Not to turn to Dama Jr here, but I don't believe OU ever got any... love (I know we're all latent homosexuals here, but do we have to keep making fellatic references vis-a-vis the sports media?) during their big run earlier this decade. When they won the title in '00, the sports media was pretty much "meh" and for the next few years, as far as the sports media was concerned, the Big XII was still just Nebraska and Texas.
To be fair though, I dunno where the whole "ESPN loves USC" thing comes from, especially considering ESPN's longtime noteriety for ignoring most of the goings on in the Pac-10 because it's "way the hell over there"