"Utah and tcu actually brought in far more money to the conference than anybody else". You can't really believe this. BYU carried the conference. By far the biggest fan base, by far the most viewers, biggest attendance, and almost half of the conference championships the league ever awarded. Two big payout games over a decade don't overcome that and certainly not "by far" as you say.

"Utah showed a much higher ceiling than anybody from the west". Yes. Finishing ranked 5 times is way better than 18 times. 4 conference championships is better than 23, second place is better than a natty. Newsflash. A national championship IS the ceiling. We are the only one. Not tcu not UTAH, that proved capable of reaching that ceiling.

"BYU fans may overplay the monetary value of their fan base". Sooooooooo ironic considering your post.

Utah got picked because of religion. You know it. Everybody knows it. Stop pretending. As for your comment that only tcu and Utah proved capable of being a top 10 team in a p5 conference, only tcu has proven that. Utah is barely above .500 in the pac and hasn't come close to finishing top ten since the invite. lots of teams (including byu) over the past ten years have been in the top ten at one point or another if that was the argument you were trying to make.

Rant over