I'm definitely willing to consider that it's for reasons unrelated to independence (Utah to P5 obviously hurts) but there's also zero good evidence that independence has helped us recruit better and I don't know why we keep saying it has.

I'm not saying that as a fan of any team - I'm saying it as someone who works with data in my professional career and is bothered by the number of "conclusions" we all come to on this board without providing any real evidence.

The best conclusion we can reach is that
"At the time BYU went independent, their recruiting suffered a major drop-off. This timing coincided with several other major events (most notably Utah to the PAC-12), so it can't be absolutely stated that Independence has hurt recruiting. It's possible that the dropoff may have been even more severe without going Independent. However, there is also a lack of strong evidence to support Independence being a boon to BYU recruiting"