Tag: Pac-12 Football Power Rankings

Pac-12 football power rankings after Week 5

USC, UW and Oregon all struggled in Week 5, but remember: Rankings are supposed to be based on results. The No. 1 team in the #Pac12 is clear.

Remember: Rankings should be based on results, not future projections or betting odds. Not everyone thinks this way, but it is exactly how college football rankings should be handled.

Ohio State should be ranked higher than Michigan because it won at Notre Dame. Florida State should be ranked higher than Georgia because of its victories over LSU and Clemson. Rankings should not be based on reputation, or what happened last season, or who is projected to win the national championship in a few months. This should be a results-driven process with no consideration for the future, only the past five weeks of actual scores against specific opponents.

With this in mind, let’s give you the Pac-12 football rankings after Week 5:

Pac-12 football power rankings after eye-opening Week 4

Remember: These rankings are based on actual results vs given opponents. They are not predictions or projections. USC is therefore not close to No. 1 in the #Pac12.

After three weeks of nonconference football and a lot of Week 3 cupcakes, the Pac-12 entered full-on conference action in Week 4. This meant teams played considerably better opponents than in previous weeks. It therefore means the caliber of resumes in the conference took on different — and in many cases, improved — dimensions.

As always, we remind you these rankings are based on actual results against specific opponents. They are not predictions or projections of the future. They are not based on betting odds or lines. They are not measurements of which teams are most likely to make the College Football Playoff.

These are results-based rankings. They will change each week, and are meant to change each week, since that’s how rankings are supposed to be done.

Here we go for Week 4:

Pac-12 football power rankings after Week 3 of 2023 season

Eight #Pac12 teams are unbeaten through Week 3, but so many of their opponents look awful. Which team has the best resume? Look inside:

If you watched Week 3 of the 2023 college football season, you might have arrived at the conclusion that nearly every team is less than great.

Florida State played around with its food and very nearly lost to Boston College, a team which struggled with Northern Illinois and Holy Cross in previous weeks.

Texas was tied with Wyoming at home after three quarters.

Ohio State needed a full half before it finally turned on the engines and pulled away from Western Kentucky.

Michigan’s offense looked ordinary once again.

Penn State did what it had to do against Illinois, but little more. A 30-point performance won’t impress anyone.

Even Georgia struggled profoundly for a half against South Carolina before putting the game away in the fourth quarter.

Everyone has an opinion on which teams are the best, but in terms of actual results and actual performance, each week should bring forth a fresh reconsideration of rankings from scratch.

We’re not ranking based on projections or picks. We’re ranking based on current accomplishments against opponents played.

Here are the new Pac-12 football rankings after Week 3 of the 2023 season:

Pac-12 football power rankings after Week 2

USC looks good, but the quality of its schedule is still limited due to playing bad teams. Remember: Rankings are resume-based.

The Pac-12 Conference is 20-3 in nonconference games through Week 2 of the 2023 college football season. It’s a terrific start for a dying league. Annoyance at the Pac-12 CEO Group for allowing this conference to die will remain considerable throughout the season no matter what, but the intensity of that annoyance will grow if the Pac-12 makes a serious run at the College Football Playoff.

With Oregon winning at Texas Tech and Utah winning at Baylor, two playoff contenders remained on course. Washington State also beat Wisconsin. All the really good teams in the league handled their business. Let’s now see how teams stack up in a 1-through-12 rankings list.

Remember: Rankings are not postseason projections. They are not indications of who would be favored in Las Vegas on a neutral field. Rankings are — and should be — reflections of resumes, what teams have accomplished. We stick to that approach and advise you to do the same.

Here are our latest Pac-12 power rankings — not the measurements of the best teams, but of the best resumes — through Week 2:

Pac-12 football power rankings for the only unbeaten Power Five conference

The #SEC isn’t unbeaten after Week 1. Not the #B1G or #ACC. Definitely not the #Big12. Let’s rank every team.

The Pac-12 won’t exist next year. It’s a real shame, because Pac-12 football is kicking butt right now. The Pac-12 is the only unbeaten Power Five conference in college football after Week 1. More than that, its teams regularly thrashed opponents. Colorado beat TCU by only three points, but as a 20-point underdog. Other Pac-12 teams won big in games which were expected to be close. It’s not just the winning, but the emphatic nature of the victories, which has affirmed the Pac-12 as a strong conference in the early part of the season.

