Let me first reiterate that the post I made was not to tear down BYU. Like I said, I went there and do think BYU should take pride in their academics. I even like the increased emphasis on undergraduate education (which doesn't always reflect well on BYU in ranking systems, but I think it's a good choice). And I do think BYU grads make some exceptional employees (both because of their BYU education and because of some characteristics that are common among many BYU students).

I just get frustrated by the amount of academic smack talk I see directed at other schools and fanbases. There's a lot of academic smack directed at Utah, Utah St and Boise in particular. And I do get that those are our rivals, but it's also a good way to ensure they don't like us and for us to come off as snobbish. FWIW, I've had a lot of good discussions with you, absolutely respect your perspective and don't think that you are an example of this, but when it does happen, it's a really bad look. Maybe it's because I grew up a Utah fan (before going to BYU) that I'm more likely to note this, but it seems to be a common refrain even now.

I also sometimes I think we (especially those who have been in Utah most/all of their life) lose perspective on exactly how good a BYU education is. More than once I've had long discussions here where people argue that BYU is basically the same as Stanford academically, just without the name or biased rankings with some agenda to make BYU look bad. Or that BYU's football success is all the more impressive since we have academic constraints similar to only Notre Dame, Stanford and Vanderbilt. Or that it's weird anyone would go to Baylor instead of BYU because they could go to BYU and get a MUCH better education. Or that Virginia has nothing to offer that BYU doesn't since we're both P5 now and both elite academic institutions.

Again, none of this is meant to denigrate BYU academics. Honestly I think pretending we're something we're not shows a lot of insecurity about what we are instead of being proud of what BYU is. And that's a very good (not elite, but very good) undergraduate institution with several excellent grad programs. Like I said, I went to BYU, my wife is a grad (not that we knew one another there) and there's a good chance I'll have at least one kid there.