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- Southern California (6-1, 4-1 conference) - Congratulations to USC, who get the top spot by virtue of not losing. You looked awful against Utah, and needed the Utes to do that dumb power football thing where they go into a shell with the lead, but a win is a win, and the Washington schools did not win, so congratulations.
- Stanford (5-2, 4-1) - Can you imagine how good this team would look if they had gotten to play UCLA in week 2 instead of USC? We'd be talking about them as CFP contenders, because playing the Bruins always seems to fix this team. Bryce Love already feels like a finalist for the Heisman. Suddenly the Cardinal may be the favorites in the North, which could set up a rematch with USC.
- Utah (4-2, 1-2) - The Utes put on the most-impressive road performance of the week, almost beating the Trojans with their backup quarterback. Considering how some of the other teams looked this week, I'm willing to put them up here because of that.
- Washington (6-1, 3-1) - We knew there'd be a drop-off from last year's Huskies, but against ASU the Washington offense looked downright inept. That's a problem going forward, as this team still has to play Stanford and Utah, two teams with much better defenses than the Sun Devils. Maybe calling this team a playoff contender was too much of a stretch.
- Washington State (6-1, 3-1) - Give credit to Washington for one thing: at least their defense showed up. Washington State got manhandled in all phases of the game against Cal, which was only their second road game of the season. Watching Luke Falk's draft stock disintegrate in real time was impressive, though.
- UC Berkeley (4-3, 1-3) - Arguably the best win of the weekend, a complete dismantling of Washington State. The question will be whether this team can continue this level of performance going forward.
- Arizona State (3-3, 2-1) - A few weeks ago, I put the conference in tiers, and not even 2 weeks later, that list belongs in the trash, because the Arizona schools look like the mid-tier of the conference that UCLA, Oregon, and Colorado wished they could be. ASU played magnificently to beat the Huskies, and now they get to go on the road to Utah to prove that was no fluke.
- Arizona (4-2, 2-1) - Arizona is maybe the best team in this ASU/Zona/UCB tier, but their victory wasn't as big as the other two wins. I'd expect them to rise next week.
- UCLA (3-3, 1-2) - The Power Rankings look at who is better than who at that particular moment in time, so while I think a fully-healthy Oregon could and probably should beat UCLA, they are not fully healthy right now, and Jim Mora is going to do that dumb thing where he gets a win and yells that things are being turned around, at which point he'll proceed to get boat-raced by Washington. But at least it will be nice at the Rose Bowl!
- Oregon (4-3, 1-3) - I have no idea how this team beat Cal, because they've looked awful since losing their starting QB. UCLA should, theoretically, have no trouble scoring on this team. I say theoretically because with Jim Mora all dumb things are possible.
- Colorado (4-3, 1-3) - I'm not sure how this team is managing to get worse as the season progresses, but here we are. At least they managed to beat Oregon State.
- Oregon State (1-6, 0-4) - Coach resigned, but at least they weren't blown out this week! That counts as progress!