Bronco went to VA, and cleaned house. He got rid of a ton of problem players, that were mostly starters. They had had a lot of legal, off the field issues, academic problems, and lacked leadership, work ethic, and respect for the coaches. He made the players earn their jersey in camp, and then made them earn their scholarships. There were a lot of players that thought because they were starters or main players, that they were guaranteed playing time, and quite a few of those were asked to transfer or simply released from the time when they refused to do the required list of things that he had all the players do, before they could play. He played with mostly backup and walk on players last year, and now has a lot of transfers and other young recruits playing for him.The players that stayed on with him and accepted his terms, are the leaders that he was looking for, and now has them playing well. A lot of the recruits from the previous coaching staff, did not keep their commitments.
I have a friend on Bronco's staff, and I know for a fact, that he is came into an even worse situation than what he inherited from Crowton. Even with Crowton, all of those on the Defense, were Bronco's players that he recruited as a D Coordinator. So this whole notion that he does well with other's recruits, is patently false. Did he not coach the D during Crowton's years? Did he not get those players and the players that came after, to come play for him? If I remember correctly, he was not the leading candidate for the BYU job, until the players went down to the Holmoe's office, and campaigned for him to hire Bronco. When Crowton had lost his team, especially the offense, Bronco was the real leader that kept them together at all. Bronco got everything out of his players, and could turn a walk on wide receiver with no major offers, into one of the best receivers to ever play at BYU(Hoffman, but Leslie is playing pretty great, as well.) and is playing in the CFL. and the best tight end at BYU, that had a great NFL career that would still be going had it not been for freak hip injuries. I could go all night talking about his D players, that he found a way of getting max play out of guys that nobody else saw as worth a scholarship.