Next year is going to be very long for them.
Very, very long.
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It seems everyone on the team is in the Portal. Certainly seems that way. Apparently the LB Pili is one of the latest, some athlete last name Snowden has been headed for Utah for 6 months.
If I was a trolling type, I might suggest somebody in the law school figure out how BYU could somehow conduct spring ball in the portal and proceed from there.
I have no idea how big of an issue it really is, but when that group gets rolling - in whatever direction - it constitutes immense inertia.
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Is this Snowden kid really coming to Utah, or is that just their perception? I believe he played for Skyridge. Did he commit and then decommit? I only ask because it shows Utah as “high” on his interest.
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I have no idea.
They don’t seem to be throwing Jay Hill under the bus yet, the blame seems to be on Kalani for letting team morale get so low.
Looks like 7 players have entered the portal, included one we got yesterday, maybe more.
My heart really goes out to them. It’s just a crying shame. Does anyone know the channel for the Home Shopping Network? I need a pick me up.
Lol
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He decides Monday. Would be a tremendous addition as he’s a talented player. On a side note his dad is close with Jay Hill. Also his brother played for Hill at Weber. Any advantage Utah may have had could be mitigated by the Hill hire. But everyone will learn his intentions Monday.
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I saw a thing on FB that said the Hill had just landed a 4 star recruit on his first day, so I’m guessing that would be this kid.
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Onlyu on the other site is dropping big hints that Snowden is still Utah bound.
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No but you can binge watch Marie Kondo on Netflix and get your mess organized. 
I shall endeavor to take that under advisement, good sir.
lol
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Looking at Snowden more closely, he’s got a decision to make:
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going to BYU will get him on a big stage in the B12, but there are serious questions about their pass rush, the defense is being rebuilt, and one sure-fire way for a CB’s stock to drop is to be in coverage for 5-10 seconds or longer.
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With Phillips racking up the All-America honors and apparently set to move to the league, there’s a really good opportunity to join an established defense that just keep reloading… that also happens to have an excellent pass rush.
Sack Lake City & having Zemaiah Vaughn on the other side (so opposing defenses don’t load you up with their best WR all game long)… vs a rebuilding D that is likely to be on a long ascent to being good, in a new-to-BYU P5 conference, with a program that has built-in recruiting limitations.
We’ve put a ton of CBs and Safeties in the league, we’re proven… and we have an opening.
Beyond all the other variables, Ute fans support their players in a pretty deep way. (Phillips slipped & Addison had a long reception in the CCG, but nobody brings that up… because it’s irrelevant.) BYU fans have a tendency to go after their own in a pretty vicious way.
Wish the kid well either way.
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Dad’s being buddies is nice but If Snowden wants to play in the NFL Utah is the clear pathway. I would imagine 20 years of evidence would be hard to ignore.
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We’ve all been able to watch Whitt’s long tenure at the U. I won’t go through all of it, but it’s been a long & winding road, mostly an ascent, but there were some struggles.
It’s hard to say all the ways the Portal changes CFB, but it’s front and center in the U’s recent success.
Some players enter the portal for a reset, some want to taste success, some just want to get on the field.
For the schools, it seems like the uber-elite like Alabama lose a lot, but reload with a fresh group of players (from HS and the Portal) who think they can make a name for themselves before going to the NFL.
Like Jordan & Cal Beck described, Utah’s now consistently in the Top 10-15, the half tier below Georgia, Alabama, perhaps OSU & UM. That makes us a destination school for talented transfers who have a hunger to distinguish themselves - Rising, Jackson, Diabate, GReid (that’s just names that come to mind from this year).
Add in the NIL and the Portal is a rich-getting-richer situation.
But the aspect that distinguishes Utah from the other schools in Tier 1.5 is “Family”, which is far from a slogan at the U.
Ja’Quinden Jackson alluded to this when Beck asked him if he could go back and advise his younger self, what would he say? JJ said if he was advising a young player, he would tell them to seek out the players who aren’t playing, the backups and ask them what they think about the school, the program, the coaches.
It’s unrealistic to expect every single player on a team to be genuinely happy about their decision, their situation. Players are competitors who want to play. (I wish nothing but the best to Malone Mataele.) But I think if potential players did as JJ advised in looking at the U, they’d find pretty impressive feedback from guys that aren’t starting, that aren’t playing a lot.
The Moment of Loudness is a real thing, it’s genuine. Utah is a special situation, these days.
And now Utah has a highly unusual example of a guy going Portal but coming back - Jaylen Dixon. Whitt can refer players and recruits to Dixon, his story. There’s more than one way to find success. Just about all those ways can be found in Salt Lake City.
