the chance to go to Clemson or Bama on scholarship, I would take it. Prove you can play/start/contribute at the highest level. And if so, you will get your look in the NFL. Not to mention, win at the college level (playing in some of the biggest stadiums, games, etc. You can be a missionary for your faith there, and have potentially even more impact than you would at a school like BYU where you are just as unique as 85 other returned missionaries. Being one of the only ones, you can actually make way more waves (see Darrell Bevell).



Look, I would love for all the top LDS talent to come to BYU. I just can't fault them for not coming (due to reasons mentioned above), and do not expect then to. Especially when I would not do so if I were in their shoes. Ultimately, if they make their decision prayerfully, then I we can't fault them for going wherever they want.

One last thing to consider, many of the top LDS talent chooses to not serve missions. Back when Bronco was here, there was that time where he discussed that out of the "big fish" that they were recruiting that chose to go elsewhere, only one of them ended up serving a mission (Xavier Su'a-Filo. And he made the right decision for him. I know him. He was in my ward in CA for the whole time he was at UCLA and he did tremendous good and was an amazing example. He continues that in the NFL) . He made comments to the effect of "those that want to come here nad have a BYU lifestyle, and that want to serve a mission tend to come here. Those that do not want to serve a mission often times do not." If I was an LDS kid on the that was didn't want to serve a mission, or was on the fence, going and spending a bunch of time at a place where I may feel even more pressure is not always something that kids want to deal with.