The really sad thing is, Glory, is that I'm on your side. I don't like the SEC and I don't like that they're showcased more than other conferences. Not happy about that at all. And maybe there's this disconnect resulting from how dumb most analysts are on the networks and ESPN and such - a lot of times they just spout off a bunch of nonsense ... but then arrive at the correct position that the SEC is the best conference (or team X is better than team Y or what have you). I agree, their idiocy is bad, but they arrived at the correct conclusion despite their bad analysis. So I think a lot of that is going on. But don't let that confuse you.
Secondly.
Yes, the SEC schedules poorly, but not overwhelmingly poorly compared to other conferences. We need some good data points to ground SEC teams to other conferences. We have them. Alabama beat WVU. Auburn beat KSU. Ole Miss handled Boise State AND Memphis. Both Boise State and Memphis would be the 3rd best team that Nebraska had faced all year, if they were on our noncon schedule. Arkansas dominated Texas Tech. LSU beat Wisconsin. Hell, Louisiana Tech is #43 in Sagarin Predictor, but I assume you just looked at their name and assumed they were a bottom of the country type team. (You probably did that with Memphis too.) Now, the rest of those teams are terrible, which is true, but if you look at Michigan State or Oregon or Nebraska or TCU or Baylor (especially Baylor good lord) or whatever Power Five team you want, it's going to look eerily similar. One good opponent, one not-quite-sucky opponent, and a couple of cupcakes.
We can look at the East too - they've played a bunch of out of conference teams that are comparable enough too. Clemson, Clemson again, Oklahoma, Utah State, Northern Illinois, Louisville... really the only two teams of note that played NOBODY were Mississippi State and Texas A&M. But the end story from all of this is that we have plenty of comparison points (and in fact, every game is a comparison point!) with the other conferences. So even though Mississippi State didn't play anyone and should get flak for that (they will pay for it - no way a 1-loss Miss St gets into the playoff with that noncon), we can still have enough comparison. That's the beauty of computer rankings. We as humans try to piece together individual wins/losses/scores as best we can, but it's just too much information. You've got the score and margin of victory of basically 150 games per week that need to be taken into account to get a full picture, so with that much information to be accounted for, we can't do it without making a ton of simplifications and assumptions, which lead to biases. We as humans are really bad at evaluating chaotic systems, especially when all kinds of preseason rankings, biases carried over about programs from years past, and a general lack of knowledge about probably 2/3 of the teams (at least) especially clouds are judgement. Computer rankings can take into account every result from every team in every game SIMULTANEOUSLY and incorporate all of them fully into one rating, which in turn can be turned into a rank.
Thirdly, everyone needs to stop looking at single individual games. NEBRASKA ONLY BEAT MCNEESE STATE BY 7. There, I can do it too. Anyone can cherry-pick any one result by any team and make them either look good or awful. You can do this for literally any team - just start at FSU (Trailed NC State in the 4th Quarter!) or Mississippi State (Only beat UAB by 12!) or Oregon (Lost to Arizona at home!) and so on. Results only take meaning when you look at all of them at once, otherwise you're just intentionally ignoring parts of the picture. THAT is called bias. "How can Alabama be good they only beat Arkansas by 1" ...well cool statement, but that statement by itself means virtually nothing when determining a power rank.
Finally, like I posted earlier, make a distinction in what your ranking (if you're doing one) is trying to accomplish. A pure power ranking is not the same as an accomplishment ranking. A lot of ratings will still have Ole Miss above Mississippi State in a pure power ranking; however, Mississippi State's accomplishments rank higher. Ole Miss lost two games - they deserve to fall in an accomplishment ranking. But Ole Miss didn't somehow become a worse team because Treadwell dropped the ball at the goal line. Just like Nebraska wouldn't have suddenly been a better team had Alonzo Moore caught the ball against MSU. Our accomplishment ranking would be much higher, but in terms of pure power ranking we'd still be ~15th or whatever.
