alright Stewart...you are forgiven

I'll just quote and Link to Stewarts post and say that I forgive him for sucking up to Notre Dame.

Are you finally willing to admit the Pac-10 is "soft"? The Vols are not one of the juggernauts this year in the SEC and they still handled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball against Cal. USC recruits well and has a great team, but its conference is pathetic. The Trojans would lose more games if they were in the SEC and had to play Auburn, LSU, Florida, etc., all in the same year. Deal with it, Mandel, it's the truth.
-- Scott, Dallas

You know, there was a deluge of anti-Pac-10 comments on my blog right after the Cal-Tennessee game, and at first I was baffled as to where all the resentment was coming from. It's not like anyone's shoving the Pac-10 down other people's throats. If anything, the league is practically invisible outside the West Coast. But then I started noticing that much like Scott's e-mail, many of the comments made reference to USC, even though the Trojans had absolutely nothing to do with Cal losing to Tennessee, and that's when I realized: It's not backlash against the Pac-10, it's backlash (and, let's face it, envy) over USC's recent success. Apparently, fans of the SEC/Big Ten/Big 12, etc., believe the Trojans have an easier path to the national title game because of their supposedly "soft" conference.

Here's the deal: I'm not going to go down the "which conference is toughest" road because it's a fruitless debate with no correct answer and it changes from year to year. I will, however, say this: What does it matter how "soft" USC's conference may or may not be when they go out every year and whip teams from the other conferences, too? Since 2002, coach Pete Carroll's team is 8-2 against the other BCS conferences (12-2 if you include Notre Dame), including wins over ACC champion Virginia Tech (2004), Big Ten champions Iowa ('02) and Michigan ('03), Big 12 champion Oklahoma ('04) and four wins over Auburn and Arkansas -- from the same SEC the Trojans would supposedly struggle in -- by a combined score of 167-48. Maybe it's time for fans of the other conferences to stop worrying about the Trojans' perceived "weak" schedule (which this year includes Nebraska, Notre Dame and Arkansas) and start worrying about how to beat them.