If SpudTech ranked 200 spots higher academically it would be West Virginia (bottom ranked P5 in the entire country) with a stadium 23,000 seats smaller. At least WVa sends its graduates to work all over the east coast as franchise night managers and janitorial supply sales reps. All kiddingvaside, everytime I read a post that mentions one of the few FBS level institutions that barely gets an academic rank and is still below 600 by Forbes I just think this person cannot be taken seriously. Blue painted gimmick field, and pop-up textbooks. Please stop including Boise in anything. I am embarrassed that schools like Memphis and Cincinnati that rank in the 400-500 range are being mentioned.
Also a solid conference still includes regions with fans and eyeballs. SDSU. UCF, TULANE, CSU, HOUSTON, like BYU all add eyeballs, a large regional fan base and a reason for ESPN and FOX to pony up money for games.
Of course BYU's reach is much larger, but among all FBS not currently P5, Only BYU and Notre Dame fit in that category.