...and by competitive I mean on par with ASU and Arizona or WSU or Oregon. Every once in a while when schedule and senior class mesh up well, Utah could have a near run-the-table experience. But I also expect UTAH will be almost exactly what I just mentioned, another Arizona State (except with a stadium only 60% the size of ASU's). Stadium size is important for a lot of reasons but one of the most obvious is that if you fill it, gate translates into annual annuity payments on other sports and facility improvements. With only a 45,000 seat stadium, Utah lags the Sun Devils by about 27,000 seats and that translates into $2.4 million in additional revenue each year. Assuming that endowment in present value annualized is divided by a capitalization rate of 5% then ASU will have nearly $50 million more it could spend immediately on facilities and programs that UTAH cannot. BYU with it's 64,000 seats is similar to ASU and can probably capitalize between $35-40 million in program enhancements above and beyond Utah's limitations.

Those UTAH fans who think size doesn't matter, are not thinking of these annualized valuations the way financial experts think about them. This fact alone is what makes the PAC-12's acceptance of UTAH over BYU so blatantly obvious to the educated financial guru. Clearly, money and capital improvements were NOT the reason it chose UTAH over BYU. Given the overwhelming advantages BYU has academically over UTAH by every known and accepted metric it could not be that either and nobody knows the actual size of BYU's funded and future committed endowments, as compared to the publicly disclosed endowments and research capital UTAH has...but nobody at any think tank believes BYU's research capital is less than Utah's in spite of the fact UTAH has a Medical School.

Having said all, that, I do think becoming ASU or Arizona and having enough success to win a PAC-12 title every ten years is certainly possible. I also disagree with people that think there is some enormous delta in talent levels between the majority of PAC-12 schools. I think Oregon gets slightly better athletes on par with UCLA and USC certainly gets the best. But the other nine schools are all very close to equal and any reliance on the "star rating metrics" of Rivals and Scout I think have now finally been laid to rest as mostly myth and smoke for 2/3's of the athletes that sign LOI's and yet have never been actually seen or rated in person by the services. Those rankings are a farce.

That leaves coaching and frankly, UTAH has a very very fine head coach and staff. It got significantly better when Dennis Erickson came on board presumably to close out his career. For all the criticisms, Erickson is an offensive brainiac and will really help UTAH this next few years or so long as he stays. The most important element in winning is good and disciplined coaching. Urban Meyers did not have the greatest athletes at Bowling Green, Utah or even Florida, but he has won everywhere he went because he is a fantastic skills, fundamentals, x's and o's kind of coach. K-Whit isn't there yet, but he's close to being another Urban Meyer than he is Jim Fassil. For that reason, I believe UTAH is and will be competitive, and it will win the occasional Pac-12 title. I certainly hope so anyway.