Of course, Bronco is not DC this season. I am not buying into Howell as DC. I do not believe that Howell's body of work supports a contrary conclusion.

UNLV (with an injured starting QB and a backup QB, neither of whom was that good to start with) scored more against BYU than it did against Northern Colorado, Houston, SDSU, San Jose State, Utah State and Air Force. This defense is merely playing against poor teams. It is going to be torched as soon as it plays against decent teams again. Clearly, Cal is going to light up the secondary. I wouldn't be surprised with Cal scoring over 50.

I still believe that the talent recruited and player development are lagging. The reasons for such are debatable (e.g., smaller recruiting pool, poor pay for assistant coaches, etc.). I'm not certain that anyone really knows exactly why. I just notice that BYU is certainly not placing players in the NFL like it used to. That would suggest that BYU is not keeping pace with the talent and player development that it used to do.