You’re right. It’s winning the ones that matter consistently. Houston? UCF? Etc.
Seriously it’s winning. The rest is window dressing. You can’t tell me with a straight face that if we had back to back undefeated seasons that we’d still have the same attendance, funding issues, etc. attendance would climb, we’d open the upper levels, more students would go to the games, we’d be in bigger bowls, a better conference would follow, more donors... dominos.