A friend of mine is a former coach at Howard University. I won't identify the sport to preserve the coach's anonymity. In any event, I asked why the university wanted to go another direction. The answer was obvious, the team didn't win enough. Why didn't you win enough?

The answer was revealing. Howard has no natural base in this sport, doesn't have a state for which it can give preference, and must attract international and national players for this sport in DC where there are a lot of "party" options. And Howard is a private school requiring actual study. When the coach pointed this out that he needed time to develop recruiting connections and in order to build the tradition, the AD was sympathetic but went another direction. The subsequent coach has done worse and isn't developing any recruiting connections, because it is very difficult to do that at a school with such recruiting limitations.

The lifeblood of college sports is winning and recruiting. If you don't have the players, you can't coach them up sufficiently to make up for what players can't do. BYU has, as we all know, a very limited and restrictive base. We dream for the sky, but often hit the beach. Until BYU mines unknown goldmines abroad, a la SMC, it is unlikely that BYU will do better than it is right now, third place in a mid major conference. That is what our talent gives us. No amount of wishing or pining away for the good old days will change that. Only a way to find unpolished gems will make a difference. Either finding a bunch of players in Ghana or Nigeria through the LDS faith, or signing a national hero like Cosic, and thereafter developing a pipeline of talent that others can't access as well will deliver BYU to the promised land. Right now, BYU is adrift in Nephi's boat with no wind, no land in sight.