and this was a slow building trend for years and its hard to back off of now. Its gonna take years to reverse. Loyalty is #1 that community and if I had to boil it down to the core issue, I think many of the Kahuku football community feel BYU has not really been loyal to their children. Don't overthink this statement but I honestly have felt that way as well and I have a major blind spot when it comes to BYU.

I have not been keyed in for a few years now so maybe things have changed. I have brought things up in prior posts about some of the challenges BYU faces with that football community, but CB generally shrugs them off or says Kahuku players and families lie about their interactions with BYU or just play BYU for NIL. That thinking is immensely bias, clueless and naive. All the salt of the earth poly families that I grew up with who don't have a bad bone in their bodies are not lying, at least not in their perspective.

Kahuku is not Timpview or Corner Canyon or even Bishop Gorman. The fan base is way more rabid and loyal than those communities. Look up videos online of Kahuku football fans. The Kahuku football community remembers every star from their team for the last 40+ years. Just being a player on the team is more important than the fact that you were a star on the team and everyone seems to remember you were on the team even if you road the bench. They are basically ground zero for the poly football community in the church. In any given year probably half the team has parents who work for a church entity in Laie so its not a lack of church ties that hurts BYU.

The reality is they are different and they know they are different. Talent has brought major college football teams in and lack of attention from BYU has torn at the foundational tie to that relationship. Its not an individual player issue at Kahuku, its a community issue.

If I were to give the simplest advice to BYU possible, it would be to send a BYU recruiter to every game they have for a few years. Send coaches out whenever you can. Spend time with the players but especially spend time with the football families in the community, even if some of those families don't even have a recruitable kid. Every year BYU should also do one of those fan football events where the community can meet a bunch of the players, Sitake and some of the other coaches give out swag and paint faces. Do a fireside or two. Do a football camp at BYU-H during the summer (not sure that is allowed.) Those things matter everywhere but if you did them in Laie or Kahuku the community would absolutely notice and that trust would start to return.

I will say you still won't land every kid but the ones that go elsewhere will still love BYU. I'll also say I think NCAA compliance rules have really hurt BYU on some of the things that BYU used to be able to do an can't now, or at least couldn't a few years ago.