Ok, Rip. The Pac-10 is underrated and the east teams are overrated due to media bias. Let's look at the Pac-10 teams this year. I'll leave out wins against lowly out of conference opponents Why? because you want to dismiss the conference games FSU and Miami play due to weak conferences. btw, Miami is playing FSU, Florida and Tennessee out of conference this year. They make up for the weak conference (excluding Virginia Tech, ask Texas A&M if Tech is weak) by playing tough out of conference games.
Arizona - lost to Wisconsin (beat N. Arizona and Utah)
Arizona St - killed by Nebraska (beat 3 not so good teams)
Cal - bright spot, spanked Michigan State. Lost to Air Force (beat 2 not so good teams)
Oregon - beat Miss St (not all that great, but SEC nonetheless). Beat Fresno St (not good without David Carr), beat 2 more not so good teams (hell, is Portland State even Div IA???)
Oregon St - Beat Fresno St (again, not good) and 3 other chump teams (including one of those Big East wusses, Temple, you alluded to)
Stanford - lost to Boston College (Big East team!) and beat San Jose State (not very good)
UCLA - Beat Colorado State, Oklahoma State then lose to Colorado. Not too bad so far, but Colorado? come on, they didn't even have their starting QB!
USC - Beat Auburn in a good game, beat Colorado, then lose to Kansas State (who had previously never won a home game versus a ranked non-conference team).
Washington - Lost to Michigan, beat San Jose State and Wyoming.
Wash State - Lost to Ohio State, beat Nevada, Idaho and Montana State (this team Div IA???)
More often than not, the Pac-10 has lost their out of conference games against "quality" opponents. The two teams from your state both lost to Big-10 schools (albeit on the road, but still, a loss is a loss.)