(Written by kencraw)

The 1st full week of conference play was revealing as it is every year. Only Oregon and Arizona were on a bye (in preparation for their upcoming Thursday night game). Let’s get straight into the rankings:

1. Oregon (bye): Nothing happened this week that lowers Oregon’s position in the conference. If anything, WSU’s strong road performance against Utah minimizes the slight hit Oregon took when they won a close one in Pullman.
2. UCLA 62 – Arizona State 27: (UCLA entry) UCLA really exposed ASU on Thursday. They really destroyed what was supposed to be one of the top contenders to topple UCLA in the south division. UCLA is for real and has to be considered the top challenger to Oregon at this point.
3. USC 35 – Oregon St. 10 (USC entry) USC let Oregon State hang around for a little while, but eventually their raw talent was just too much for the Beavers. The way I see things, there’s just no explaining how USC got man-handled at Boston College (a team that just lost to Colorado State I must add), so I’m going to just discount it at this point. However, if USC hadn’t beat Stanford, the position of them and Stanford at this point would be flopped.
4. Stanford 20 – Washington 13: (Stanford entry) Stanford’s wins aren’t exactly pretty but they keep winning. At some point one has to accept where they belong. Until proven otherwise (by another in-conference loss) Stanford is the contender to Oregon in the north.
5. Arizona (bye): Arizona benefits in ranking by sitting on the sideline as UW and ASU go tumbling. There are only 3 undefeated teams in the conference and you just can’t put one of them below more than a couple conference teams with losses that stain their resume.
6. Stanford 20 – Washington 13: (UW entry) Washington had looked like they were putting things together, but now they just look inconsistent. They had their opportunities against Stanford and failed miserably. Overall, you can’t knock them too much having lost to the #2 team in the North, which prevents them from falling further.
7. Cal 59 – Colorado 56: (Cal entry) It wasn’t the prettiest victory ever and the defense better figure a few things out soon, but Cal is looking like a team that will fight hard and win some games.
8. Washington State 28 – Utah 27 (WSU entry) Speaking of teams that appear to be clicking finally, we left WSU for dead after they lost to Nevada. Since then they’ve won 2 of 3 and have looked pretty good doing so. Their dominance over what was supposed to be a pretty good Utah team in the 2nd half was striking and impressive.
9. UCLA 62 – Arizona State 27: (ASU entry) The only mitigating factor in ASU’s humiliation on Thursday was that they were without their starting quarterback. However, who really thinks that would have changed the outcome? Yes, ASU may have been more competitive, but they still would have lost. It looks like it is going to be another year of under-delivering on their promise in Tempe.
10. Washington State 28 – Utah 27: (Utah entry) As I suggested, Utah wasn’t able to hold onto their high spot very long in the power rankings. They fell even more quickly than I expected. While it’s great for WSU to rise up out of the cellar, Utah lost to a team that is coming up out of the muck. Maybe in a few weeks with WSU continuing to roll this loss won’t look so bad. However, I saw their incompetence down the stretch and here’s guessing their are more losses coming. One thought: How bad must Michigan be?
11. USC 35 – Oregon State 10: (OSU entry) Oregon State had a pretty wimpy non-conference schedule and they looked somewhat overwhelmed against USC. That’s how a 3-1 team ends up this low on the list.
12. Cal 59 – Colorado 21 – Hawaii 12: (CU entry) The buffs were on the bottom of the list last week and while their loss was entertaining, it does little to boost their ranking. Cal is not exactly the top contender in the conference. If it were, then perhaps CU could use that loss to gain some ground.

So the picture is getting clearer in both divisions. It’s UCLA with USC challenging in the south and Oregon with Stanford challenging in the north. Below that, there are a lot of teams that are pretty close together and it’s very hard to tell who will win on any given Saturday. Expect a lot of unpredictable results in the weeks to come.