Lots of practice games against Bama, Florida, LSU, Ole Miss and other good teams leading up to that bowl game may have helped. SEC is sorry about Auburn/Arkansas. Arkansas scored too much during off-season I suppose.
Aside from OU, Kansas/Oregon game is only other Big12 team that made a bowl game that I watched (i.e. worth watching). Wasn't impressed with either team. Cheer leader conference really made Kansas look bad.
In interest of full disclosure, wasn't impressed with UT's season this year, but we did fire our head coach because of it. Wasn't impressed with UF either. Live in Florida and giving co-workers that graduated from UF a hard time, that performance was unacceptable.
Here's hoping that Ole Miss beats whoever they're playing and Bama beats Notre Dame.