(Written by kencraw)

The key observers of the Pac-12 continue to slight Cal… this is really starting to get under my skin. I’ll start with Wilner because I respect his analysis LESS (he’s got great investigative work, like with the Pac-12 contracts, but his team analysis stinks):

He’s got Utah 4th (beat them a month ago), UCLA 5th (lost to them, but they’ve been on a nose dive since losing to the Utah team we destroyed), UW 6th (lost to them a long time ago, but they just lost to the OSU team Cal destroyed), and ASU 7th (haven’t played, but recently lost to the WSU team we recently destroyed). Then Cal comes in at 8th.

I guess I could accept 6th behind UCLA and UW, seeing as how we lost to both, but then Wilner’s got a problem, because he’s got a tough sell job with UW losing to Oregon State last week and Utah being behind UCLA who they beat thoroughly. But seeing how ASU hasn’t beat anyone recently, how could Cal be behind them?

On to Ted Miller:

He agrees with Wilner and has Utah 4th, UCLA 5th, UW 6th, but at least has the decency to put Cal in front of Arizona State.

So, it comes down to this: Utah is getting WAAAY to much credit for their win over UCLA. In Wilner’s rankings, Utah lost to the #6, #7 and #8 teams (ASU, UW and Cal), but because UCLA hasn’t been in a free fall like UW and ASU, they get credit for being on top of that pile. But somehow Cal gets no credit for beating Utah and simultaneously gets not credit for beating the teams (Utah included) that have beat those teams in a free fall.

Using the method that Wilner and Miller use (how they’re playing right now) I’ve got to put Cal in the #4 spot. They’ve been winning, and played a close one against Stanford, something none of the rest of the #4 – #8 teams have done.

The one reason I think you might not want to put Cal in the #4 spot is that UW has too much built up success. I think you’ve got to treat UW in one of two ways, you either look at the OSU game as an anomaly and put then at #4, because they’ve beat the each of the rest of the teams in that #4 – #8 muddle that they’ve played or you put them all the way at the bottom of that stack based on the egg laid against OSU. Either would be fair, frankly. It just depends on how recently, “right now” is. So perhaps Cal loses the #4 spot to them.

But the real conundrum is Cal, Utah and UCLA in the middle of a 3-way “beat each other triangle”. So then you’ve got to look at who else they’ve played and beat. I did the Cal over Utah thing last week and won’t repeat myself. Frankly, it’s more difficult to separate UCLA and Cal outside of their head to head, although Cal did play Stanford much better than UCLA did and beat Oregon State and WSU much more convincingly than they did. So if one overlooks the head to head (which in this exercise we have to because we’re in the middle of the “beat each other triangle”), Cal might get the edge.

So what it comes down to is that Utah, for some reason continues to get immense credit for that beat-down of UCLA and Cal gets no credit for their butt-kicking of Utah. Thus, Cal ends up on the bottom of that pile, for reasons that are beyond my comprehension. And that’s what lands Cal at #7 or lower (in conjunction with the UW issue) in both of their rankings.

But the most incomprehensible bit of it is ASU being above Cal in Wilner’s ranking. ASU has lost 3 in a row, including to lowly Arizona last week and the same WSU team that Cal beat two weeks ago. That team is in a free-fall and doesn’t have any wins over teams Cal has lost to (well, a LONG time ago, they beat a not-yet-good USC team, but that’s eons ago from a power-ranking perspective).

I guess what frustrates me is that they don’t seem to see what good football Cal is playing right now. They won 3 of 4 against the middle of the pack before going in a playing Stanford close on the road. Why aren’t they getting credit for that? Why aren’t people looking at that as a team on the rise? It’s like Cal got stained by that 3-game losing streak (two of those games being to the best of the conference) and nobody is willing to give them credit. Those wins later, well, they weren’t against very good teams (these people apparently say), yet those team are either being ranked really high now (Utah) or have recently knocked off these teams that are still above Cal but are considered in a free-fall because of those loses.

Well, Cal took care of business against those teams, convincingly I might add, and should be given credit for it. They deserve the #4 spot in a “how are the teams playing right now” power-ranking. Cal would beat Utah again, the way they are playing right now. Cal would beat UCLA given another shot. Cal would beat UW if UW played the way they did against Oregon State. Finally, Cal will beat ASU this weekend. That means they deserve the #4 spot. The only teams in the conference that Cal doesn’t beat next week based on how they’re playing right now is Oregon, Stanford and USC.