[PhatTBoll]

I agree wholeheartedly with bashing Auburn and Bama's nonconference schedules. It's a disgrace.

But one answer to the overarching question is to look at the PAC-10 nonconference games. So let's do that:

Arizona 24, Utah 27
Arizona 31, N. Arizona 12
Arizona 24, Purdue 31

ASU 63, Temple 16
ASU 31, LSU 35
ASU 52, Northwestern 21

Cal 41, Sacramento St. 3
Cal 35, Illinois 20
Cal 41, New Mexico St. 13

Oregon 38, Houston 24
Oregon 47, Montana 14
Oregon 37, Fresno St. 34

Oregon St. 41, Portland St. 14
Oregon St. 30, Boise St. 27
Oregon St. 27, Louisville 63

Stanford 41, Navy 38
Stanford 17, UC Davis 20 [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

UCLA 44, S.D. St. 21
UCLA 63, Rice 21
UCLA 41, Oklahoma 24

USC 63, Hawaii 17
USC 70, Arkansas 17
USC 34, Notre Dame 31

Washington 17, Air Force 20
Washington 34, Idaho 6
Washington 17, Notre Dame 36

Wash. St. 38, Idaho 26
Wash. St. 55, Nevada 21
Wash. St. 48, Grambling 7

Some questionable games in there, for sure. A problem with these Pac 10 teams is that a lot of games end up in blowouts, so there's a lot of garbage time.
But still, these defensive performances stick out:

Arizona giving up 31 to Purdue in a loss

Cal giving up 20 to Illinois

Oregon's secondary looking like garbage against Houston
Oregon giving up 34 to good-but-not-awesome Fresno St.

Oregon St. getting bitch-slapped by hugely overrated Louisville

Stanford vomiting all over themselves against Navy and UC Davis

UCLA giving up 21 points each to the Aztecs and the Owls (though neither game was close), and 24 to an Oklahoma team that had just scored 10 against TCU at home.

Washington losing to Air Force, who is 3-7 this year.

WSU giving up 26 to Idaho, and 21 to Nevada.

Having watched all or part of a good portion of these games, it's hard for me to say that the Pac-10 plays anything but bad defense. It's certainly not in the league of the SEC, and I think the Big 12 is better.