“Pac-12 Power Rankings” is a column by Will Camardella ranking the Pac-12 football teams on a week-to-week basis.
If you, like myself, are no longer surprised when Washington State loses to bottom-tier opponents after a 4-0 start, Week 11 in the Pac-12 was much less chaotic than weeks previous.
Yes, Arizona State took down UCLA on the road, but the Bruins have a troubling quarterback situation that has made them quite vulnerable. Outside of that game, home teams went 4-1, and ranked teams were unbeaten against lower-ranked or unranked opponents.
Barring a late-season surge from Oregon State, the Pac-12 Championship Game will almost certainly be a rematch between Oregon and Washington, who may have played the game of the year back in October. After both teams defended their home turf against tricky opponents, here’s how my rankings stack up this week.
1. Oregon Ducks (9-1, 6-1 Pac-12) | Last Week: 1
I would not consider Oregon’s most recent performance against USC to be its best-played football game. The Ducks left some points on the board with failed two-point conversion attempts while shooting themselves in the foot by losing 120 yards on penalties. However, when a team makes as many mistakes as it did on Saturday and still takes down the defending Heisman-winning quarterback without trailing at any point, you take notice.
Oregon continues to deploy elite football players on both sides of the ball while asserting a physicality on its opponents one might expect from a Southeastern Conference team. The Trojans did nothing in the running game against the Ducks’ front seven; MarShawn Lloyd, who has been one of the most efficient running backs in the country this year, only had 37 yards. The pass rush was no less ferocious, tallying three sacks while forcing Caleb Williams out of the pocket consistently throughout the night.
On the offensive side, Oregon showed how explosive it can be in the passing game when it wants to be, while later being methodical to maintain its lead. The Ducks had six scoring drives against USC; three of them took five plays or fewer, while the other half lasted at least 10 plays. Wide receivers Troy Franklin and Tez Johnson and running back Bucky Irving all had 100-yard days. Even in a sloppy effort, Oregon remains the most well-balanced team in this conference and the most formidable opponent in a postseason scenario.
2. Washington Huskies (10-0, 7-0 Pac-12) | Last Week: 2
Washington is one of the five remaining undefeated teams in the power five, and it is just three wins away from punching its ticket to the College Football Playoff. The team beat a ranked opponent, Utah, with an excellent head coach while continuing to look strong on offense. With all that said, I still have concerns about its defense.
As I’ve written extensively in weeks past, Utah is a very limited offensive team, yet the Huskies allowed the first half to turn into a track meet on Saturday. The Utes scored touchdowns on their final four drives of the first half and actually took a four-point lead into the locker room. Bryson Barnes had nearly 9 yards per attempt, which is way too many for a quarterback of his caliber.
To its credit, the Washington defense tightened up in the second half and kept Utah off the scoreboard, but that first half is part of a larger pattern. The Huskies have given up at least 28 points in four of their last five games, including matchups against Utah and Stanford, two of the three worst scoring offenses in the Pac-12.
Scoring 35 points on the Utes is undoubtedly impressive, but Barnes had much more success against the Washington defense than he did against Oregon two weeks prior. Because of that, I am keeping the Huskies as a strong second in these rankings.
3. Oregon State Beavers (8-2, 5-2 Pac-12) | Last Week: 3
When facing a team that has looked as bad as Stanford throughout the season, 62-17 is exactly the final score I expect to see Oregon State run up with a pair of big matchups ahead.
DJ Uiagalelei played one of his better games of the season, throwing two touchdown passes and averaging 12 yards per attempt, which makes sense because of how well his supporting cast played around him. Damien Martinez had 147 yards on 15 carries and found the end zone four times on a day when the Beavers churned out 277 ground yards. Currently, they are the second-best rushing offense in the Pac-12, only behind Oregon.
What makes Oregon State such a formidable foe down the stretch of the regular season is their physicality on both sides of the ball. In addition to its elite rushing attack, OSU ranks second in the conference in rushing yards allowed per game and is tied for first in sacks. For the Beavers to qualify for the conference championship game in December, they will need that pass rush to disrupt two Heisman-hopeful quarterbacks.
4. Arizona Wildcats (7-3, 5-2 Pac-12) | Last Week: 5
Arizona has been my biggest riser over the course of the season, going from a team I saw as an afterthought to a team that is likely to have its first eight-win season since 2014. After taking a couple of close losses to USC and Washington early in the season, the Wildcats seemed to have learned their lesson about big games, winning by a field goal against both Oregon State and Colorado. Learning how to win close games in college football is a difficult task, but Jedd Fisch has been able to do it with his team mid-season.
