Jhop's Pac-12 Week Four Rankings
If you are looking for the week three rankings, there isn’t one. I skipped it. On purpose. Because quite frankly it would have been redundant from week two. So I didn’t have the heart to write the same exact article one week apart.
This week however, we got some shakeup. Things are changing. Conference games are happening. The cream will rise to the top. With some shake out taking place this past weekend, here is an updated look at my Pac-12 power rankings.
- Oregon – Call it 1A and 1B for me. Oregon is good, Washington is good. No debate here. We’ll see how good each of them is in a couple of highly anticipated weeks.
- Washington – Like I said, 1A and 1B. Huskies are good. Hate week will be one for the ages.
- USC – The same questions I had about USC ahead of the season, remain. Good, not great line play. And lots of questions on defense. The Trojans have some real tests ahead so we’ll see what they’re made of.
- Utah – Probably the job of the conference so far. No Cam Rising and I had my doubts they returned enough talent. But I was wrong and Utes are a tough play for anybody.
- Washington State – The darling of the conference. A step down from the top four but ultimately a team that nobody is anxious to play. In any other year, they might even have the best quarterback in the conference.
- Oregon State – The holes we expected remains. Can DJ U get them over the hump? They don’t have great talent out wide and holes on defense. No. 5 through 12 will likely beat up on each other all season.
- UCLA – I had much higher hopes for UCLA. Who could still respond. And as long as Chip Kelly is there, you don’t love facing them and the challenges he brings offensively. But the Bruins are definitely a step down from those upper four.
- Colorado – They dropped this week. They were exposed. The good news is they are still at No. 8 with room to move back up. Last year they hovered at 12 with no shot at climbing.
- Arizona – Some talent on offense. But still a step below the 7 or 8 ahead of them it would appear. Maybe they can change my mind and give UW a challenge this weekend? Probably not.
- Arizona State – Dilly knew he had a project ahead of him. He gave USC a battle last week but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
- Cal – Is this the last year for Justin Wilcox?
- Stanford – Troy Taylor needs to stack some recruiting classes. And fast.
