Yeah, they've overachieved since coming in and looked surprisingly good. But for the good of the conference, a team like Utah can't be your flag-bearer. One of the teams with higher ceiling needs to establish themselves as THE team.

A program with better recruiting advantages (USC), or more money (Oregon) or a better history (USC, Oregon, Washington) needs to rise above the rest of the PAC12. Utah is best as a complementary good team that can occasionally challenge (see OK St, Michigan St or even Wisconsin), but they lack the upside to ever be Oklahoma or Ohio State. Even if Utah somehow has a magical year and makes the playoff, it reflects more as a fluke than dominance by the PAC12.

When we talk about the PAC12 needing to win more, it needs to be one of those 3 premiere programs (most ideally USC)