When two teams in a conference play for the championship, one would naturally think they should be ranked No. 1 and No. 2, especially if that conference’s championship game matches the top two teams in the standings and doesn’t use divisions the way the Pac-12 used to.
Yet, life isn’t always that simple.
We rank teams based on resumes, not projections or anticipated results. Therefore, we can’t look ahead in terms of the current rankings we assign to teams.
However, we can certainly tell you if our rankings will change. This is a good time to do that.
There won’t be any Pac-12 rankings next weekend because only one game will be played in the conference, the Pac-12 Championship Game between USC and Utah.
We’re going to rank the Pac-12 this week, and we’ll tell you how the rankings will change based on the outcome of the Pac-12 title game.
Here we go: