There's a lot of comments here saying that the Big 12 will get a big media deal despite not having any marquee name-brand teams, and the logic is that the teams are pretty good and so that will ultimately drive eyeballs.

But it feels like we're talking out of both sides of our mouth if we then say that nobody cares about Utah football, because they're just some random generic team.

FWIW, I do tend to think that Utah, while fine and not the weakling we sometimes like to pretend, absolutely isn't a marquee difference-maker that can consistently deliver high viewership without games against the Oregons or USC or Ohio States or Floridas of the world. Utah is capped in that regard. But that worries me for the Big 12 because there's not much difference between generic state school in Utah and generic state school in Iowa. Or Kansas or directional Florida. Or Texas panhandle. So if Utah's success doesn't deliver them to a higher-profile status, then it seems to bode poorly for the Big 12.