Ridiculous.
Sure there are some letdowns when a good team plays in a lesser bowl than they had hoped. But overall > 90% the teams play hard, to win, are driven hard to win by the AD, coach, and coaching staff, and the players are all focused to win on national TV, compete for starting positions next year, look good for their final game, be able to tell people at work, at a BBQ, at a bar, the rest of their lives they won a goddam bowl game!
2017 Pac 12 2-7 ATS in bowl games
2018 Pac 12 2-5 ATS in bowl games (they vary with close point spreads)
TOTAL: Pac 12 is 4-12 ATS
Bet against the Pac 12 = 75% winners
This is indicative of the relative strength of conferences.
The public hears about how good the big power conference Pac 12 teams like Oregon or USC et al looked against their own conference for several months. Then they go into the real world of bowls against other conferences.
SURE I look at QB's, defense, motivation, coaching, home/away, running game, OL, DL, injuries, weather, turf but the fact that the Pac 12 is a soft conference is a key factor in my assessment.
Handicapping regular season games in 2019 has nothing to do with bowl games in 2018. I don't know how to make it any clearer and everyone here will agree.
Is the PAC-12 as good as the SEC? No way.