with a lower or mid tier school beating the blue bloods of the conf in the CCGs.
The new Big 12 doesn't have any of those elite programs. You're really just comparing Utah's schedule without a top 10 team or two, usually UW, Oregon, USC, a strong OOC, and whatever team is playing top 20 football that year — UCLA, Oregon State, Arizona.
For Utah, the new schedule looks a lot more like 1-2 of the top 20 programs, no top 10 teams and almost all top 60.