But the expectation that BYU should be torching the nation in this day and age given:

1 -- Lack of true P5 affiliation and its benefits/advantages
2 -- 3-4 times as many players serve missions now compared to Lavell's glory days. Those 2 years (often in 3rd world countries) are during the most important years of a collegiate athlete's training.
3 -- Schedules are now becoming something that would have resulted in Lavell getting fired.
4 -- Lack of elite athletes that want to not have sex, drink alcohol, or do drugs, etc for 4-5 years (or at least don't want to risk getting caught).
5 -- Everyone in the nation is essentially now a passing team. BYU became BYU when not many teams had a clue how to defend the pass.

And BYU is what currently? A top 30-35 program? Given the above it's hard to say that they're not doing ok despite some extremely frustrating bad luck in recent years.