USC Overrated? SEC Overrated? We actually don't know.

I didn’t research it too hardly. Just from basic memory.

And you’re right, Oklahoma should have never been in the Nat’l Championship that year either, if my memory serves me right.

I don’t know if there’s any evidence to suggest that they are superior to the SEC, but they are definitely not behind the SEC. I think they would compete for SEC championships every year. Also, remember USC suffers from failing to get up for big games. A lot of elite teams have that problem (see: Florida v Ole Miss)

The same Auburn team that would go 13-0 the next season? You can’t say there was much of a difference between them.

Though I’m not attempting to be a USC apologist, their achievements do warrant a healthy fear.

The principal achievement is winning 11 games over six (this year would be seven) consecutive years with the amount of player turnover they sustain in an increasingly competitive Pac-10. Looked at differently, pretty much everyone would regard a USC team with 3 losses as having had a disappointing year. Not to mention the fact that they won 34 straight games over 3 seasons. Or six shared or outright consecutive Pac-10 titles. Or not lost a non-conference regular season game since 2002. Or not lost a game by more than 7 points in the last six years.

Finally, I’ve had the chance to watch a lot of SEC football while I was in undergrad at Vandy. There were some very good teams, but, none that would’ve been favored by more than a touchdown against USC. In fact, in the last 10 years, only 6 SEC teams have ever finished the season in the BCS Top 10. And that was reflected on the field. South Carolina, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Mississippi St., and Arkansas consider bowl eligibility the achievement, let alone the BCS. The division structure guarantees a top SEC team is really only guaranteed to play its two other strong rivals in division plus whatever permanent cross-division rival it has. Now, it just so happens that Auburn-UGA, Alabama-UT, LSU-UF is top teams play top teams, but it’s still not that much. LSU, Alabama and Auburn have literally no strong traditional OOC rivals, so they sometimes play only 3 tough teams a year. UGA and Florida are one better having Georgia Tech and FSU respectively. The point of all this is not to discount the very strong teams that UGA, UF, LSU, and Auburn have fielded over the years, but to point out that the need to bring your ‘A’ game every week is pure myth, yet that is the very foundation that SEC ‘superiority’ is based on.

Don’t believe the hype. If I’m putting my money where my mouth is, I’m betting USC against anyone in the country except Texas Tech.

Agreed.

Of course I’d love to see USC and the SEC matchup, but everyone in the Big 12 South is going to have to lose one more time for that to happen.

Pretty much. I think we are headed to another year where there’s a blowout in the NC game and USC blows out Penn St. and the pundits feel compelled to suggest that they “may actually be the best team in college football right now.” Statements like that our made every year about different teams (like Georgia last year), I just find it funny that after all this SEC/USC dominance in college football, we have yet to see those two foes meet in a meaningful bowl game. I support the current BCS system only because it gives our Bears a guaranteed shot at the Rose Bowl. For entertainment purposes, as has been discussed just about everywhere on the internets, it blows.

What, this year? Final score would be 45-0. LSU stinks this year.

A) one should measure the legitimacy of that Michigan team’s NC talk by Ohio St.’s performance in the title game. Enough said.
B) We know USC was better than Oklahoma.
C) USC clearly owns SEC teams in September.