"lost in an independent schedule ... I think many cougar fans still believe that BYU is highly superior to USU, when in all reality, meh, not really." - Truerblue
Again, not saying that USUs schedule is better than BYUs. My take on it is that BYU plays big games at the beginning of the season and by losing even just two of them, the rest of the season loses value. There is no conference or division title to play for. No hope of a NY6 bowl (after losing.) The difficulty of BYUs schedule is higher than USUs but it is not a jugernaut schedule (except 2020 will be) but unless you can continue to win, the difficulty of the schedule is useless.