Conference Levels Closer Than Advertised

This weekend's upsets by Missouri at Georgia and Utah over Stanford highlight a reality that the media has largely struggled with--that after a few dominant teams the rest of the country features a great deal of parity and that conference levels are fairly even.  Missouri has a rich football tradition but its history featured a great deal of ebb and flow.  Under coach Gary Pinkel, now in his 13th year in Columbia, the Tigers have become a solid program with some glimpses of excellence especially in 2007 when they finished 12-2 and flirted with a spot in the BCS title game.  But being that they were a Big 12 school entering the mighty SEC last season they were not expected to do too much.  It was expected that their offense would struggle against the faster SEC defenses.  And when they finished 5-7 last year they were confined to the national silence that surrounds the mediocre (they were held as proof of SEC superiority while fellow Big 12 transplant was considered an aberration due to one player's talent).  But now they sit at 6-0, 2-0 in conference.  They have lost QB James Franklin to injury but both of their next two opponents, Florida and South Carolina, have been dealing with injuries at that position.  Either way Mizzou have proved that they can be an excellent team no matter the conference.
Utah moved to what is now the Pac 12 after a lifetime spent outside the bigger conferences, most recently as a power in the Mountain West.  They are not having as successful a 2013 season as Missouri but at 4-2 they are doing well and are looking up as a key conference power under coach Kyle Whittingham.  While Whittingham would admit that he had to get bigger and faster to compete against the likes of Stanford and Oregon, he had a squad in place to make the transition easier than fellow transplant Colorado who needed to completely rebuild.  Utah is a good football program and that can translate to any conference.
Have I cherry-picked two squads to prove a point?  Well, yes.  But remember Texas A&M has already proved that switching from the Big 12 to the SEC can look easier than expected.  And the fact that Colorado, a former Big 12 school, continues to struggle in the Pac 12 while the MWC member Utah does better highlights that we cannot judge programs solely on their conference affiliation.