. . . on a team-by-team and conference-by-conference basis.

If the S.E.C. is 40-39 in out-of-conference road games and 24-31 in out-of-conference road games against B.C.S. conference teams, that means the league is 16-8 in out-of-conference road games against non-B.C.S. conferences. Offhand, I can’t think of any major S.E.C. teams going on the road to face any non-B.C.S. teams; my guess is, it’s the Mississippis (recurring home-and-homes with Memphis), Mississippi States (just lost to Louisiana Tech at Ruston), and Arkansi of the league playing those games.

A fair number of the road games against B.C.S. conference teams, though, are rivalry games. While, lately, Georgia hasn’t lost much to Georgia Tech and Florida hasn’t lost much to Florida State, there have been plenty of losses by Kentucky at Louisville and South Carolina at Clemson . . . in other words, middle-tier (formerly lower-tier) S.E.C. teams traveling to what typically have been upper-tier A.C.C. and Big East teams. There also are some losses by lower-tier S.E.C. teams traveling to upper-tier teams in their respective leagues: Mississippi State at West Virginia, Vanderbilt at Michigan, Ole Miss at Wake Forest.

In other words, some—-though not all—-of those numbers are misleading, because they don’t represent strength on strength. Relying on those outcomes would be like relying on the scores of recent games pitting Arizona against Louisiana State in Baton Rouge and Washington State against Auburn on the Plains. There, you have lower-tier Pac-10 teams taking on upper-tier S.E.C. teams, producing equally unrepresentative results.

That’s not to say there aren’t lessons to be learned in those figures. Southern California’s season-opening win over Auburn in Los Angeles in 2002 came against a Tiger club that won nine of its next 12 games and capped off the season with a Capital One Bowl victory. Although the Trojans’ 70-17 home win over Arkansas in 2005 came against a Razorback team that went 4-7 overall and 2-6 in the S.E.C., U.S.C. claimed a 50-14 victory over the Hogs in the Natural State in 2006, when Arkansas won ten games, won the Western Division, seriously challenged eventual national champion Florida in the S.E.C. championship game, and attended the Capital One Bowl. Several of the Pac-10’s wins (particularly at home) have been triumphs by good Pac-10 teams over bad S.E.C. teams . . . but a number of them haven’t been, and there is no explaining them away. Any yahoos who question the Pac-10’s toughness or legitimacy are out to lunch; please accept my assurances that they are a vocal minority whom we try to keep in check.

In that respect, as a Southeastern Conference fan, I enjoy and appreciate the value of regional differences in college football. Some folks carp and complain that some leagues have conference title games and others don’t; I like that the Big 12 and the S.E.C. have divisional play while the Pac-10 plays a true round-robin. (By either method, the conference champion will have negotiated a grueling nine-game league slate, thereby accomplishing something respectable.)

Historically, I have not been a fan of Heismanpundit (I cannot say whether that still holds true; after a lengthy back-and-forth in a comment thread at the now-defunct M Zone in early 2006, I stopped reading his site, so my only information about what he has written in the last two and a half years comes from citations appearing at other weblogs), but the above quotation from him is correct. Anyone who thinks of the Pac-10 as “Southern California and the nine dwarves” isn’t paying attention.

For the record, some of us in the Southeast pay attention to events on the Pacific Coast, as Western teams fared quite well on my BlogPoll ballot this week: U.S.C. moved up one spot to No. 1, Oregon moved up one spot to No. 11, Arizona State held steady at No. 14, Cal held steady at No. 17, Boise State held steady at No. 18, U.C.L.A. entered the rankings at No. 19, Utah entered the rankings at No. 20, Fresno State moved up one spot to No. 22, and B.Y.U. is bordering on being admitted to my top 25.

Meanwhile, although some S.E.C. teams moved up on my ballot, Georgia dropped two spots to No. 3, Auburn dropped three spots to No. 10, and Tennessee (along with three other Southern teams) was booted from the top 25 altogether. Yes, I’m a conference and regional homer, but that doesn’t make me impervious to evidence.

I hope we get to continue this conversation in Miami on January 8.

that we aren’t going to hear a lecture on how Vandy is now a powerhouse because of their recent upset of the Gamecocks.