BYU football recruiting: So far the Cougars’ class of 2023 has yet to see a big Big 12 bump

Jackson Bowers might be the future of BYU football.

The 6-foot-5 tight end is a four-star recruit, who held offers from Arizona, Washington and even Alabama — but Bowers picked BYU over everyone else. It’s a big win for the Cougars, and the type of recruiting victory that might become more common as they move into the Power Five world.

But so far for this recruiting cycle, BYU hasn’t quite seen the Big 12 bump the program is hoping for.

Take the case of Daidren Zipperer for example. On paper, he represents everything BYU wants in its future recruiting efforts. He is a 6-foot-1 receiver from a football power in Florida. He has 23 offers, among them South Carolina, UCF and Pitt.

Maybe he isn’t the top end of talent in the state, but he is the perfect foray into Florida recruiting for the Cougars: a three-star athlete who would immediately be Big 12 caliber talent, and a guy BYU should be competitive with to get a foothold in a Big 12 recruiting hotbed.

Yet, when the program reached out to Zipperer, he had the same initial reaction as many of his fellow recruits in the region.

“A Florida person will look at it like, ‘Oh, I can’t [go there],” Zipperer said. “Florida recruits are like, ‘There are a lot of Mormons that go there.’ People think you have to serve missions and stuff. I think that is why people are scared to go there. But for me, that is not on my mind” after visiting campus.

Zipperer hasn’t made a decision yet on where he’ll play his college ball. But he represents the problem BYU will have to overcome as it overhauls its recruiting strategy for the Big 12.

“In the past, we had to be a little more developmental because we weren’t a Power Five program,” head coach Kalani Sitake said, noting BYU had previously stayed local and took under-recruited players. “Now that we have been invited and it is out there … we have to shift a little bit of our attention and our resources and bring in the people that can help us reach our goals.”

Sitake and company have made it a priority to be competitive in Big 12 recruiting strongholds — mainly Texas, Florida, Ohio and California. But going into those regions and winning recruiting battles there are two separate things.

The 2023 recruiting class — the first class fully in the Big 12 era for the Cougars — will be an early gauge of how much progress the program has made in changing its recruiting strategy. And the early returns could be summed up like this: BYU has made more of an effort to widen its recruiting net, but it is still struggling to consistently land recruits at the highest level.

Just look at the stats: In the 2023 class, BYU has offered four players from Florida, five from Texas and 32 from California, per 247Sports. All of those numbers are up from this time a year ago. But when it comes to commitments, only two players from Texas have picked the Cougars so far, and none from Florida or California.

BYU did pick up a commitment from Bowers on Friday. But Bowers is from Arizona, a place the Cougars have long had success recruiting.

Different case studies show the reasons why BYU has missed out on some other targets so far this recruiting cycle, either losing recruiting battles to local schools or other traditional Power Five powers.

Take Kendrick Raphael as an example. He is a four-star player from Florida who had offers from NC State, Buffalo and Iowa. He was a gettable player for BYU, but he committed to Iowa.

Or Nyziah Hunter, a three-star player from California who had offers from Cal, Oregon State and Boise State. Hunter is another player that BYU should have been competitive with, but he has opted to stay home at Cal.

Nobody thought BYU would immediately get all of those recruits, but a major bump in recruiting heading into the Power Five thus far has not happened yet.

“You don’t always have to make [player development] your mantra. You can do other things, too,” Sitake said. “We are flexible.”

For now, BYU’s recruiting class looks a lot like the past. Five of the nine commitments came from either Utah or Arizona — typical strongholds for BYU. Only one is over three stars, according to 247Sports, and two are unrated. It ranks the 70th best class in the country, according to 247Sports, which is the bottom end of the Big 12.

The Cougars have had visits from highly rated players — like Hunter Clegg and Walker Lyons. But they haven’t sealed commitments from either. Clegg, a four-star edge rusher from American Fork, just committed to Stanford. Lyons, an LDS recruit, also opted for the Cardinal.

A large knock on BYU’s recruiting is its reliance on underrated players to develop them into starters. Defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki, and a few other defensive coaches on the staff, still say they won’t look at recruiting rankings and stars.

“We’re just going to continue to evaluate. And we won’t go chasing stars,” defensive backs coach Preston Hadley said of his recruiting strategy.

But the reality, Sitake has acknowledged, is long-term development isn’t always rewarded in a transition to the Power Five. In a league made up of highly rated recruits, the talent gap can be significant.

With five months before early signing day even gets here, the Cougars still have time and work to do to close that gap.