He had fought hard to keep an edge with the yewts despite the natural disadvantages BYU had in regards to recruiting pool, athlete retention, & funding. After feeling the heat of a newly empowered yewtah, he no longer saw a way to keep up — hence the hopelessness of his verdict. In his mind, with BYU's restrictions — he felt we should simply abandon our aim of instate dominance — & instead focus on a more reasonable aim outside the P5.

He gave up.

But the biggest failing of Bronco's vision & verdict, imo — was his failure to acknowledge that the yewt program had a recruiting system & culture in place that had been kicking his tail years before Pac inclusion took place. Though the rankings didn't manifest it, they had found a winning system that valued athletic viability over in-game performance. And ultimately they simply outworked Bronco's staff by quite a bit in their search for --& their wooing of-- superior athletic talent. With that systemic advantage already in place, Pac expansion widened the gap in ways that Bronco had simply not prepared his program to endure.

Bronco was always quite in denial of his failings as a recruiter. Instead of focusing on BYU's possibilities in attracting outside talent, he settled into the belief that we needed to identify our limited insider pool quickly — & solidify their commitments as early as possible.

I think Kalani's shown in his few years, though, that a more expansive vision of BYU recruiting was ALWAYS a possibility — that we just failed to capitalize on.