What ELA and Fearless have said makes some sense considering the context, but fails logically.
Was BYU thought 'less than' your usual #1 team? Yes.
Was #2 OU a better team? Sure.
BUT - say you're UW. You're at #3. You're able to play either BYU or OU in your bowl game. Despite the above factual opinions, the voters put BYU at #1. You'd like to wind up #1 yourself. Who do you choose to play to end up #1? You play the #1 team, period. You have to. If the above two ideas really mattered all that much, OU would've been voted #1 already. But they're 2nd, so you go and play the team above them.
It's logic.
