the narrative get away from the school is where BYU dropped the ball. We had media, fans, all sorts of support cheering us as the 2020 college football darlings who would "play anybody, anywhere any time". And I'm not just talking about ZW's headband - we had players & coaches saying similar things. Whether or not that was an official position held by the school doesn't matter, everyone believed it. We got punked by someone associated with Washington who leaked we weren't willing to play them. All TH had to do was get out ahead of the firestorm and say yes we will play but we need better terms. Instead social media reared it's ugly head and while BYU was busy trying to figure out how to respond it was too late, the narrative had been written.

So I agree no reasonable AD would accept those terms but BYU didn't have to in order to avoid this mess.