He did it without having a conference championship to motivate the players. He did it with some tough away schedules and lots of travel. He also kept our program free from any scandals.
He definitely deserves credit.
His one major flaw was that he couldn't beat Utah. That has been a huge deal in how BYU is perceived as an independent and relative to P5 teams. If he could have prepped the team for Utah, he would have earned even more credit.