If BYU had joined and then seen the Texahoma 4 leave, BYU gets to feed off the exit fees for a decade while playing in what would have been a "Best of the Rest" conference; a conference which would have included TCU, Baylor, Kansas State, Kansas, Iowa State, West Virginia, Cincinatti, UCONN, BYU, and Boise. That and a stack of exit fee cash is way better than independence for football. Basketball and Olympic sports are substantially better off in this scenario.