It really doesn't matter to me one way or the other if Pope thanks BYU in terms of validating my fandom, but I'm a little more concerned about the underlying reasons he wouldn't do something that is so simple and common.

It costs basically nothing but 2 minutes of time to craft a simple announcement with a "thanks for the memories cougar nation" on his way out the door. You get these from basically every coach that's hired away and it really is odd that there wasn't one from Pope. I checked news sources when he left UVU and he had a lot of nice things to say about that program when he announced his move to BYU, but moving on from BYU it's just crickets. I thought perhaps he's not saying anything because it's going to be awkward when he brings a player or two with him to Kentucky, but he did the same thing when coming over from UVU, so I don't think that's it.

It's possible things are different simply because of the high profile nature of his new gig and wanting to hit the ground running, but, honestly, this suggests to me that the reports about how unhappy he was with the ADs office behind the scenes probably had some merit. He's savy enough to know if he can't say something nice then shouldn't say anything at all, which concerns me.

Burgess would have been aware of whatever concerns Pope had and if there's drama between the BB team and the AD's office then it may take longer to work out a deal or Burgess might simply pass on the opportunity. If Madsen is off the table then Burgess basically has the BYU AD's office over a barrel as the options are dramatically less appealing from there. I'm confident that Pope and Burgess would know how a big time program should operate and the BYU AD's office needs to be receptive to any concerns and address them within reason, assuming that is what is really going on. So, again, I don't really need my feelings about BYU validated by Pope, but I do have concerns about why he would have snubbed BYU on the way out the door.