The esteemed head coach of the LSU Tigers, Les Miles, ranted a bit about what he perceived as an easier path for the USC Trojans to the national championship game here, with reaction from Bruce Feldman in his blog here.  Some of the juicier quotes were,

“I can tell you this, that they have a much easier road to travel,” Miles said of the Trojans. “They’re going to play real knockdown drag-outs with UCLA and Washington, Cal-Berkley, Stanford — some real juggernauts — and they’re going to end up, it would be my guess, in some position so if they win a game or two, that they’ll end up in the title (game). I would like that path for us.

“I think the SEC provides much stiffer competition.”

Tell me he did not just say that.  TELL ME HE DID NOT JUST COMPARE CAL TO WASHINGTON AND STANFORD.  (Also, tell me the reporter did not just spell Berkeley wrong, but that doesn’t surprise me.)  In the interest of fairness, I’m willing to concede that the SEC is, likely, the best conference in college football, in terms of quality depth and number of elite teams.

I’d do more research, but Feldman already hit basically the arguments that I would have tried to pull; what evidence he does find actually supports Miles’ argument more than it does the Pac-10.  In particular;

Since 2000, there are five SEC teams among the top 15 in I-A winning percentage. (USC is No. 6 overall, while Oregon is the next best Pac-10 team at No. 19. UCLA is No. 42. Cal is No. 50. Those two numbers actually surprised me but they probably don’t surprise SEC folks and certainly not Miles.)

What that could reinforce is the argument that SEC teams never travel to go play anyone of note, although to be fair, most BCS conference teams don’t travel terribly well to begin with.  As much as I’d like them to, our Bears don’t regularly challenge themselves out of conference either.  Let’s a look at the Bears’ out-of-conference tilts since 2003, or A.T.  Note that these rankings listed (if any) are each team’s end-of-season rankings.

• 2003 - L 10-7 at #10 Kansas State, W 34-2 vs. Southern Miss, L 23-21 vs. Colorado State, L 25-21 at #25 Utah, W 31-24 at Illinois, W 52-49 vs. Virginia Tech (bowl game)
• 2004 - W 56-14 at Air Force, W 41-14 vs. New Mexico State, W 26-16 at Southern Miss, L 45-31 vs. #17 Texas Tech (bowl game)
• 2005 - W 41-3 vs. Sacramento State, W 35-20 vs. Illinois, W 41-13 at New Mexico State, W 35-28 vs. BYU (bowl game)
• 2006 - L 35-18 at #23 Tennessee, W 42-17 vs. Minnesota, W 42-16 vs. Portland State, W 45-10 vs. Texas A&M (bowl game)

During the four years looked at here, Cal has played a total of four teams out-of-conference that ended the season ranked in the top 25 - and lost all four.  These teams weren’t exactly juggernauts either, with the exception of the 2003 Kansas State team that took down Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game…which in turn didn’t seem like such a big deal once USC destroyed them 55-19.  Still, this sounds just like another passage in Feldman’s blog;

Cal smashed a Texas A&M team that had just beaten Texas. And, yes, I know that same Cal team also got destroyed by Tennessee. Then again, the Arkansas team that was giving everyone in the SEC so much trouble also got destroyed at home by USC.

There’s no transitive property in sports.  (I’m willing to bet I just lost 90% of my SEC-following audience.)  That is, if A > B, and B > C, there’s no guarantee that A > C.

Feldman believes that the point of Miles’ rant was this;

But the teeth in this Miles’ rant was focused on the Trojans, who figure to be the preseason No. 1. His point really can be distilled like this: There is one legit heavyweight in the Pac-10, and no doubt USC is it, but if you’re the only heavyweight in your own league then you’re really not playing any other powerhouses and you’re probably not getting as worn down physically as if you have a huge battle every other week.

There’s no question that there are more cupcakes in the Pac-10 than there are in the SEC.  I’m not arguing that.   So what is my point here?  Well, I don’t know.  The numbers certainly don’t look good for the Pac-10, and Cal in particular over the years.  Will this change when our Bears defeat the Volunteers on ESPN?  Probably.  But enough to quiet the critics of the Pac-10?  Probably not, but it would be a good start.