#2. BYU said no we want to wait for rankings

“There was enough interest on their end to go and have some conversations, but they circled back Saturday night saying they wanted to wait on that. So just the timing of waiting for them didn’t seem very realistic..... It was time to move on from BYU, too, with Cohen and UW unwilling to wait until the release of Tuesday’s College Football Playoff rankings to continue discussions.

#4 SDSU signed the contract

Cohen said “San Diego State was awesome, super flexible. They wanted to have their student-athletes to have a chance to compete, too.”

Cohen praised SDSU athletic director John David Wicker as “just a great, straight-up guy,” and said he was aware UW would be bound to Utah if the Utes came available. But she believes their discussions helped streamline SDSU’s eventual agreement to play at Colorado this weekend.

In the end, UW’s negotiations with SDSU “proved fruitful for both sides”, even though they won’t play each other. Since they already had a contract approved and nearly finalized with one Pac-12 opponent, it was a seamless process for the Aztecs to pivot and agree to a game with Colorado,

#6. When Colorado came available UWs name
On the contract with SDSU was replaced
with with Colorado

“Since they already had a contract approved and nearly finalized with one Pac-12 opponent, it was a seamless process for the Aztecs to pivot and agree to a game with Colorado”

point six isn’t literally accurate but the theme of the article points to the fact that SDSUs flexible negotiations and agreement with UW ultimately led to them playing Colorado under the same terms that had been laid out beforehand by the pac 12.