This is from an OU-homer board, so take it with however large a grain of salt you feel appropriate.
Granted, step one is beating a tough Baylor team on Saturday, but as to the Utah versus Big XII Champ debate, here is how the Sagarin system (considered by most to be the best of the ranking algorithms) sees things:
Conference Strength (simple mean):
1. SEC - 80.1
2. Big XII - 79.9 (Naturally, how many of the talking heads have opined that the Big XII should be in the conversation for strongest conference? Yeah, zero, of course.)
3. Big Ten - 78.0
4. PAC 12 - 76.5
5. ACC - 72.7
Overall Rating:
OU - 93.9 (6th)
Utah - 90.9 (9th)
Baylor - 88.1 (15th)
Record versus Top 25:
OU - 4-1
Baylor - 4-1
Utah - 1-1
Record versus Top 50:
OU - 6-1
Baylor - 6-1
Utah - 3-1
Overall Schedule Strength:
OU - #22 (74.9 avg opp)
Baylor - #42 (72.8 avg opp)
Utah - #54 (70.5 avg opp)
Conference Quartile Strength (for 10-team leagues 3, 5/6, 8 - for 12-team leagues 3/4, 6/7, 9/10 - for 14-team leagues 4, 7/8, 11):
Big XII - 83.2 --- 82.1 --- 73.1
SEC - 90.9 --- 76.8 --- 72.9
Big Ten - 90.6 --- 76.4 --- 67.7
PAC 12 - 82.9 --- 75.1 --- 69.6
ACC - 73.7 -- 71.5 --- 69.5
