the most fertile high school football recruiting grounds in the country. Also, they stumbled across a truly elite head coach that wanted to stick around. TCU would quickly join the ranks of the bottom of the BIG 12 without Gary Patterson.

Utah succeeded because they lucked into a guy named Urban Meyer, and because they have made a living recruiting guys who barely missed the cut at the upper echelon PAC schools...guys that BYU couldn't reel in because of the whole no sex, no alcohol, no partying thing.

Boise State has succeeded because they have made a living qualifying guys that the bigger schools/conferences wouldn't or couldn't. They've taken a lot of recruiting risks that have paid off. These are risks that BYU can't and won't take. Crowton tried this to disastrous results (re: the class of 2004).

It will be much harder for BYU to achieve what TCU, Utah, and Boise State have achieved in recent years than it was for them. I would love for this to happen, but, the cards are stacked against us. It would be very difficult for BYU to ascend to the levels that TCU has in this era of college football.