Issues with increasing ping to Valorant servers in CA

trying to figure out an issue where my ping has gone through increases to certain valorant game servers. In the past, I remember getting 25-30 ping from my home in Utah to Valorant's CA servers. Somewhere along the line, about 5-6 months ago, that jumped to 50, and then recently its jumped again to 65. After these jumps, it remains stable, just stable at the higher ping. Other xfinity customers I know in Utah experienced the same thing, whereas google fiber users in Utah see closer to 20 ping to these same game servers. At this point my ping is higher to CA than it is to TX and nearly the same to servers in IL and VA which makes no sense. 

Tried different DNSs, and the usual troubleshooting. This is over a hardline ethernet, newer router and modem.