For decades, BYU football has garnered a reputation for doing more with less. Despite its rigid honor code, which has stood as an obstacle for non-LDS recruits since the BYU athletic department's creation, the Cougars have managed to field remarkably competitive teams with a much smaller recruiting pool than their national peers.
Despite their limitations, LaVell Edwards installed the most potent and explosive offensive system in the entire nation during his time as head coach, and the evidence is undeniable with results like 1984 National Champions and 1997 Cotton Bowl Champs on their resume. Non-LDS quarterbacks Jim MacMahon and Steve Sarkisian elevated the program to its "QBU" status in the 80's and 90's, with some help from LDS talent like Steve Young and Ty Detmer, of course.
But since the 2000s, the Cougars' recruiting limitations have been rapidly eroding. NIL packages and the increased freedom of the transfer portal have made BYU a much more enticing destination for athletes of all backgrounds, and since the turn of the millennium, BYU football has been the highest-rated recruiter in the entire Big 12 Conference, including in seasons where the team was still locked outside the gate of the Power Five leagues.
Top 10 Big 12 recruiting rankings since 2000 ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/4OMm0HRP0R
— PFSN College (@PFSNcollege) May 25, 2026
No, the program's average star-rating doesn't eclipse the 3.0 mark, but the PFSN College score of 11,374 give the Cougars a comparatively comfortable lead over previous Mountain West rival TCU, current competition for the Big 12 Conference title, and three more programs (Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado) who spent the majority of this stretch in the Pac-12 Conference -- er, Pac-10 for about half of that period, too.
Curiously, this isn't even completely due to recent boosts in recruiting strength, either, as five-star QB Ryder Lyons is downgraded to a four-star in PFSN's database, Jake Heaps suffered a similar fate, and the Cougars have found themselves deadlocked in the fourth spot for the last three classes, then sixth in the class of '23.
BYU's consistency has been key for floating to the top of this list. They were the top-rated class in this group just three times since the 2000 cut-off, but only dipped below the 3-7 range a handful of times in that stretch.
Quarterback Ben Olsen and O-lineman Ofa Mohetau are the team's only five-star recruits in the last 25+ years, according to their database, and those are two names that my 24-year-old brain was entirely unaware of before researching for this article.
Still, BYU's recruiting strength isn't entirely unlike Santa Claus -- and this isn't a "because they're both fake!" bit -- because their strength is not in their unearthly power, but in their consistency and resilience. Through several conference changes and the honor code issue, BYU football has been one of the more consistently competent programs in the entire nation.
With more news of recruiting success and the all-time high the program is currently riding with two straight 11+ win seasons in a Power Four league, Kalani Sitake and his team could very well widen that gap before it ever shrinks (barring continued excellence from Texas Tech).
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