1. Bronco is not a prophet and I don't trust him to know if independence is sustainable more than anyone else.
2. Yes, he wanted a new opportunity. He said he'd accomplished as much as he could at BYU. Whether his fault or BYU's, that's likely true.
3. Hoping for appreciation / sparing his family, partly true. At CB we tend care more than most fans, and some of us are whiners, so we come here and see the negativity, and some are more vocal. But BYU's fanbase is, by and large, a very positive and optimistic bunch. That Bronco had lost to our main rival 6 times or whatever it was when he left. I believe his family got grief, maybe even more than some top college programs. But unless you want to take away BYU's expectation of success, you're not going to get away from that at BYU, and I'm not sure I'd want to be Virginia if the report from Bronco's staff there is that things are easier. I'd submit it's because they've not amounted to much over the years.
4. Sure, who doesn't want more money? Maybe that wasn't the main motivation, maybe it was, but I'm sure it wouldn't have hurt.
5. Administration forcing him out? I doubt it. It wouldn't surprise me if Tom had told Bronco "hey, you know you eventually need to beat Utah, right?" But I see no way the administration was going to fire a guy who averaged 9 wins over 11 seasons.
6. I'm sure Bronco had to deal with garbage but his personality unfortunately didn't make some things easier for him. Not banging on the guy, we all have the personalities we have. Just saying if we had Kalani's personality and Bronco's coaching ability, maybe we'd have had a few more good recruits and gotten over the hump with Utah in one of the many close losses. Maybe "I've accomplished what I could" is code for "it's not getting any better and I'm leaving while I can," but I think Bronco leaving was more about Bronco than about BYU's ceiling.