Utah is the program BYU should have been. After Lavell Edwards made history in college football, the biggest mistake BYU admin made was hiring outside of the Edwards pedigree. (First crowton and then bronco). By bringing in guys that are pretty decent coaches, but have nowhere near the number or quality of connections in the football coaching world as a "BYU guy" would have, you severely limit your ability to hire top level coaching talent. Hence the smattering of random bronco hires from Dupaix to Howell to Jaime what's his name.
Kyle Whittingham has used his connections with BYU to land some serious coaching talent over the years.
Utah also mimicked BYU's Polynesian recruiting strategy of the 80's to marvelous results. Under Bronco, BYU strayed far from this strategy opting to put a bunch of short, white RMs on the field instead. Luckily, there has been a return to focusing on Polynesian recruits.
And finally, Utah snagged the spot in the PAC that was supposed to be BYU's. The spot that was verbally promised throughout the 80s and 90s.
Utah can pitch itself to talented local Mormon talent as the more laid back, enjoyable program. All they have to do is mention the honor code and a large percentage of the recruits will automatically cross BYU off their list. Maybe if BYU hires a BYU guy after Edwards retired, the program would not have collapsed under crowton, maybe the gang rape doesn't occur and maybe BYU still has the more relaxed attitude toward the honor code in lieu of the current nazi-esque system in place.
BYU is still obviously an awesome program with a good head coach, but Utah has done everything that BYU envisioned itself doing in the 80s and even 90s. It's like BYU did all the work to clear, pave and prepare the path for Utah who rolled right in to the desired destination.
Props to Utah for seizing the day, and BYU has no one to blame but themselves for getting away from what worked.