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There's nothing better in life than judging others. "Check out that uggo over there." "That girl's thighs are on-point." "He's got mad dance skills, but I'm afraid that his hips do indeed lie." And what better way to express your love for something than to share it with others? As such, I got my fellow CGB writers to judge the Pac-12 teams based on overall performance this season, but recent results in particular.
The number of first-place votes that each team received is listed parenthetically by the team name. The rank that each writer assigned to each team is listed parenthetically next to the writer's name within each team's section.
The rankings
1. Stanfurd Cardinal (9)
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Last week: 3
Berkelium97: (3) Once again, David Shaw's incredible conservatism works. If he doesn't bolt for an NFL gig, he should strongly consider running for the GOP ticket.
Nick Kranz: (1) It's an incredible luxury to have an elite offense without even needing to throw the ball.
ragnarok: (1) It's still a long-shot, but a win over Notre Dame followed by a Pac-12 title might still get the Cardinal in the playoff.
Sam Fielder: (2) Got outplayed and still won and clinched the North. I just lit everything on fire after writing that.
Nik Jam: (1) The favorites to win the Pac-12 should be #1.
2. Oregon Ducks (4)
Last week: 2
Berkelium97: (1) Back atop the Pac. It's too bad we let them down on Saturday.
Nick Kranz: (2) Would be North champs if Adams didn't break a finger. Shoot me.
Leland Wong: (1) Getting a big win over a team of elite talent is great and all, but more importantly, Vernon Adams's six touchdown passes ties an Oregon record for passing touchdowns and sets a record for passing touchdowns allowed by USC. Getting that record on a school with the prestige and history of USC is a nice little bow on this win.
ragnarok: (3) Stanfurd ended their conference title hopes with a win on Saturday night, but Oregon did everything it could in drubbing USC. It's amazing that this is a "down" year for the Ducks.
Sam Fielder: (1) Absolutely torched USC and likely ended Helton's hopes of the full-time gig as they did.
Nik Jam: (2) The injuries derailed their season. The Trees get ALL the breaks, as usual.
3. Washington State Cougars (1)
Last week: 1
Berkelium97: (2) Despite playing in 20° weather, the Cougs handed Colorado their second-biggest loss of the year. I was really disappointed to see Falk get injured. I hope he can play in the Apple Cup, but that looks doubtful.
Nick Kranz: (3) Would be North champs if not for a hooked field goal. Shoot me.
Leland Wong: (3) A great season, but things are looking bleak with Luke Falk's injury...
ragnarok: (4) Wazzu might end up being the Bears' best win this season.
Sam Fielder: (4) Pirate Mike Leach for Coach of the Year!
Nik Jam: (5) Dominated a game they should dominate.
4. UC Los Angeles Bruins
Last week: 6
Berkelium97: (4) After last week's loss, this win was inevitable as the sun's rising. It was nonetheless impressive to see them hold Utah without a TD.
Nick Kranz: (5) Will beat USC by 10, then get crushed by Stanfurd.
ragnarok: (2) A big win for the Bruins puts them in position to win the South, with this week's Victory Bell deciding it.
Sam Fielder: (3) Big road win for Josh Rosen and crew.
Nik Jam: (3) Probably going to win the South. I think they're better than the Trojans, but what do I know?
5. USC Trojans
Last week: 4
Berkelium97: (6) After several weeks of lousy performances, the Trojans finally met an opponent that could take advantage of their incompetence.
Nick Kranz: (4) Oregon loss probably (sadly) means that USC will be coach hunting.
Leland Wong: (7) Losing to Oregon isn't a shame, but a three-score loss with this kind of talent on the Trojan sideline is disappointing. This is only the first real hiccup under Coach Helton, so they shouldn't feel too bad.
ragnarok: (5) Well, they were bound to lose at some point, but the South title is still theirs to grab.
Sam Fielder: (8) They are doing their best to make Seven-Win Sark proud.
Nik Jam: (4) Could easily win the Pac-12 South, so I gotta rank them above the rest of the division.
6. Utah Utes
Last week: 5
Berkelium97: (5) This team had all but booked a ticket to the Pac-12 title game a couple weeks ago. This season is starting to feel like a waste of all their senior talent.
Nick Kranz: (6) Couldn't handle the pure talent of USC and UCLA, but it was the Arizona game that took away the Division title that was begging to be taken.
Leland Wong: (5) Double-extra bad week for the Utes with Devontae Booker officially out for the rest of the season.
ragnarok: (6) And in the span of two weeks, the Utes go from South title frontrunners to being out of the conversation.
Sam Fielder: (7) Their dream season has fallen apart faster than you can fly over Utah.
Nik Jam: (6) Rough way for a dream season to end, but no reason to be ashamed.
7. Arizona State Sun Devils
Last week: 9
Berkelium97: (7) After last week's comeback against UW and an impressive rebuff of Arizona's rally this past Saturday, ASU has to be feeling good going into this Saturday's game.
Nick Kranz: (7) Save for one upset over UCLA, they're basically having the same season as Cal. Will be interesting to see which team is emotionally invested next week with essentially nothing on the line.
ragnarok: (7) Secured win no. six in the Territorial Cup, so Arizona State's game at Cal is now all about bowl positioning (finishing 7–5 instead of 6–6 makes a big difference).
Sam Fielder: (5) I fully expect them to score about 85 points this week against us.
Nik Jam: (8) Congrats on six wins. Now stay there.
8. California Golden Bears
Last week: 8
Berkelium97: (8) For the seventh time in eight conference games, Cal scores three or fewer TDs. Once again, the Bears cannot take advantage of a strong performance by the defense (for the first 45 minutes, at least).
