Arizona St is terrible this year, but has been a quality program overall, is in a large market and gets solid viewership. Downside is the current ineptitude and looming NCAA sanctions (which matter less and less as the NCAA becomes less powerful)

Utah is very good this year and has been quite good most of the last nearly 20 years. They have a fairly large market and get good viewership. Downside is the geographic (and possible fan) overlap with BYU.

Colorado has a big market and has had a few very strong runs while being otherwise subpar. Downside is that they don't draw well even in their market and have been down for 20 years now. In the last 15 years they've been bowl-eligible 2 times. And one of those was going 4-2 in the COVID year.

Washington St is basically fine. They get pretty good viewership, but not great. They're pretty good one the field, but not great. They have slightly better history than Arizona or recent Colorado, but it's not great. They also represent a fair number of fans in the huge Seattle market...but are far enough away that it's hard to travel or credit then with those fans

Arizona has a medium market and is good at basketball. Downside is they have geographic/market overlap to some extent with ASU and they're currently and historically bad at football. They've finished ranked only 7 times in their history and they don't get viewers.

Side note: Either of Arizona or Arizona St would REALLY benefit from being clearly elevated above the other.

San Diego St has a big market, good recruiting grounds and is mediocre currently. Historically they've been pretty weak (albeit with some D2 national championships) and draw fewer fa

eyes than antiques roadshow*

SMU is a giant market that is pretty saturated, not just with TCU, but Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M all have large fanbases in Dallas as well. They were very good back in the Pony Express days but have been mediocre to terrible since the death penalty and don't draw viewers.

*I haven't chatted antiques roadshow viewing, but this honestly would not surprise me if it's true