What about Boise St? Hawaii? NIU?
Geography, market sizes and being told no by many teams above the ones they took got them to Utah....
Sunday play and religion played way more into why they would take Utah/TCU over BYU than BCS games....
And buying what the Utah fans want to sell you on something on the field being the difference is wrong...
Academic standing/academic freedom were likely more realistic parts of the decision than anything related to play/success on the field, court, track, mat, etc.....