PROVO — This is a week Tom Sitake should be torn in half, his emotions frayed, his loyalties tested.

He should be a guy in conflict, talking to friends, speaking to a shrink while he's laid out on a sofa in some room with fish staring at him through a big plate-glass wall.

Sitake has been a BYU fan all of his life — as loyal as you'll find on the planet. But his son, Kalani Sitake, a former Cougar fullback, draws a paycheck from the University Utah as the Utes' linebackers coach. It's his son's job to find a way to disrupt and ground Max Hall and the Cougar offense come Saturday.

"It's pretty simple," Sitake said Monday as he prepared for this week and a game he calls the most dramatic in rivalry history. "My loyalties are with my son. I love my son, I support Kalani, I have his back and he can count on me, win or lose.

"I am a BYU fan, I always will be, but my son has my love, my loyalty, and I want him to succeed."

Tom, who turns 59 on Wednesday, feels things in this conflict that few others will ever know.

To crawl inside his mind and know his heart, you have to know how devoted he is to what he believes. And in this case, his family comes first, even when he's flying two flags at his house — one blue and the other red.

His oldest son, David Pela, played defensive end for the Utes in the early '80s. Kalani turned down Hayden Fry at Iowa, Fisher DeBerry at Air Force and recruiting attention from Nebraska while a prepster in St. Louis, Mo., when LaVell Edwards came calling the day before signing day in the late-'90s.

His third son, T.J., followed Kalani to BYU out of Timpview High and finished his career in a loss to the Utes three years ago in LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Tom had to console T.J. that day. Then he went over to congratulate Kalani.

For the better part of a decade, Tom Sitake was a regular face seen at every BYU football practice from 1994 to 2005. Even now, when there is no conflict, he goes to BYU tailgate parties, where he helps shovel out food with his Polynesian friends who wear Cougar blue.

A year ago, he was released from his LDS Church calling as the first counselor in a Tongan ward bishopric. The bishop he served with was Joel Tuialeva, the uncle of former Cougar and Philadelphia Eagle running back Reno Mahe. The second counselor he served with was Jackson Unga, father of current BYU running back Harvey Unga.