or whose family left the church. It isn't CU, which has long had a national student body. It isn't an elite university. BYU has long had a higher quality student body.
And they know it. The PAC had a bunch of similar academic schools - Oregon, Oregon St., Washington St, AZ, and ASU. None of them were Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA, or UW. Utah fit in great with those lower PAC12 schools.