Here is all you need to know about the "dominance" of the SEC ...

(FYI, this data is a little dated but if updated, the trend would still be the same)

Between 2006 and 2011, the SEC played 931 football games with 327 of those games having been true away games (games played on another team's home field). Thus, only 35.1% of all SEC games have been true away games.

During that same period, the Pac-12 played 786 games with 347 or 44.1% of those games being true away games.

Also, between 2006 and 2011, the SEC played only 11 true away games outside of the Southern footprint and the SEC won only 4 of these games (a .364 winning percentage). By comparison, between 2006 and 2011, the Pac-12 played 48 true away games outside the Western footprint and won 21 of those games (a .438 winning percentage).

What can we take away from this?

The overall winning percentage of the SEC from 2006 through 2011 was .617 while the overall winning percentage of the Pac-12 was only .536. Obviously, the winning percentage for each conference goes way down when teams play true away games, especially away games outside their footprint. Those games are much more difficult to win. As stated above, the SEC's winning pct. in true away games outside their Southern footprint is only .364 while the Pac-12's winning pct. in true away games outside their Western footprint is .438.

Had the SEC played a similar number of true away games, especially away games outside its Southern footprint, one could easily argue that the SEC would have substantially more losses spread throughout their conference and the SEC's overall winning percentage would be more in line with other conferences.

Of course, the SEC is free to schedule how it wants. If SEC can get away with not traveling as much and if the SEC collectively does not want to travel out of the the Southern footprint to play a away games, that is their prerogative.

However, don't act like this sort of scheduling does not give them a huge advantage when it comes to stacking up wins and getting more and more teams ranked. The rankings are simply a function of all the teams' comparative wins and losses. And when you play comparatively more home games and far fewer true away games, especially outside the Southern footprint, your conference has a huge advantage.