Arizona’s skill positions are not as deep roster-wise as the teams in my top three, but Tetairoa McMillan has been steady all season long. He had 107 receiving yards and a touchdown in Boulder on Saturday, while Jonah Coleman averaged a staggering 16 yards per carry on 11 rush attempts. More importantly, Noah Fifita led a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter in a hostile road environment. He is another player growing up quickly.
The Wildcats will not be a conference champion in 2023, but a ton of credit has to go to Fisch and what he has built up in Tucson in a short period of time. The team lost some important players through the transfer portal in the offseason, yet they still are on a clear upward trajectory.
5. Utah Utes (7-3, 4-3 Pac-12) | Last Week: 4
I do not think there is much shame in losing to Washington in Seattle in 2023, and, unlike its previous matchup against a top-10 team, Utah put up a strong fight. I still do not see the Utes as a supremely capable offensive team, but they have gotten better in recent weeks.
Utah has scored at least 28 points in four of its last five games, and the only game it didn’t was against one of the best defenses in college football. Sione Vaki has been a big-play threat for a few weeks and scored another touchdown on Saturday, while Devaughn Vele is starting to emerge in the receiver room. In his best game of the year, Vele had a whopping 145 yards on just five receptions.
My concern with the Utes is that, while they obviously have a very strong defense, it has not kept them in games against the elite offenses in this conference. Oregon and Washington put up 70 combined points against Utah in recent weeks. The Utes had some wins in pass coverage against the Huskies’ elite pass catchers, but Rome Odunze made the plays when it counted, hauling in two touchdown passes of over 30 yards.
On a day where Bryson Barnes played above his weight, Utah should have been able to steal the victory by playing to its identity. It failed to do so.
6. USC Trojans (7-4, 5-3 Pac-12) | Last Week: 6
For all of the disappointments USC has had over the course of a tumultuous 2023, losing by nine points to a national championship contender in one of the most adversarial road environments in the country is one of the least troubling. For the first time since the Stanford game on Sept. 9, the Trojans actually covered a spread.
It was unrealistic to expect a change at defensive coordinator would get the USC defense on track in the span of six days, and the unit looked just as bad on Saturday as it did when Alex Grinch was still employed. After two drives, Oregon had run just five plays but was up by 14 points, with Bo Nix averaging 80.5 yards per attempt. The Trojan secondary looked confused throughout the night when the Ducks wanted to air it out in the passing game. As long as USC faces a team with adequate offensive firepower, it will be spending most of the night playing catch-up, as happened in this game.
The reason I kept the Trojans in the top half of the conference is because of the play of their quarterback. The offense has had a lot of problems this season, but Caleb Williams has returned to playing elite football in the previous three weeks and covered up many mistakes by other players. He has worked behind a shoddy offensive line against Washington and Oregon, yet still avoided most sacks and made plays downfield. His playmaking ability is something that is unique in college football and keeps USC in a respectable position for the moment.
7. UCLA Bruins (6-4, 3-4 Pac-12) | Last Week: 7
UCLA had yet to earn a signature win in 2023, something that prevented me from placing them in the upper half of the conference. Now, the Bruins have an embarrassing loss on their resume, dropping a winnable game at home to Arizona State.
I could nitpick the defense for allowing 17 points to a Sun Devil offense that has one notable playmaker on it, but UCLA’s problems this season have always been on the offensive side. It had some problems when Dante Moore and Ethan Garbers were running the show, but the two Bruin signal callers were unavailable on Saturday.
Colin Schlee ran the ball only four times fewer than he threw it, but still could not muster 200 all-purpose yards. This was the kind of game where the ground game needed to dominate behind Carson Steele, but he only averaged three yards per carry.
In seven conference games, UCLA has scored 30 points just once — against last-place Stanford. Chip Kelly’s identity as a head coach has always been offense-first, but the difference between the experienced Dorian Thompson-Robinson last season and the inexperience in the quarterback room this season has been stark. Because of their injury situation, I did not drop the Bruins this week, but I will have no choice if their point totals continue to be this low.
8. Cal Golden Bears (4-6, 2-5 Pac-12) | Last Week: 10
Cal has had a respectable record throughout the season, but earning a second conference win was what drove me to moving the team out of my bottom three. The reality is, I see a 4-6 record as an overperformance from a Golden Bears team that has had some quarterback instability and one consistently productive skill position player.
Cal did something it has rarely done this season on Saturday: win the turnover battle. The Golden Bears forced three fumbles, returned two four touchdowns and found themselves on the winning side for once. If they had not coughed the ball up twice themselves, the game probably would not have come down to the last drive. Fernando Mendoza was serviceable with two touchdown passes and no interceptions, and Jaydn Ott was his usual self with 167 yards on the ground.
