I could make a bunch modifications to make any team look better. But part of what makes a team valuable is also when they play (Eastern is more valuable, as mentioned), and certain teams are more likely to get higher billing. That's a factor of the team.

If Oklahoma was only on via tape delay on a regional channel with availability only in Eastern Montana at 2:47 AM, they'd probably draw substantially less. But TV executives would also never do that with Oklahoma games...whereas they might be perfectly willing to do that with a UNLV game though. That's one (of the very many) differences between the two programs.

Getting too into the counterfactuals of "if x, y and z, then..." is just dangerous. If we had the same exposure, history, money and recruiting as Oklahoma we'd probably be just as good. But that's kind of the difference.