There is much I inherently dislike about the University of Utah.

That said, there are plenty of people that like to see local/LDS athletes perform well.

The cream of the crop are increasingly going to Utah. BYU is flirting with a point of no return here.

You do not have a parking brake applied to your program at Utah the way you do at BYU. You can feasibly dream big these days. You have a legitimate chance at playing at a very high-level. Your teams have been in the title race of a P5 conference and they acquit themselves well against legitimate programs. You are not limited in the kinds of kids you can recruit – – it's fun to see people from different backgrounds come to places like Utah (the state--with its LDS heritage) and have a good experience.

BYU, on the other hand, has been a dumpster fire in football and was an epic disappointment in basketball last year. We rarely beat truly good teams anymore. We have been in a lackluster conference in basketball for years without really threatening to win it. Utah has a sweet 16 appearance.

From a sport standpoint, is not hard to see the appeal of flipping to the Utes.

Now, you still have to rationalize the vocal chunk of your Fanbase whose foundation in rooting for your team is a hatred of the religion of half of your school. There's other cultural stuff up on the hill that is a tremendous turn off for me. Not sure how you rationalize that. Ask an ALUF, I suppose