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Let's examine more closely:

Non-Conf opponents:

USC - W @ Auburn 23-0, W vs BYU 35-18, W vs Hawaii 61-32, W @ Notre Dame, 45-14. Lone loss: 34-31 @ Cal on 9/27.

LSU - W vs LA-Monroe 49-7, W @ Arizona 52-0, W vs Western Ill. 35-7, W vs LA Tech 49-10. Lone loss: 17-9 vs FLA on 10/11.

OKLA - W vs N. Texas 37-3, W @ Alabama 20-13, W vs Fresno St 52-28, W vs UCLA 59-24. Lone loss: 35-7 vs Kansas St on 12/6.

Seems to me as if LSU had by far the easiest non-conf schedule, three home wins against schools just barely in Division I and a road win against the imploding Arizona Wildcats who couldn't even wait for the season to end to fire their head coach.

Oklahoma also has three home wins while in their lone road win they just scraped past an Alabama team that LSU later throttled.

USC's schedule wasn't that tough either but they opened the season shutting out a nationally-ranked Auburn team on the road and also had to beat the Irish in South Bend, a rivalry game that's never easy.

Now, let's look at the loss (something that seems more important than the wins to me). True, USC lost to unranked Cal but it was just by three points on the road in September. LSU lost at home to a highly-ranked Florida team by eight points in October. Oklahoma lost by 28 on a neutral field against a highly-ranked team THIS WEEK.

Clearly, the imposter of the trio is Oklahoma and this is the way both "human polls" saw it. LSU balances a non-conf schedule softer than Charmin with the rigorous SEC schedule while USC and Oklahoma both played a typical yet lackluster non-conference schedule, and dominated their conferences in a down year - except that Oklahoma didn't even win their conference the way LSU and USC did.

USC lost back when Gray Davis was Governor and LSU lost back when Bobby Jindal was ahead in the polls for Governor. Oklahoma lost on Saturday.

A case could be made for all three but clearly USC and LSU are the most deserving with the most compelling cases - conference champions and their lone loss came months ago.