to that job. The Vol program was in decline and facing serious NCAA sanctions. I believe 6 or 7 other coaches turned that job down before they talked to Kyle about it.

As for the BYU job, it was coming off of some historically bad seasons and the program was also in decline after the Crowton debacle. Kyle only backed out of that at the 11th hour when the Utah job came open. With Utah fresh off of their Fiesta Bowl win that wasn't a hard decision to make.

Washington was also a mess and they never offered him the job, media just threw Kyle's name out there as a darkhorse candidate. I haven't read one article where Kyle says they contacted him and he declined the interview.

Also, the reason Utah could compete in the MWC despite an average budget is because top to bottom in the MWC there wasn't a great disparity, not like there is in the Pac 12. The difference in budget between the top team in the MWC and the bottom team was less than $10 million. In the Pac 12 it's more than double. Oregon, USC and Stanford are all in the high $70's to low $80 million dollar range while Washington St is around $36 million and Utah's is much lower than that.

It's more than just coaching salaries that is impacted by a small budget, there's the cost of having a first class stadium, top flight facilities, more money to spend on recruiting trips and scouting players, etc.

ASU, Oregon St, etc are all within a few million of each other budget-wise and generally they all finish about the same year in and year out. Washington St is around $10 million behind those schools and they can't compete even with the middle tier Pac12 schools like ASU or OSU.