Veteran writer notes three areas that are critical to BYU’s future

When it comes to covering the Cougars, no one has done it longer than Deseret News columnist Dick Harmon. He has written his stories through the lean years, the championship years, the independent years and, currently, BYU’s second year in the Big 12.

Through five weeks, no team has won more games than BYU (5-0), and the Cougars have been catapulted from their low preseason Big 12 projections and into a conference contender with a No. 17 national ranking.

Harmon is as surprised as anyone and has no idea how this story will end. However, for long-term success as a Power Four, he noted three specific challenges on the “Y’s Guys” podcast that the Cougars must tackle.

Here are his thoughts:

NIL improvement

“NIL is here. There may be a salary cap coming, but there needs to be some control over what’s happening. BYU needs to handle football’s NIL similar, not maybe the same dollar-for-dollar as basketball, but we have seen what basketball has done. Now that they have some NIL money behind them, they are going after some of the top basketball players in the world and they are getting them.”

Pay coaches

“You have to keep guys like Jay Hill — whatever it takes. You don’t have to go crazy, but you better be paying him more than he can get somewhere else as a defensive coordinator and maybe make it so his family is so comfortable as a defensive coordinator and assistant head coach that he wants to stay here. You need to get these coaches that you believe in that are good and being productive and are good recruiters and are producing, lifting and teaching the players, you need to get them paid and keep them.”

Latter-day-Saint athletes

“BYU needs to do a far better job in capturing, recruiting, presenting and grabbing Latter-day Saint athletes. The top ones, some are coming here, but a lot of them are not. Kalani (Sitake) came to BYU known as a recruiter, but he has lost defensive linemen to Utah, USC and Oregon. He has lost them, for whatever reason. So, Kalani, as a personal challenge to him, has got to turn that around and get those defensive linemen wanting to come to BYU. I think if they challenge for the Big 12 title, that goes a long way toward doing that.”

Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.