when he got to BYU. And also the fact that at BYU, Pope simply wasn't free to blow things up from the start. There are not a whole lot of coaches that would've come to BYU with the early restrictions on roster-building that Pope was dealt by the AD. (Not beyond the money-grab, anyways. It was a very risky job to take for anyone who was entertaining solid HC offers like Pope was at the time.)

Furthermore, many of Pope's initial recruits were landed to solve immediate needs & problems on that a very imbalanced roster he was left after his first season. These were not the level of recruits that Pope would ideally recruit, but they were the ones immediately available to him. Well, some of those kids are still not only occupying scholarships presently, but are also naturally the upperclassmen leaders of the team. In an ideal world that Pope would hope to get to in a few years, his upperclassmen leadership will be composed of more talented, capable players. Kids like his first batch of freshly returned RMs — or at least the players they'll be in another 2-3 years.

These really are more BYU problems than they are Pope problems, though.