Covid setbacks, Utah was back into the middle-ish part of the Pac-12 (5-4 Pac-12 record last season and a bowl loss to Northwestern).
Look at Utah before covid, during the program recovery period by the coastal schools, and now.
That conference was in shambles and Utah was pretty good. They couldn't beat anyone OOC, but they were winning most of their conference games in 2021 and 2022.