The Golden Bears have had more moments of success in the second half of the season than some of the early “contenders” have since conference play began. Because of that, I rewarded them with a jump in the rankings.
9. Colorado Buffaloes (4-6, 1-6 Pac-12) | Last Week: 8
Colorado fought hard against a far-superior opponent on Saturday, but the continued losing has to be wearing on Deion Sanders, who was the talk of college football two months ago. The Buffaloes have now dropped four games in a row, including six of their last seven since Pac-12 play began.
It has become increasingly clear that Colorado is just not a physical enough football team to be able to compete in this conference. Arizona’s rushing attack had a field day against the Colorado front, while the unit sacked Noah Fifita just once. Offensively, the Buffaloes still cannot run the football; they averaged 2.6 yards per carry on Saturday.
It seemed inevitable early in the season that Sanders would be able to get the pieces he needed up front this offseason to make Colorado a true contender, but I wonder if that is still the case. Boulder seems like a much less attractive option now that the Buffaloes are on this losing streak and have faded out of the spotlight. With six losses on their record and a visit to Salt Lake City coming down the pike, the window to bowl eligibility seems all but shut in 2023.
10. Washington State Cougars (4-6, 1-6 Pac-12) | Last Week: 9
Washington State’s collapse continued on Saturday afternoon, falling to Cal in its sixth consecutive loss. In the last three weeks, the Cougars have dropped games to Arizona State, Stanford and the Golden Bears, teams with a combined record of 10-20.
It seems every week Washington State finds a different way to lose a football game. Against the Cardinal, the Cougars could not move the ball and only scored one touchdown. On Saturday, the team allowed 42 points.
However, it would be misleading to put this loss all on the defense; Washington State fumbled the ball three times and threw an interception on the last play of the game. Two of the fumbles were returned for touchdowns, while the third led to a Cal touchdown on the ensuing drive. The Cougars are tied for second in the Pac-12 in giveaways with 17.
The common denominator for Washington State is a lack of attention to detail. The team turns the ball over too much, it is inefficient on 3rd down and the defense has been suspect in big moments. What once seemed like a promising season has turned into one to forget in Pullman.
11. Arizona State Sun Devils (3-7, 2-5 Pac-12) | Last Week: 12
Kenny Dillingham met another milestone in his first season as Arizona State’s head coach by earning his first road win over UCLA. Granted, the Bruins have not been known for incredible home atmospheres — the Rose Bowl was at 60% capacity on Saturday. However, all wins are important for a Sun Devil team that punches above its weight just about every week.
Cameron Skattebo had one of his quieter games with only 93 all-purpose yards, but still found a way to account for both ASU touchdowns, including the team’s only touchdown pass. Outside of a very poor showing in Utah, the Sun Devils have actually not been a terrible defensive team throughout the season.
In the Sun Devils’ other six conference games, they have allowed fewer than 30 points against every opponent except USC, who averages over 40 points per game. They did a great job taking advantage of a limited opponent and got off the field when they needed to; UCLA was a combined 3-for-15 on third and fourth downs.
This game is likely the final bright spot of the season for Arizona State; it closes out its season against Oregon and Arizona. Dillingham is a head coach with an offensive background, so, if his recruiting improves over the next few offseasons on that side of the ball, the team might have a fighting chance in years to come.
12. Stanford Cardinal (3-7, 2-6 Pac-12) | Last Week: 11
The story of Stanford’s season continues to be one step forward, two steps back. The Cardinal seemed to show a different side to themselves after an epic comeback win in Boulder. They followed that overtime thriller by allowing a combined 84 points in back-to-back losses. Now, after winning their second conference game in close fashion a week ago, they allowed Oregon State to hang 62 on them in Corvallis.
Stanford allowed three separate Beavers to average at least 9 yards per carry in a game where it gave up 277 rushing yards and allowed six touchdowns on the ground. Oregon State had 598 total yards against the Cardinal defense, and the offensive showing was not much better.
Ashton Daniels was under siege throughout the game as Stanford allowed six sacks as a team. Daniels also threw three interceptions, which led to him being replaced by Justin Lamson. In relief, Lamson completed 25% of his passes and tossed another pick en route to the team losing the turnover battle four to nothing.
Troy Taylor’s first season as the Cardinal’s head coach has had some bright spots, but they have looked like an incompetent football team far more often than they haven’t. For that reason, I returned them to the basement of the rankings.
“Pac-12 Power Rankings” runs every Monday.