Comments about ‘Pac-12 rankings: Week 8’

Obviously, a lot should be proven this weekend, but I disagree with a few of Mike's rankings. Cal seems to me like a talented, but haphazard team that is ranked way too high. UCLA has gone 2-1 in conference play, but has still looked quite unimpressive. My opinion of the rankings:
1-Stanford
2-Oregon
3-Arizona State
4-USC
5-Washington (3,4 & 5 are all very close. I think if the ASU-USC game was in LA, USC would have won. The Stanford and Washington games will bear a good indication on how good USC really is.)
6-UCLA
7-Utah (UCLA only ahead of Utah because of current conference record. 11/12 game will indicate who the better team is.)
8-Washington State (has played bad, but may be better than most expect)
9-Cal (very talented, but very unfocused)
10-Oregon State
11-Colorado
12-Arizona

So your order goes 6, 7, 9, 8. That's not how most people count.

I don't see why Cal, who is 0-3 in the conference and 3-3 overall, and coming off three straight losses, should be ranked 6th while Utah is ranked 9th. If anything, it should at least be 6. UCLA, 7. Washington State, 8. Cal, 9. Utah. Both UCLA and WSU have identical overall records to Cal and Utah, but UCLA is 2-1 in conference and WSU is 1-2. At least UCLA and WSU have conference wins.

Big game for Utah.

A road win gets them to just needing 2 wins in thier last five, against arguably their easiest stretch of the year to reach bowl-dom. Here's hoping the defense will cause enough problems for Cal as it did Pitt. They will have to carry this offense.

Go Utes!

Sorry, Mike, but Utah is better than No. 9. I'll take Sagarin's computer ratings, which rank Utah as No. 6 in the PAC 12, behind Oregon, Stanford, Washington, USC and ASU (not necessarily in that order).

I don't have a good feel for how Utah and Cal stack up against one another. The computers say Utah is better, but most of the humans think the Bears should win.

I expect another tough game, and hopefully the Utes will come out on top!