You don't know why I don't think we weren't invited, I'm just taking issue with the idea that academic research was a key driver behind who was selected. You made the point that "there is quite a bit of academic carryover" between sports conferences. That's plan wrong.

You're promoting two reasons that Utah was invited over BYU: (1) "cultural fit," and (2) research institution. The former is what the original post addressed. So, I guess you agree to some extent. The latter is silly. You are absolutely delusional if you think Utah got the invite because it brought in half a billion dollars in government grants (i.e. a classic case of cognitive dissonance). There is no way the PAC-10 went down the list and stopped at research dollars and said, "Now that's what I'm talking about! Let's invite Utah to the conference so that we can get a piece of that government funding!" Sports and research are totally independent.

Moreover, no academic on the fringe of publishing a new paper says to himself, "Man, who should I work with on this? Well, we played Utah last week in football, why don't I look through their professors and see if I can find someone." That sounds stupid, doesn't it?.

A few more thoughts: Would you agree that there is more research done between Stanford and Harvard (a school it never plays in sports) then the entire PAC-10 combined? Also, if sports is such a key component of graduate research, why don't big researchers (e.g., the Ivy's and MIT) put more money into sports. Imagine how much they could benefit from the sports/academic carryover! Right?