It is possible that the 10-3 team played a more difficult schedule and the 3 losses were all very close (i.e. 5 points or less) to teams that also made the Playoffs. While the 12-1 SEC may have played an easier schedule, particularly OOC schedule, and the 1 loss may be a bad or very bad loss. For example that 1 loss could be by 20+ points to a team that went 1-12 (13th regular season game @Hawai'i).

Hence why I have been that the poll is very subjective. Now if the OOC schedule included 4-6 games involving the following match-ups:

ACC vs. Big Ten
ACC vs. Big XII
ACC vs. Pac-12
ACC vs. SEC
Big Ten vs. Big XII
Big Ten vs. Pac-12
Big Ten vs. SEC
Big XII vs. Pac-12
Big XII vs. SEC
Pac-12 vs. SEC

then we would have a much better idea how the power conferences rank against each other. At that point, then I would have no problem saying that a 12-1 #2 or #3 SEC team is more deserving than a 10-3 Pac-12 Champion because the SEC ranked higher than the Pac-12 that particular season. Ideally it would be nice if all 5 power conferences played an 8 game conference schedule and play 4 OOC games against 1 team from the other 4 power conferences. Now that would also mean that all 5 power conferences would need to have the same number of teams. It wouldn't matter if it is 12, 14, or 16 teams in each conference.