You know, I think we sometimes suffer from the same delusions of grandeur that the Utes clearly do. The Utes seem to think they dominated the MWC and then made the natural step to the P12, and that they are now clearly better than all non-P5 teams.
In a similar way, we seem to sometimes imply that nobody cared about winning the WAC or MWC. It implies that we were so much better than our conference mates, that winning the title was of no consequence to us. Or that we were so much more prestigious than our conference that winning the title was somehow beneath us.
This is revisionist history. BYU fans were very proud of winning their conference. They were very interested in the conference race. So, yes, winning the conference was a component of interest that compelled season ticket purchases.
Maybe independence can be even more interesting. But I don't understand when people imply or flatly suggest that BYU winning conference championships was inconsequential.