...I think Harvey is being specific about being part of the football team and having to associate with largely his former teammates and less about the school in general.

A regular student has a lot of room to navigate on campus and avoid undesirable elements. They have YSA wards, etc that a student can get involved with to find good friends to associate with but as a member of the football team he's sort of stuck with a group that maybe overall he finds objectionable.

I think the culture difference between the two teams is something you can't really argue. At one point Bronco was sending something like 80% of his incoming recruiting classes out into the mission field and last thing I read had Kyle sending 22% (that could be wrong in both cases now, don't know for sure). That right there is going to contribute to an entirely different atmosphere at Utah than at BYU. I think the fact that Kyle can still maintain some element of church friendly atmosphere at Utah is commendable on his part. That can't be easy to balance along with trying to bring in the type of kids he needs to win in the Pac12. It may be that his trying to juggle both means he can't do either one very well or at the level they need to be to be successful in their attempt.