they have been riding high on a decade of dominance despite some miserable seasons of their own, and their schadenfreude gets scratched by coming to the one place where it's safe for them to feel big.

Schadenfreude is driven by pettiness.

We as BYU fans can also be incredibly petty—gear count at Disney Land being one of the weird examples that I've never been able to wrap my head around being important. And I agree, we do give a lot of excuses for losses against the Utes, which doesn't give credit and is pretty petty.

But yeah, schadenfreude is most likley what brings some Ute fans here, and for others, probably because this community is lightyears better than anything their fanbase has conjured up.

Mostly because their fanbase is built on pettiness and years of losing to BYU. 

So, maybe...cautionary tale? If we're not careful we'll end up like 1980's Ute fans, because then once we starting winning again, we'll be pathetic and not have a real community and will have to go get our schadenfreude scratched where we can feel big and important.