That is the definition of mystique. I did a poor job of trying to capture what I meant about a team losing its mystique. The knockoff version of mystique is a brand.
Miami had a brand as lawless thugs with good QBs. Florida State had a brand with flashy fast players, bling and the chop.
BYU’s mystique was scoring a lot of points and always knowing they could come back.
A few teams like Notre Dame can survive not being great and keeping mystique but most can’t. I think a lot of teams had more mystique as Independents: FSU, Miami, Penn State.