BYU has never stopped being competitive at the U’s level. They have won a long string of games that has everything to do with coaching.

Kyle is like LaVell in many ways but on defense. He has a long history of great defenses that predates the invite to PAC. He also has the same long history of mediocre to poor offenses as demonstrated by the revolving door at OC.

I lived through all the BYU glory years. I have seen the rise and fall of many juggernauts. It is mostly coaching. Boise truly gets my respect. They have survived several coaches and been as good or better than utah over the same period.

The fact is, there is plenty of talent out there but great coaches are not so plentiful. Utah fans are drunk in their own success, which is a trait of fandom. They will oust Kyle when he has a bad year and live to regret it.

BYU has coaching issues like much of the country. I think Sitake has it in him. Every coach has bad days but too often his teams are really lost and fall apart. Honestly I think Grimes has balanced things a bit. Detmer, Tuiaki, and Sitake were probably not a good combination.

Utah is about to graduate a ton of experience. Kyle will reload for sure because he has an eye for talent and can coach it but the fan’s expectation are off the planet. Utah is Utah, not on par with the upper half of the PAC over the long haul. Who knows why USC, UCLA, and Stanford can’t get it together? Utah has had a good streak for sure. But, it cannot be argued that the PAC has been good at all over that same period. The PAC has been historically bad actually. Even then, Utah has not taken much advantage. The PAC south has been inexcusably bad for nearly 10 years.

As a side note, things will change. USC and UCLA are not going to continue to subsidize everybody else while also being beaten by them AND watching their historical recruiting advantage diminish AND being featured on the weekly PAC-after-dark sports program nobody is watching. They have been patient with a process that has only hurt them at every level. They have watched as entire conferences have risen as they fall.

Nope, they are keenly aware that the status quo must not continue. It was a good try, but an abject failure. Big changes are coming!