Jacob Thorpe’s Pac-12 power rankings
PULLMAN — Neither California nor Utah received a single vote to win their respective divisions in the Pac-12 preseason media poll. Yet here we are, nearly halfway through the regular season, and the Golden Bears and Utes are the only teams in the Pac-12 North and South divisions, respectively, that remain undefeated.
Cal still has a tough road to the Pac-12 championship game with three consecutive games against ranked opponents coming up, followed by a trip to Oregon. That the Big Game rivalry with Stanford will be played in Palo Alto could be critical, since the Cardinal is the only other Pac-12 team besides Cal and Utah that is undefeated in Pac-12 games.
But Utah, the team picked to finish fifth in its own division, has a visible path to Santa Clara. Up first is Cal and ESPN College Gameday will be on hand in Salt Lake City to see who will emerge as the conference’s only unblemished team.
1 Utah (4-0, last week: 2) Utah’s bye week couldn’t have come at a better time, giving the Utes plenty of time to get over the Oregon win and prepare for another dangerous opponent.
2 Stanford (4-1, last week: 3) Conversely, an ill-timed bye week seemed to be the only thing that could halt the Cardinal’s rampage through the Pac-12.
3 USC (4-1, last week: 4) It’s a good thing USC’s finally got all its scholarships back and filled as Troy is ravaged by injuries.
4 UCLA (4-1, last week: 1) Leave it to UCLA to come up with a stinker right when you began to suspect these Bruins were legit.
5 California (5-0, last week: 5) California has yet to play a ranked team. But the schedule gets a lot stronger after this weekend’s trip to Utah.
6 Arizona St. (3-2, last week: 11) Now we find out if Arizona State is actually back or if the UCLA win was just a momentary resurfacing.
7 Oregon (3-2, last week: 6) Marcus Mariota’s presence covered for a lot of blemishes over the years at Oregon, but I don’t remember the quarterback ever playing defense.
8 Arizona (3-2, last week: 7) Now that we’ve seen what Anu Solomon’s backups are capable of, the only surprise is that it took him so long to win the starting quarterback job last year.
9 Colorado (3-2, last week: 8) The Buffaloes have graduated to “capable of upsetting a few teams” territory and that should buy Mike MacIntyre another year or two.
10 Washington State (2-2, last week: 10) WSU and Washington each lost to Cal by six points in their last game. But WSU was on the road, so the Cougars get the nod.
11 Washington (2-2, last week: 9) The Huskies are probably not going bowling this year, but at least virtually the entire roster will get another shot next season.
12 Oregon State (2-3, last week: 12) The OSU defense is actually pretty good. Unfortunately, there is another side of the ball that’s pretty important.