Through all this, we still have upside.
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Recruiting and coaching is all about relationships and relationship building. Our success has been driven by a high degree of “coaching stability” in the program.
Some, like ‘Bama can have success with basically the HC being the bedrock and the assistants being on a sort of revolving door.
Kyle has been a bedrock here, and his assistants have generally built the foundation at his direction. The difference here is we have seen very little turnover in staff over the years, unlike other schools. To be clear, what we are seeing is very common in Utah. Parents like the idea of sending their kids to stable programs. Given our success of sending players to the NFL, it is now attracting more interest from players who would’ve never even given us a sniff a decade ago.
BYU blowing up their staff was “maybe” necessary, but it also blew up a ton of relationships with players and recruits. Not that transitioning to the Big-12 wasn’t going to be hard enough, but the perceived instability in the program just made it that much harder. Yes, we will likely benefit a little more with the in-state kids for a couple of recruiting cycles because of it. As evenly matched as the Big-12 is right now, BYU should scream success if they end next season 6-6.
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No question Jay’s a good hire, but their obstacles are tangible.
I’m trying to think how BYU can negatively contrast the situation at Utah - there’s just very little traction. B12 has a bigger TV audience, more eyeballs on you? CPIII put that topic to rest, as the All-America honors mount, and BYU is not going to be in many (if any) marquee games for a while.
Parking at the U? lol, that particular issue seems to be a point of complaint for BYU players: I hear a lot of complaints from athletes on the regular as they come over my place and are not (cougarboard.com)
Jen Shah? Please…
If it boils down to the kid wanting to play for a new DC he’s known for a while… I’m not going to get on a teenager about why they make a big choice like this one, but it seems like a conversation with CPIII or ZVaughn or Jaylon Johnson or RJ Hubert or others should help answer any questions he has.
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Yep, the Cougarboard Cycle of Irrationality beings anew.
They somehow think Jay can mine the portal for talent and put together a solid D before September, with depth. It’s unrealistic, it’s ridiculous, but for them it’s a fact.
The football truism “Don’t let a team beat you twice” - the actual defeat and a hangover the next week - applies to them every week. When we’re doing well it nearly always diminishes their victories and absolutely compounds their defeats. We’re the unspoken anchor around their necks.
Kalani was a solid coach, a great hire, going to establish an unprecedented Poly Pipeline… until it didn’t materialize. Before him, Bronco showed the grit, was going to right the ship in the rivalry… until his wife was getting into it with their completely irrational fans.
Now they’re going into a big boy league after having laid an egg this season, and rather than tamping down expectations… the Cycle of Irrationality starts right back up.
The pattern is well established. If you’re a good player, especially from within the State of Utah, do you want to get into a situation where the fans have gone cannibalistic over & over? After they beat Baylor this season and then stumbled… the season dissolved quickly.
The coaches have enough to deal with - getting talent & getting a consistent scheme together is intensely challenging to begin with. Add in a very large, quick-turning fanbase that you have to somehow instruct your players to ignore and tell your spouses to stay away from? It’s just crazy.
Some of their fans get it - they’re waiting patiently for the day Whit retires. And this is during weeks we don’t even play them!… it’s a weekly thing on CB.
(OK, I need to lay off the coffee this morning, granted. Heh.)
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I saw a bunch of hype that Hill has experience running KW’s 4-3 aggressive defense, so they wont do the drop eight anymore. Then somebody noted that kalani had run it too.
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Jay Hill is a good coach and a nice hire for TDS. But their defense is going to get hammered next season.
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Their fan base is a train wreck. Their alumni association is one, too. They are way too willing to embrace unrealistic expectations. I call them the “Law and Order” people. Why “Law and Order” you night ask? Well, it’s because they believe you can go from train wreck to National Champions in less than one hour (like the show goes from a crime to a conviction in less than one hour).
Since NIL is a form of quid pro quo, they might see some HNW alums invest in some of the athletes for marketing purposes. Granted the scope of the marketing won’t penetrate much further that Utah Valley, but whatever. I am not saying we will have much more success. It will likely be sixes. Both will likely lag the bluest of the blue blood elite programs. To compete will require them to “sell” a different sort of program.
It seems Kyle may have figured this out.
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Would you rather come into a new role under the radar with the opportunity to be a hero, or come into it heralded as a savior and expectation to be a hero? I feel sorry for Jay Hill.
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great point
watching the Big XII they typically have some great offenses. Even if Jay Hill were successful at byu, it may be hard to recognize because so many Big XII teams favor offensive football.
Same could be said for Lincoln Riley. He’ll never achieve the success Trojan fans want until he puts some emphasis on the D