Well, not equally. Two of those teams, Michigan State and Auburn won their conference championships and finished ahead of their traditional rivals last year. The other two didn't fare as well.
UCLA didn't quite make it out of USC's shadow since those two tied for 2nd in the PAC-12 South Division. TAMU successfully escaped UT's shadow by changing conferences, but finished 4th in the Western Division of the SEC. So they seem to have picked up some other shadows to languish in.