Right after the “letting down 9 million people” comment. Chris fired back “I am a big time recruit anybody can do your dumb job.” Reid said, “I would like to see you try.” Right then a seed was planted in the heart of young Chris Burgess. It took years to plan and plot, but this spring he knew it was finally time to carry everything out. No one was more frustrated than Chris with Pope’s early exit from the NCAA, it meant he really had to pull some strings to make it happen. This is what he did:

• Posed as a booster oil baron demanding that SMU fire their coach
• Leaked an email to Andy Enfield about how warm his seat was at USC
• Getting Mussleman to move to LA after living in two-bit towns like Reno and Fayetteville was easy
• Took advantage of Coach Cal’s deep ties to the mob. Phoned him a day before the SMU firing and said in a thick New Jersey accent, “If you don’t make the move to Arkansas, your reputation and kneecaps might not stay intact.” When Coach Cal said, “but the Arkansas job is not open”, he had already hung up mid-sentence.
• Dan Hurley? Easy–an op-ed in the student paper saying that he would never eclipse Bobby’s greatness if had to move on to a blue-blood program to keep winning.
• Scott Drew? His pressure point was his wife and daughter's love of shiplap. A call from Chip Gaines with a promise of a Joanna-designed home for each of them was all it took. All orchestrated by Chris.
• Pope’s hiring necessitated a strong endorsement by Patino. He also had mob-ties (the top recruits in the country don’t just come on their own) - a little bit of extortion and it all went down as planned. What you don’t see in the video of Patino endorsing Pope is the man in a fedora hat off to the side pointing a gun at Ricky boy.

What about Burgess leaving BYU for Utah assistant coach position? It was all part of the plan. He told Tom Holmoe at the time that he was going there to learn all of Utah ways and if he came back to BYU he would ensure that they never lost to Utah again (kind of a Dumbledore-Snape situation). In fact, he promised Tom a 1-1 split over the next two years. After Utah handed BYU their only non-conference loss this season, Chris made eye contact with Tom and mouthed the words “I made that happen”

Now Chris will coach at BYU until he wins 153 games. Why that number? Because it is one more than Roger Reid got during his tenure at BYU. Wherein he will surprise everybody and quit to go coach at SUU.