Then take a USC or LSU who get top recruits and make something of them

BYU is getting better recruits and it will be interesting to see what it can do with more natural talent to begin with.

Bronco and the staff have done a great job getting talent that matches the "personality" that BYU's football teams seem to have. It doesn't do a bit of good getting a bunch of blue chippers if they don't fit the sytem.

True, but it doesn't hurt to have those players that match the personality be blue chippers

One positive that really grew from a negative is the fact that we potentially have Gabriel and Tafuna in the secondary next year.
Add in Fowler, Pendleton, etc. and we went from a position without a ton of experienced depth next season to a very experienced safety position.

If we can prepare our linebackers and corners for the early Pac 10 games, we'll be favored in every game we play, including a pretty tough conference road schedule (TCU, Utah, Air Force) but we get our trap games (New Mexico, Wyoming) at home.
We can't assume such a crazy NCAA season next year and should assume we have to win em all to get a BCS bid...

But if Pittman, Howard, Bradley, and Johnson survive spring and fall camp and improve and add in the improvement of Doman, Luekenga, Nixon, Clawson, Moala, Bauman, etc. we're a very scary team.....

Gabriel is done. He received his senior blanket and is hanging up the cleats. Tafuna will be back, but has some serious competition from Fowler/Pendleton/Bradley.

Chris Warner was the one kind of slated to take over for the seniors next year before he tore his ACL in spring ball. Look for him to play a factor there as well.