The more relevant your rival is the better. It forces your admin to prioritize needed changes in the program, it gets boosters fired up to invest, and with all these blue bloods scurrying from their traditional rivals the holy war will have tons of eyeballs and boost BYU’s brand.
On a personal note some of my favorite memories are BYU v. Utah at the highest stakes. It’s BYU’s job to rip Utah’s heart out give ‘em to us at maximum big headed bravado!