The BYU coaching staff lead by Bronco Mendenhall deserves credit for digging the program out of the Crowton years, but has yet to reach fan or school expectations in years. Bronco has coached this team to back to back years of 8 and 5 with this year looking to be more of the same. That record is horrible but the fact that the team's expectations had gain national exposure to go undefeated and win a title they have failed. To top that off since the team left the Mountain West Conference in 2010 the strength of schedule has just barely cracked into the top 50 twice. Which means they are struggling against average to below average programs every week. With the consistency in BYU's struggles you can start classifying them as a week program too. That is not even close to undefeated or winning a title.
Also under this coaching staffs watch the BYU recruiting classes are an average rank of 56th. That's nowhere near number 1. You don't expect to gain a top 10 recruiting class however when you exclusively recruit out of the rocky mountains. They have little to no talent on the team thanks to Bronco. instead Bronco has taken a player development approach but since they have fallen to back to back years of 8 and 5 it's save to say Bronco hasn't developed the players that well.
Lastly BYU is a LDS church school with a very intense honor code and with high moral expectations for all it's students including athletes. However BYU has had their national media exposure I mentioned earlier with reports of players receiving gifts, players drinking in clubs with boosters, players vandalizing property and a myriad of other improper acts by athletes and representatives of an "example program". This team has brought more negative coverage in the last 3 years than positive.
Fans, Alumni and Lack of Media
Even when the BYU athletic department is average the fan base praises them like they are number 1 and when they mess up they cry foul on others. This is hypocrisy and they need to get realistic. Every year they have hype and fail. The school in general needs to fix it's image and operations.
As for lack media coverage. The fans make the ESPN contract out to be that ESPN chose BYU for the strength of the program. In reality they did choose BYU but only because BYU has a broadcasting network that has a strong presence in the rocky mountains. They are not elite. Almost every team in the country has signed a contract with either ESPN or Fox. So, BYU was actually late to the party. Furthermore ESPN has actually hurt BYU. They have given BYU all the first game slots and on a secondary channel. BYU is getting the short end of the stick.
Suggestions of what to do
1-Fire Bronco and his entire staff.
2-Join a conference and change your TV deal to match the conference.
3-Erase the unwarranted BYU pride.
4-Recruit some real athletes and get competitive.
5-Lastly put more time on actually being an "example program" and not just saying you are.
-Chris Schlierman
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