but the reality is that BYU is not as good or exciting as they once were. They are not as far from it as the whiners would have you believe but they are also not as likely to have those "good years" as frequently as they did in the past either. It takes good players to have good years and BYU seems to me to be struggling to attract kids of that caliber. The facts such as the winning percentages the past 5 years, the lack of draft picks etc paint a picture of a program that is struggling to attract top tier athletes.

Now I think that Mendenhall might be blamed for making the shift to seeking to make BYU's uniqueness as an LDS institution an advantage with LDS recruits as his competitive advantage. That leads to kids who come for the environment and as the environment giveth it can taketh away. How it takes away as kids who value the environment often don't have that drive to be the best of the best of the best. They have different priorities. They make great role models, eagle scouts, seminary presidents but very few are willing to put in the investment to be NFL caliber athletes. On the other hand I am not sure what else Mendenhall can emphasize.

In a nutshell, BYU isn't heading downward to a death spiral but it isn't really climbing either. It is what it is and the reasons are far more external than they are Mendenhall. However, our fanbase is like most fanbases in that it is full of fannatics. Fannatics tend to be dume, emotional and not particularly cerebral about cause and affect. They also don't often want to face the structural impediments to the success that they so desperately want. Hence, they want to blame Mendenhall because if he goes away then draft picks will rise like the oceans due to polar ice caps melting. Fans want to blame something they think can change so their hope of their dreams being fulfilled will not become forlorn.

BYU is what it is and that will manifest itself over the next few years until the Big-12 picks up BYU. Then things will improve, IMO. Right now it is in a holding pattern and there is no reason to crucify ourselves over that reality and it also no reason to be stupid about Mendenhall.