Agree with everything you said with the exception that Washington played 5 Top 30 schools. But I haven't been comparing Washington to Alabama. I've been looking at Washington vs Clemson, who also played 5 Top 30 schools. The difference? Washington played 2 Top 10 schools and went 1-1 whereas Clemson didn't take the field against a school that ended in the Top 10.
When you look at how they did in those 5 Top 30 games we see Washington lost to USC by 13, beat Utah by 7, beat Stanford by 38, beat Washington State by 28 and beat Top 10 Colorado by 31.
Clemson OTOH was 0-0 Top 10 and against the Top 30 lost by 1 to Pitt, beat Auburn by 6, beat Florida State by 3, beat Louisville by 6 and beat Virginia Tech by 7.
So both Clemson and Washington had 5 tough games and it's my belief that UW outperformed Clemson over the course of those 5 games.
http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm
That being said, I'm looking forward to being in Atlanta at the end of the month for what I'm hoping is a great college football game against the alltime great program in college football history.