I think it was a "in your face, we got invited to the PAC 12, we've moved beyond you, we don't need you" type of message to BYU he wanted to try and send. Why do I think that? Mostly because the arguments I've heard for ending the rivalry don't make sense. BYU isn't a bad loss for Utah and it is a quality win. Most years BYU is a top 25 team or sniffing the top 25. Playing BYU doesn't hurt Utah's chances of any post-season play. You win the PAC 12 and win the PAC 12 CCG most likely you'll end up in the playoff. That is going to be a extremely rare event but if you did all that and had happened to have lost to BYU in the same year then I would say that would be an even more rare occurrence. (A fair dig at both schools .) The dumbing down the schedule because the BYU game is too hard on Utah theory doesn't make sense (and I admit this is mainly a BYU fan theory) because you replaced at least one BYU game with Michigan in Ann Harbor. Not exactly a step down. It's obvious that there is a big push to move away from patsy OOC games anyway. Again I think a lot of the PAC 12 schools have figured this out and have recognized BYU as a quality opponent in their recruiting footprint. Hence quite a few PAC 12 vs BYU series announced. Do you really want to be the only PAC 12 school without a real rivalry game? Colorado? That is never going to take off. Rivalries are big in college football. There is a lot of hype and media attention surrounding them. They're good for programs. It's a little bit different now because of conference affiliation but my opinion, and I don't think I'm alone, is that the BYU-Utah rivalry game is better and more well known than most if not all the rivalries in the PAC 12. In the end if Utah changes their mind again and decides to back out of the game I'll keep on rooting for my Cougars and move on from the rivalry but I think it is shame for the game to go away especially when it doesn't need to.

To address your last point they reversed because they came to their senses and realized as mentioned above that these other programs viewed BYU as a quality program in the west that they could fill their OOC schedules with. And could do it on national TV.