football: Current college coaches who played with Kalani Sitake at BYU

Kalani Sitake is officially BYU's man, so the next very important step for the program is assembling a staff of coordinators and assistant coaches.

BYU is losing it's entire offensive staff, Guy Holliday excluded, and all but two defensive coaches (Steve Kaufusi, Paul Tidwell.) All three have expressed interest in remaining at BYU, and there's a decent chance all three are retained by Sitake.

RELATED: BYU football coaching staff tracker

Whether or not that is true, Sitake still needs a host of talented coaches to take the program where it needs to go. The first logical place he'd look? Former teammates with college coaching experience.

Here are some of those people who played with Sitake at BYU in 1994, or 1997-2000.

Justin Ena

Ena was a linebacker at BYU for nearly all of Sitake's tenure as a player. Ena is currently linebackers coach at Utah. He was defensive coordinator at Weber State in 2014 and DC at Southern Utah for five years before that. He's experienced and respected.

Dennis Simmons

Simmons was a linebacker when Sitake played in 1994 prior to his mission. Simmons is a very tenured wide receivers coach in Air Raid systems: 10 years at Texas Tech, three at Washington State and one at Oklahoma in 2015. Some have floated the idea of him stepping up to an offensive coordinator role.

Aaron Roderick

Roderick played with Sitake in 1997-98 (both offensive players) and has been an assistant coach at Utah since 2005, holding all sorts of titles (co-offensive coordinator, QB coach, pass game coordinator, wide receivers coach) in his tenure. He's also informally accepted, then retracted, two different offers to join a BYU staff, making him anathema to many BYU fans.

Mark Atuaia

Sure, Atuaia publicly agreed to join Robert Anae's offensive staff at Virginia. But the BYU running backs coach for the past three seasons played in the same position group with Sitake in 1994. Not only that, but both can sympathize as BYU running backs with careers as less-utilized secondary players, and Atuaia sought a coaching gig at BYU for years. Could Sitake bring him back to Provo?

Jason Walker

Walker was a defensive back on the same team as Sitake in 1997-98. He got tons of playing time on the vaunted 1996 defense before suffering an injury, then started his final two years. Walker was a defensive graduate assistant at BYU for four years and has been head coach at Southern Virginia for two seasons.

Jernaro Gilford

Gilford was an accomplished BYU defensive back from 1999-2003. He has been a secondary coach under fellow BYU alum Ed Lamb at Southern Utah for the past two seasons.

Mike Rigell

Rigell played receiver at BYU from 1997-2001. He's bounced around lower level jobs, which have included two years as running backs coach at Idaho State and two more in the same position at Snow College.

Ed Lamb

Sitake and Lamb never played together, according to rostered years, but they are similar age and there's a good bet they know each other decently well. Lamb, a former BYU linebacker, has been head coach at Southern Utah for eight years and specializes in defense. He was previously defensive coordinator at Idaho for two seasons and secondary coach at San Diego for three under head coach Jim Harbaugh.

Brandon Doman

These last two are experienced coaches who aren't currently coaching. Doman's three-year tenure as BYU offensive coordinator was not illustrious, although he was dealt some tough cards in the process. His six years as BYU QB coach, however, were pretty good, and he was a solid recruiter. Previously, it was a long shot he'd return to BYU. But with a brand new staff of coaches, would he return as QB coach? That wouldn't be a bad thing for Tanner Mangum and the program.

Ben Cahoon

Cahoon and Sitake were teammates in 1997. Cahoon, the sticky-handed Cougar, is one of the most accomplished Canadian Football League receivers ever. He was hired as part of Doman's staff (Doman the OC) as receivers coach. It's hard to say how successful he was, though I always thought the technical parts of Cody Hoffman's game grew by leaps and bounds under Cahoon. BC was unceremoniously dumped when Doman was relieved of a job. Would he coach again? No idea. But he played with Sitake, so he's on the list.

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Did I miss any of Sitake's BYU teammates who have substantial coaching experience? Let me know in the comments.