(Written by kencraw)

I don’t know why, but something tells me I want to wade in to the water of weekly conference power rankings… but to do it, I need to have a more precise definition than what is generally out there. Frankly, I tried to find a consistent definition and couldn’t. The closest meta-definition is “how good the teams are right now”.

I’m going to modify that slightly. Here is my definition: If the team were to continue playing to the level they are right now, here is where they would end up at the end of the season in the conference standings.

And to the first rankings we go:

1. Stanford: Hard to argue with how they’ve been playing. They’ve thoroughly destroyed every team they’ve played. Up until now the criticism was that they haven’t played anyone even remotely good. But as Washington demonstrates, perhaps that’s because everyone they’ve beat looks bad after having had to play the Cardinal.
2. Oregon: Oregon is a little bit crippled right now with both Thomas and James out. Their ability to win despite those short-comings says very good things about both their depth and Kelly’s system. However, it makes them crippled enough that as they’re playing right now, I doubt they’d beat Stanford in Palo Alto.
3. ASU: Arizona State has the schedule necessary to win out. That’s not so much because they’re a great team but due to a favorable schedule. Not having to play either Washington or Stanford from the north is definitely to their advantage. Despite still thinking less of them than where they land, With my definition of power rankings, it’s hard not to put them in 3rd place.
4. USC: USC looked pretty mediocre earlier in the season. But their victories over the Bears and now Notre Dame would put them at the top of the 2nd Tier if it were not for ASU’s easy back-end schedule. My feeling is that if they got another shot at ASU, they’d win that game. The good news for them is they’ve got a chance to move up even further with Stanford on tap at home for Saturday. The bad news is there’s not enough reason to believe they can pull it off.
5. Washington: I would have had this team up in the #3 spot before the weekend, but one of two things is true: either Stanford is incredibly good or Washington is not the top of the 2nd tier. Particularly with Oregon and USC (in LA) still on the schedule, this is an 8-4 team.
6. Cal: Last week Cal would have been further down on the list. But after their performance against Utah, I think they’re on top of the “also rans”.
7. Oregon State: This team is getting better every week. If they didn’t have such a tough end to the schedule they could be much higher on the list. They’re going to be dangerous to Cal when they play in 3 weeks, but that’s about their only chance to move up the list.
8. Arizona: It could be just a one-week bump, but this team is playing a lot better with Stoops out of the way, which is a bit surprising to me. The difference between them and UCLA is pretty big and while I have confidence Arizona will beat both Utah and Colorado, UCLA is a different story.
9. Utah: I think Utah will beat UCLA and that’s the key to their ranking as high as they do despite being 0-4 in conference play. They’ll get their turnover problems under control and have a shot at 3-6 in conference and bowl eligibility.
10. UCLA: UCLA is in a free-fall, and if it weren’t for the fact that they got Oregon State before they came back from near-death and they already beat WSU, I’d have them lower. This team could even get to 4 conference wins if they can beat both Utah and Colorado, although I doubt they’ll win both those.
11. WSU: I had expected much better things from WSU this year, but their close loss to UCLA (in what might have been UCLA’s best game of the year) and now getting bludgeoned by a resurgent Oregon State, I can only see one more possible win on the schedule (Utah). Even that game I expect them to lose. That said, I won’t be extremely shocked to see them come up and bite someone they’re supposed to lose to.
12. Colorado: Poor Colorado. 13 games in 13 weeks against too many good teams. The non-conference slate of Hawaii, Cal and Ohio State were too much for them (the win versus Colorado State was the only good thing going). The misses in the Pac-12 North were the two lowest teams (WSU and OSU). And they don’t get the weaker teams in the South until the end of the season. The upside of that is that they have some upward mobility in the conference. The downside is there might not be any team confidence left by then.