Don't have devastating injuries to our best player and we likely have more special seasons. Even still--BYU remained relevant.

2011 - top 25 finish.
2012 - injuries to Nelson/Taysom dampered a great defense--still spent weeks ranked, had a #3 defense and finished #26 in sagarin.
2014- Spent several weeks in the top 25, had best odds of any team to go undefeated and dark-horse heisman/playoff talk before Taysom got injured.
2015-- Spent several weeks ranked despite another Taysom injury.

Since then: 2016- Should've been ranked with a heavy senior class with several NFL guys but didn't spend a single week ranked. Had close losses, but under-performed and lost games despite getting 5-6 turnovers vs. Utah and Boise st.

2017-2019-- worst 3 year stretch of results in the modern era. I'm honestly surprised you see the latter-half as "closer" to "special" seasons. It's just not true.