Looking over BYU's schedule since 1996, we have never fielded a team that was actually going to make a NY6 bowl game except Luke Staley 2001.

Never an independent team that was higher ranked than all G5 conference champions. Never a MWC championship team that was better than all the other G5 conference champions

Looks like Independance never actually reduce BYU's access to the NY6 bowl games, looking at the MWC bowl lineup, we probably didn't even lose out on the other bowl games.