KY came in with a huge paycheck with significant promises for pay for his assistants and big commitments from NIL to make everything come together to attract this type of top talent. It's not really fair to compare what Pope was able to do on a WCC budget with what KY will be able to do on a B12 budget.

I know Pope could have gotten pay raises for himself and his assistant coaches, but even if the pay were equal, Pope isn't going to fire all of his assistant coaches and staff to bring in better recruiters once the higher salaries were approved. So you'd still have the same recruiting mentality and the same systems in place as before even if you increased assistant pay. Also, I don't think the type of NIL commitments that have been made under KY would have ever been made for Pope unless he had made a deep NCAA tournament run or two, so there's no way Pope would have been in a position to do what KY is doing if he had stayed.

I think things have worked out great for everyone with the Pope move, but mostly for BYU at this point. Pope will collect millions each year for the next 3 years and if he can make a final four during the next two years then he may get an extension and have some staying power at Kentucky. He hasn't been lighting the world on fire in recruiting so far, but who knows at this point?