Utah "won" the Pac-12 in the 2 post-covid years. It is still a nice accomplishment, but not the same as it could be. The true power schools of the Pac took years to recover from the damage done to their athletic programs because of the local political pressures and the fallout over covid. Those were not typical years, and Utah capitalized. The State of Utah's response was so much better than CA, OR, and WA, and the U of U benefitted over their competition because of it. Their perceived superiority was over once normalcy returned. If Covid never happened, the U would have remained middle of the Pac.