This league was expected to be good … and that might have been an underestimation of its quality. This conference has a chance to be legitimately great. Think about the Heisman Trophy candidates in this conference. Think about how difficult it will be for any team, including USC, to go through this conference unbeaten. The obvious concern is that the Pac-12 will be so tough that the conference champion will have two losses and thereby miss the playoff. We will just have to wait and see.

Let’s rank all of the Pac-12 teams after their wins in Week 1:

YouTube host releases post-spring Pac-12 football power rankings

Our friend @MarkRogersTV goes in depth on all #Pac12 teams: transfers, recruits, returning starters, and more. This is the good stuff.

It’s talking season. It’s speculation season. It’s also ranking season. How do college football analysts and pundits rate your favorite team, your conference, and the nation’s other top teams? We’re all interested. We all want to know what smart, informed people have to say.

We appear on Mark Rogers’ USC live show every Monday at The Voice of College Football. Mark is a good friend of Trojans Wire, and when he has something to say about USC football or the Pac-12 (or both), we are certainly going to pass it along so that you can think about his analysis and insight. You might not agree with him, but Mark brings information and detail to everything he puts forth. Mark’s Pac-12 power rankings after spring ball offer a good starting point for an offseason college football discussion.

Let’s see how Mark ranked the Pac-12 entering USC’s final season in the conference:

Pac-12 football rankings: USC plays Utah for the title, but Washington rises

#USC and #Utah will decide the #Pac12 champion, but the #Huskies could become a huge winner of the 2022 season in a few days.

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:

Pac-12 football rankings after Week 11: USC rises after Oregon and UCLA fall

Ducks lose. Bruins lose. Trojans don’t lose. You can guess how the #Pac12 football rankings have changed, but this is all a prelude to November 19.

It’s really very simple: Two teams in front of USC lost, so the Trojans naturally stood to benefit from the events of Week 11 of the 2022 Pac-12 football season.

Rankings, of course, are meant to give you a measurement of what teams have actually achieved on the field each week. USC is still looking for a statement win, a high-end result which catapults the Trojans to a higher tier in college football.

The moment of opportunity has arrived for the Men of Troy.

UCLA this week, Notre Dame the next. Two ranked teams await. We can debate where USC should be ranked, but we can’t debate that if the Trojans win their remaining games, they will be the best team in the Pac-12 for 2022,

Let’s rank the Pac after an upset-filled weekend:

Pac-12 football rankings: Just one week away from possible conference semifinals

Officially, there is no such thing as ‘conference semifinal playoff games.’ Unofficially, we could have that in the #Pac12 on Nov. 19. #USC

USC football is in a fascinating in-between position right now. What we mean by that is that the Trojans have not looked good at all on defense the past few weeks, but are obviously limited at linebacker, particularly given the absence of Eric Gentry from the lineup. If Gentry returns, this defense could be better, but it’s hard to say for sure, given the regression we have seen in the secondary.

At any rate, USC is about to play Colorado, the worst team in the Pac-12. It will be hard to take any big lessons from that game. We’re at a point where the next true revelatory moment for this team will be the UCLA game on Nov. 19.

With that in mind, let’s unveil the new Pac-12 football rankings after Week 10:

Pac-12 football rankings after Week 9: USC holds its ground by overcoming injuries

The #Pac12 has finished its October slate. Where do the top teams stand entering November?

The Pac-12 championship chase could have taken a weird and wild twist in the month of October, but other than UCLA beating Utah, nothing eye-popping happened over the past four weeks — at least not at the top of the conference standings.

Utah beat USC. That was a dramatic game, but it met preseason expectations and Las Vegas odds. This is what people thought would happen throughout the offseason.

The same is true for Oregon beating UCLA at home.

Washington State had a chance to beat a shorthanded Utah team on Thursday but failed. Arizona had a chance to beat a shorthanded USC team on Saturday but failed.

Where does this leave the Pac-12 football landscape after Week 9? Here are the rankings.