Pac-10 requirements:

research school
Sunday play

So BYU was already out.

Utah was worried about BYU trying to throw a wrench into it, hence the ultimate secrecy.

The article paints Utah as a no-brainer addition as the obvious choice in the west (right after Colorado) and that may be true, but ONLY because of the two requirements listed above. In every other way, they were not.

So, really nothing new here. It's obvious they did work hard behind the scenes. I can only hope BYU did the same and will do the same in the future. I'm jealous of the secrecy part. BYU absolutely needs that from any prospective conference to keep the SJW at bay.