Our healthy starting lineup this season is a top 15 team. That's hard to do at all, but we did it without being P5. We're seeing a big drop off in talent after our starters, which is expected.

You can only build so much depth as an independent without being ND. We've built about as good a team as you can hope for without being p5. The lines are the hardest places to get depth, which is where we are experiencing the biggest drop off. We didn't get into our depth much last year. Backups got playing time but it was garbage time when we were blowing teams out. Now we are already seeing results in recruiting from being P5. We're going to start getting the best recruits we've ever had at BYU.

On the development front, the coaches have done a great job. They've far far exceeded expectations for how they recruit. They've done good developing low rated players and making them stars. This year and last year is full of examples. We had 5 players drafted last year including the number 2 pick. Sure, our defense the last 2 weeks has sucked, but if you look at the scheme we ran, especially against Baylor, the scheme wasn't much different than utah and Arizona state, the players on the field just weren't as good. It takes time to develop players. Especially to develop backups.

This year we haven't been able to blow anyone out yet, but this is a very different team than last year and much younger and with much less experience. Last year we established a winning culture though. We dominated the types of teams we lost to pretty consistently the first 4 years with this staff, and we dominated these teams all year long. That was huge for the program.

Kalani is learning and growing and doing a great job. He will need to make good assistant hires consistently and if he does BYU will consistently do great things in football. We have a chance to become the top dog in the big 12 in a relatively short amount of time. We'll struggle late in the season the first few years while building depth, but once we get that depth, we'll be really good. Enjoy the rode this season. We still have stuff to play for. We have the rankings to play for and a 10 win season, and the pac 12 south. If things don't end well this year, our program will still have momentum and be able to grow. Just enjoy it. Kalani is the right guy.