You can hope or assume we do...but we do not necessarily...
We are competing with many other teams to assure we do move up. THAT is the point.
Look at how many ACC (3), SEC (4) & B1G (3) teams are in the top 12 right now. Not all of those are going to be auto bid as a conference champ. So we are competing against them for an at-large bid - are we not?
And isn't the level we are required to be at to be an at-large going to increase if a conference (PAC) is lower than 12? Yes. Then we are competing with all those other teams for a higher ranking for the chance at an at-large.
Now you may want to say that but we aren't competing against an expected conference champ...but what if they lose and don't end up the conference champ...just in case they in some way lose their auto bid chance they then become competition for the at-large bids...thus COMPETING against them...