Alabama played #5 Michigan on a neutral field (41 - 14).
Florida is playing at #10 Florida State this weekend.
South Carolina is playing at #11 Clemson this weekend.
Oregon's out of conference games were: Arkansas State, Fresno State, and Tennessee Tech - not really much of a competition for the team, but they all scored over a touchdown on them, Arkansas State putting up 34 points. 34 points would be enough to win in most football games. Notre Dame was the top opponent for Stanford and they lost. Notre Dame plays practically the same schedule every year as an independent. Southern Cal played Hawaii and Syracuse earlier this season and will play and likely LOSE to Notre Dame, who again plays them every single year, so it's not a surprise.
And you talk about the SEC being top heavy, well look at the Pac 12, their top teams have MORE losses than the top teams in the SEC and the last place teams are: 1 - 10, 2 - 9, 3 - 9, 4 - 7. So you cannot justify your argument about the SEC being top heavy when a lot of the conferences are shaping up the same way.
There are 9 teams bowl eligible in the SEC right now - could be 10 if Ole Miss beats Mississippi State (which I don't think will happen).
Big 12 has 7
Pac 12: has 8
Big 10: has 6 since Ohio State is banned from the bowl season.
ACC: has 7
Big East: has 4.
The PAC 12 has made a lot of improvement, but stacked against one another the SEC is still better and if there were more teams to play one another people could see that.
There are reasons why the SEC and the PAC 12 don't see a lot of action within the two conferences though. First, the BCS BOWL system. They are set up that the top teams from the SEC, Big 12, Big 10, ACC, and PAC 12 all get a share of the larger bowls, but only to the top teams. You will see most of these top tier teams avoid one another so they can keep those big money making games intact, because there is a fat pay check for both teams that play in them. That same thought applies to the Championship Bowl Game - which could be any of those top bowl games depending on who the number 1 and 2 teams are. It is a system that a two or three loss team has no chance at the Championship with. I actually hate it. If that ever changed then you will see these teams all branch out and play one another more often, but they won't. It just isn't intelligent to do so for any of the major bowl conferences to schedule more than two games like that. (Although for some dumb reason UCLA did this year). There is just too much risk and too little reward.
Also these football teams travel 120+ people to every game. The funding may only cover one or two of those games and I bet most of them would like that funding to go towards one of the top BCS Bowl games instead of an out of conference regular season game.