Outside of Utah's own alumni, Utah has the following of a much smaller town than Salt Lake City. In contrast, take Phoenix. Pretty much ASU dominates. Even out of state, there are a ton of Sun Devil fans. BYU strikes at the heart of Salt Lake City and takes 30% or more of the fans from Utah's natural fan base of the SL Basin. So right off the bat, it has a significantly reduced fan base. Sadly for them, it doesn't get better the further out you go.

Today, I can walk into Wal-Mart in Fort Collins, CO and buy a BYU hat and shirt (right in the heart of Ram country. Where are the Ute hats? I can walk into the mall in Denver and Colorado Springs and find BYU hats by the dozen and in several different styles. Not so with the Ute clothing.

In So. Cal, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii and Oregon, I can buy BYU stuff anytime I want. I might have to look a little here and there, but the clothing is there. No, BYU isn't all over the United States like that (though most major cities will have BYU gear still -- I saw BYU gear as far out as New York -- but it is dominant in the West.

So should we then compare the demand for Utah gear? Really? Do we really want to go down that road?

At best, Utah has now become less of a presence in the West. How? Because it is competing with teams in bigger markets in the west with already established and dominant teams. When they were in the MWC, they would get tacit support from the other schools and their fans as they moved up the ranks. They were something to talk about and even support as they went to the BCS games and had a good basketball team.

None of that is true now. So in my market, you don't see much Utah gear anymore. We used to, but not anymore.

I predict Utah will go further and further into obscurity. Whitt will get picked up by another team for his talents and that will be that. I'll put money on it.