...and that doesn't factor in players like Demin or Boskovic. Meanwhile, everyone had a better transfer portal recruiting class than BYU but not all things are equal there imo. Several of the schools who did well in the transfer portal and are ranked ahead of BYU in the transfer portal team rankings also got raked over the coals by departing players hitting the portal. It's a huge question mark for many if not most on whether they improved or not. That conversation is further muddled by the thought that these are all new guys to whatever system that coach is running so while it's nice to have experienced players, they might take some time to fit in. Who knows if they improved, got worse, or if it was a wash?

In BYU's case we lost a really good player in the portal (JRob) and nice rotation guys (Waterman and Aly) but replaced them with higher rated HS players or international players (potentially but not sure what Boskovic's recruiting ranking will look like).

Most of the teams in the Big12 were hit hard losing a ton of depth in the portal (maybe Houston was the least affected). BYU is right in the thick of the conf when it comes to things like avg age of the roster, % of returning production and returning minutes. Most teams are all pretty close in that regards. I think most fans focus on what BYU lost but don't factor the same for the other teams in the Big12.