From a Utah fan perspective, this is a drum that Whittingham has been soundly beating on for the last several years. He's said it enough that it's clearly not about BYU

Even as Utah was trying to save the PAC and keep that alive, Whittingham was repeatedly taking every opportunity he could to bring up where college football was going and continued realignment into two elite conferences. So a Utah fan who has often heard him doesn't view this is anything new. If it's a shot at the Big 12, then he also spent the last year+ taking shots at the PAC (while simultaneously trying to save it).

From a BYU fan perspective, nobody at BYU is listening to every Whittingham interview about everything - we're more focused on when he's talking about BYU...or rather "the in-state game" or "the team down south" or whatever else he says. Whittingham has been weirdly and purposely dismissive of BYU, so when he's asked a question about BYU and launches into a tangent about realignment, it's hard not to take it as a shot at BYU and the Big 12.

Both views are influenced by context, BYU fans by their experiences with Whittingham talking about BYU, Utah fans by their experiences with Whittingham taking every opportunity possible to talk about upcoming further realignment