vs today's era and where byu football fits into today's landscape.

I would dare say 75% or more of the CBers who follow byu football became fans of byu at some point during the Lavell era. While byu wasn't a dominant team year in and year out, byu was a recognizable brand whose accomplishments put byu on the map and did enough, often enough to remain on the map.

Routine conference championships, dominated the rivalry against Utah, classic bowl games, all Americans, high level QB's, various prestigious individual awards, sizable representation in the NFL etc etc...

This was byu football for the most part from roughly the late 70's to roughly 2009 ish. This was the standard, the benchmark, the expectation. Once a water mark is established, just about anything but the status quo will feel like a let down. People want to at least stay the course if not improve.

Since around 2010 ish it's been all down hill...very little NFL representation, completely owned in the rivalry, few if any individual notable awards, poor to average QB play... basically everything byu was known for they have not been in almost a decade.

Byu football is unrecognizable, it's boring, it's a shell of its former self. Without getting into a P5 league, I'm afraid what we've seen the past 7-8 years just may be the new normal for byu football.This is going to be hard for most fans to adjust to hence the massive explosion of Ute fans in Utah and the decline of byu fans.