People need to remember that bowls aren't designed to use to compare conferences.

The bowl games are attempting to create competitive games. They aren't made to measure how good a conference is.

The big 12 #4 team played the SEC #10 team. It was a good matchup (3 point game). But it wasn't a fair matchup to determine which conference is better... that would Involve the Big 12 #4 teams (Houston) playing the SEC #4 team (Texas A&M).

The ACC #2 team (UVA) played the SEC #8 (Mizzou). Again.. a close game. But if you wanted to compare the conferences it would be UVA vs Bama.

The Big 10 #8 (Illinois) played the SEC #9 (Tennessee). This was the closest game to an equal matchup outside of the playoff. And, as those two conferences are viewed as the top 2 and relatively equal... it was a good game.

For the upcoming matchups you have Big 10 #6 vs SEC #7 (again, 1 ranking off in Big 10's favor but relatively equal).

ACC #11 (Wake) vs SEC #14 (MSU)
Big 10 #5 (Michigan) vs SEC #5 (Texas)


Even all the games scheduled or played so far in the playoff involved the SEC team playing an equal higher ranked team in the opponent's conference... or 2 SEC teams playing each other. Which make the games largely useless for comparing the conferences.

The first POSSIBLE game of a SEC team playing a lower ranked team from their conference is if Bama and Oregon win. Then we'd have #2 SEC vs #3 Big 10.

OR Ole Miss and OSU win... which would have #3 SEC vs #2 Big 10.

The SEC is given a disadvantage with conference rankings in bowl matchups... because the bowls want competitive games and the best way to get that is to match a SEC team against a Big 10 team ranked 1 spot lower, or a Big 12/ACC team matched 3-5 spots lower.