I can give you a few and you can choose. First, Utah has had some pretty recent football success, which definitely hurt on the athletic side. Second, Utah is the type of school that fits in well with the other schools in the PAC12. This "better fit" theory definitely has a religious/philosophical component, but it also has a lot to do with research money. Believe it or not, academic research brings in substantially more money than athletics, and it is common practice for schools within the same conference to do a lot of collaboration in their research. The U of U was awarded somewhere to the tune of 1/2 a billion dollars worth of research grants last year, which puts our athletic deals into perspective.

In the end, it's all about the money, and Utah was the best fit.