No. The predominant driving force behind this is BYU having a short term glut of available scholarships due to the shift in mission age. While those kids who would have gone at 19 are now going at 18, BYU has extra scholarship capacity for 1 year and 2 year slots. I credit the staff with recognizing this short term asset and Geoff Martzen with finding a way to use it effectively.
As the wrinkles from the mission age shift get ironed out, I don't expect this to be a long term trend. Maybe a few now and again if these work out, but by and large this is a 1-time thing.
That said, I think Bib's point below on the asymmetry of the strength of commitment in the player/school relationship is interesting; I don't think it affects the trend in grad transfers, but to the degree that Bronco sees today's teenagers as unable to keep a commitment, I do think it affects the overall philosophy in scholarship timing.
Cougarbib wrote:
Maybe the change is this:
It is very risky to bet so early on players because BYU cannot exactly say never mind when one of those players does not continue to progress, but the ones that exceed initial expectations can open up their own recruiting and consider other alternatives.
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