Utah fans and media (and some national media) had a perception of Utah well beyond what was reality.

Likewise, the perception of BYU's inferiority was also overblown.

Utah got a ton of mileage out of winning several very close games against BYU, and backed into a couple of Pac 12 championships in years when the Pac 12 generally, and the Pac 12 south in particular, were soft and very mediocre...only to then get exposed in the Rose Bowl.

The misconceptions in both cases did somewhat impact recruiting in a few cases, so in that sense "perception is reality"...but it never fundamentally changed either program.