and BYU's relative position to them(and a little bit to the landscape of college football in general, but in general it has been this way for 20 years now back to when the bcs was formed).
Look at one of his great memories of BYU, Beck to Harline. Many of the same similarities to now with 3 recent losing seasons in a row, 4 straight losses to Utah, Utah was only 2 years removed from an undefeated season and won a bcs game, BUT BYU was in the same conference, had much better facilities, was winning recruiting battles, had more money etc. Now that has all changed relative to Utah and fans are slowly losing interest.