that is all that matters. IMO this has been an problem for decades. This post has been long in the making because I have been working on it for awhile. My only real experience is being part of a heavily recruited football community and speaking to a limited number of other recruits in other football communities. There are much more recruiting knowledgeable individuals than I but I still feel like I can read the room on how BYU recruits players vs how other schools do. I'm not talking about millions in NIL or strippers or a bag or money in a McDonalds sack. I'm talking basic and consistent communication of serious interest.

Let me start early in saying that I don't like the "BYU can do no wrong" comments saying, well those kids only want BYU offers so they can leverage them. Or, that kid and his family only wanted a BYU offer because they are LDS and wanted to say they could have gone there. Or people are more bent out of shape about not getting a BYU offer then other schools. Even if all of that is true I still fail to see how any of that is bad for the culture of BYU recruiting. Think on a marketing level here. In essence these families want the option of sending their kids to play for BYU and I just don't see how that undermines BYU football. Its the coaches job to take that desire for an offer and turn it into a desire to accept the offer. They may already be doing this but CB fans drop these comments all the time, as though it were relevant to recruiting these kids. If a kid has the talent for an offer I say we give him the chance. If we are generally worried about honor code, GPA, missions, other commitments at the same position, all of that can be explained with pointed and full expectation when an offer is given.

Now let me acknowledge that there a tons of worthy athletic players who BYU will not be interested in for whatever reason. I can appreciate not spending any time where you don't have interest and spending it on the ones that do matter. Every team has to come up with some methodology of doing that. Admittedly there is a cost to all things and honestly even that explanation still doesn't totally line up with families who I've known whose kid has an offer to BYU. For example, someone posted that interview with 4* LDS Liona Lefau in April where he talked about the schools recruiting him. You can literally listen to it.

https://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=28394557

When asked about BYU he pauses and says "I guess... BYU recruiting is not a big thing they do... (they said) if I need anything to reach out." He says he has a good relationship with the coaches but is definitely awkward when asked about how much contact he has with the BYU coaching staff. To me it almost sounds like he is doing his best to make saving face excuses for BYU given the pointed nature of the question. Props to him because basically the ball is in his court. Does that sound like major resources are going towards the viable kids with offers? Why are we even making an offer if we are not going to go all out to pursue these guys? Are we expecting to be spoon fed these players? Guys with connections to BYU and who have spent time on campus, by all logic would seem to be in a prime spot for the influence of BYU recruiting.

For me Lefau's experience confirms things I have heard from several other families who have had highly recruited kids. Its not about Lefau himself, its about all the Lefau type kids out there. All I can go off is the perception of those I talk to but I know families whose LDS kids with BYU offers went to Hawaii, BYU, Utah, Washington, Oregon, UCLA, USC, Tennessee who never felt like BYU was as interested in their kid as other schools were. Only a few of them are bent out of shape about it but it absolutely did influence them to go elsewhere. Their perception is not because of knowledge of what BYU is doing, only what it is not doing in comparison with other schools they have contact with. I think the way those not on the inside perceive the process is important because that is how the public, including recruits and their family and friends perceive it.

These low communication interactions compound in families and communities over time and build a perceived culture around BYU which impacts the recruiting before it even begins. You can look all over football and see that football families and communities produced talent 30 years ago, produce talent now and will produce talent in 30 years. Who do you go to for recruiting advice? Other players and families in your community that went through the tangles of recruiting. These important groups transcend the time that any coach will be in place at any school but those groups tend to still remember how their children were treated by the recruiting organization. This is especially true at BYU where there is a religious element involved. These trends over time effect families sending their kids to BYU football camps, reaching out with interest in BYU, responding to coaches etc. This should be obvious because we all do this kind of thing even subconsciously. It doesn't mean we are right, but we all look to go where we are appreciated and wanted and we are looking for every indication that that will be the case.

Lets pretend you are applying to jobs and compare:

1. A solid company, good national reputation, filled with people like you, has incredible mentors, sometimes boosts a few individuals into the next level careers in your field. They are interested in you working for them and tell you to let them know if you would be interested as well.

2. True or not the company is viewed as the stronger of the two companies in your field (indicators point to true), exemplary national reputation, diverse people in everyway (frequently not a downside depending on how you look at it), vast resources, great track record of boosting careers. They want you bad. They are calling, emailing and texting you to come to them, selling you on how you will fit in and pointedly following up on what they might do to influence you to come to.

I think it would be the rare individual that wouldn't choose #2. Lets take it a step further and pretend all aspects of these companies are the same except the way they show interest in you. I still think you would very rarely find someone who wouldn't pick #2. The way you are getting treated often feels more important than anything else because you will equate it with opportunities and general happiness.

I don't necessarily think BYU coaches and recruiting are slackers. I also don't think they do a poor job with all recruits. They might be working harder than anyone but I think they have to find a way to alter the perceived culture as players feel like they need self motivated recruiting to be at BYU. Let's remember that these are 16-18 year old kids. I have worked with youth for the last 7 years in church and some are extremely sharp and even the sharpest kid is still immature, forgetful and easily distracted. It feels like we need to be doing more to communicate to any potential recruit. I don't know the compliance rules on recruiting so keep that in mind. To me the lack of communication is surprising because it feels like we could just hire a few students part-time for $15 and hour to train to send kind but clear responses to interested kids who might not be considered or ideal recruits yet.

To avoid making this post longer I've outlined the type of recruiting that would make sense to me in the thread below.

Last thought I will add is something I read about Alabama doing. About 10 years ago or so I was reading and article about how Alabama transformed their western recruiting where they had previously felt they were weaker. Maybe one of you remember this article because I can't find it. They hired a guy as a GA who was coming off already being a P5 position coach elsewhere and paid him like 250k a year or something. The main reason they brought him in was because of the high level or contacts he had in the west. He was a poly guy and I recall being blown away with how he would recruit these kids out west. If you have ever seen the newer Miracle on 34th Street, his recruitment style was like that new store slogan Santa introduced to that store-- "If we don't have what you want, we'll help you find it." Basically he would make sure that he discovered what the most important things to these highly recruited kids were. When he knew better what they wanted he would help them get it, even if he found out they really wanted to attend a different school or be closer to home or something. He would use his contacts to advocate for what they wanted, even calling other coaches to say, "Hey this kid would love to play for you." As you can imagine this guy soon established the total trust of recruits. Many of them he still pulled to Alabama once that trust was there because they wanted to play for a school with their best interests.

I'm under no illusions that Alabama doesn't have every resource and reason in the world to pull in a top recruit but the thing that stood out to me was the culture of Alabama recruiting that coach was instilling. It would be hard not to send your kid to a school who was treating your kid like that unless you had good reason not to. At the very least I would be opening my door wide to a school like that. The culture of that type of recruiting environment is so player centered that it will build a powerfully positive perception with families and football communities that will carry over time. Not sure what an ideal BYU recruiting culture would look like but it would be incredible to move from a "We'll you kind of have to recruit BYU and they don't reach out a lot." to "Wow, they know me. Getting recruited by BYU makes me feel like they are invested in whatever's best for me. You should definitely look at BYU if they come calling."

There is all the trepidation about NIL money but IMO that isn't even a foundational issue presenting itself yet. If BYU is actually doing everything they can then they still need to find a way to rebrand recruiting so that it becomes more apparent to football communities.