Bigger, faster, stronger equates to athleticism.

Athleticism largely equates to number of recruiting stars/ranking of recruits.

Recruiting is the biggest factor in the general positioning of a program (top 10, 15-30, 31-45, 46-60, etc,) over time, because team athleticism is so determinant in the Game.

BYU's expectations, as demonstrated by scheduling, administrator statements, fan opinions, are to be competitive in the aggressive schedule we have, including solid P5 programs, and in particular Utah.

In order to meet these expectations BYU would probably need to improve their recruiting paradigm. How deficient are BYU in recruiting? Maybe not that far off, but the last 4 years recruiting class ranking averages for Utah have been #40, whereas for BYU it has been #75. So the answer is it needs to somehow improve.

Motivation, execution/skill, character, coaching, etc. are obviously important to performance, and can trump general team athleticism in any one game, and can even help define a programs strength. But over time its difficult to overcome the determinant power of team athleticism. I like to use the BYU-UCLA series to illustrate this. UCLA is seen by many as being an underachieving program given their usual level of recruited athletic talent. But UCLA leads our series 9-3. 75%.