Nick Kranz: (8) For my money, the most frustrating loss under Sonny Dykes.
Leland Wong: (8) A disappointing season with a loss to their archrivals. But at least they're bowl-eligible?
ragnarok: (9) Early on, the Bears were close to leading the nation in turnovers recovered, but that statistic has really waned in losing five of six (to admittedly much better competition).
Sam Fielder: (9) Ugh. What else to be said about this team?
Nik Jam: (9) 6–7 would not be something to celebrate. Sorry. Have to win next Saturday for this to be a year to be happy about.
9. Washington Huskies
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Last week: 10
Berkelium97: (10) With Luke Falk's injury, a bowl game is back in reach again.
Nick Kranz: (9) No, you don't get credit for beating OSU, no matter how gaudy the final margin.
Leland Wong: (10) Yes, they had a statistically impressive win over Oregon State, but it's still only Oregon State.
ragnarok: (8) An absolute destruction of Oregon State puts Washington on the verge of bowl eligibility, but Washington State and the Apple Cup stands in their way.
Sam Fielder: (6) Can they pull the upset in the Apple Cup and get bowl-eligible too?
Nik Jam: (7) Way to take care of business and beat a bad team on the road. I dunno if they can upset Washington State but I wouldn't say it's impossible, and it's at home.
10. Arizona Wildcats
Last week: 7
Berkelium97: (9) Despite some struggles in the second half of the season, this team certainly didn't quit.
Nick Kranz: (10) I wonder if Scooby is coming back next year. Arizona's defense depends on it.
Leland Wong: (8) A disappointing season with a loss to their archrivals. But at least they're bowl-eligible?
ragnarok: (10) Arizona does just enough to get in a bowl game, but it'll probably be an at-large one because the conference is going to more than fill their bowl tie-in slots.
Sam Fielder: (10) They got absolutely torched.
Nik Jam: (10) At least they're going bowling.
11. Colorado Buffaloes
Last week: 11
Berkelium97: (11) Even if they somehow beat Utah next week, they should strongly consider a regime change.
Nick Kranz: (11) Garden variety bad.
ragnarok: (11) Feels like these guys have been rebuilding forever, doesn't it?
Sam Fielder: (11) That was not a good performance against the Cougs.
Nik Jam: (11) Definetely showed they are still a long way to go.
12. Oregon State Beavers
Last week: 12
Berkelium97: (12) Only one more game until this long, long season comes to an end. I'm not sure next season will be much better, however.
Nick Kranz: (12) Historically bad.
ragnarok: (12) Only the Civil War stands between the Beavs and a winless conference season.
Sam Fielder: (12) They are sooooo bad.
Nik Jam: (12) Wow. I expected them to surprise people. But they wound up surprising me as I didn't think they'd play as horribly as they did. It's Senior Day. Come on, Beavs.
The data
Here's how we each individually ranked the conference this week.
Rk | atoms | Bk97 | boomtho | KWBears | Leland | mpeters10 | Nick | Nik Jam | P'scope | ragnarok | Rob | Ruey | Sam | Solomon |
1 | Stanfurd | Oregon | Stanfurd | Stanfurd | Oregon | Oregon | Stanfurd | Stanfurd | Stanfurd | Stanfurd | WSU | Stanfurd | Oregon | Stanfurd |
2 | WSU | WSU | Oregon | Oregon | Stanfurd | Stanfurd | Oregon | Oregon | Oregon | UCLA | Stanfurd | Oregon | Stanfurd | Oregon |
3 | Oregon | Stanfurd | WSU | UCLA | WSU | WSU | WSU | UCLA | WSU | Oregon | UCLA | WSU | UCLA | WSU |
4 | UCLA | UCLA | UCLA | WSU | UCLA | UCLA | USC | USC | UCLA | WSU | Oregon | UCLA | WSU | UCLA |
5 | Utah | Utah | Utah | USC | Utah | USC | UCLA | WSU | USC | USC | USC | USC | ASU | Wash |
6 | USC | USC | USC | Utah | ASU | Utah | Utah | Utah | ASU | Utah | Utah | Utah | Wash | USC |
7 | ASU | ASU | ASU | ASU | USC | ASU | ASU | Wash | Utah | ASU | Cal | Arizona | Utah | Cal |
8 | Wash | Cal | Cal | Arizona | Ariz & Cal | Arizona | Cal | ASU | Wash | Wash | ASU | ASU | USC | Utah |
9 | Arizona | Arizona | Wash | Cal | - | Cal | Wash | Cal | Cal | Cal | Arizona | Cal | Cal | ASU |
10 | Cal | Wash | Arizona | Wash | Wash | Wash | Arizona | Arizona | Arizona | Arizona | Wash | Wash | Arizona | Arizona |
11 | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado | Colorado |
12 | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU |
Table 1. At least we all agreed on the bottom two rows this week.
We average out these responses to determine the Rankings listed above. Mathematically, this means we can also take a look at where each team ranks more precisely, along with the standard deviation as a measure of how varied the evaluations were for each team.
Figure 1. How exactly we ranked each conference team.
We also like to graph our these precise Rankings over the course of the season.
Figure 2. Twelve weeks worth of data!
After last week's near-gridlock at first place, we're beginning to see some distinction thanks to Stanfurd clinching the Pac-12 North (a.k.a. Cal being unable to pull off the upset...). UC L.A. did their best to enter this elite group by upsetting the once mighty Utah, but are still just a step behind. And of absolutely no meaning beyond looking pretty, we have four teams whose precise averaged-out score managed to be a perfect integer: OSU, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon. Sure, this isn't very interesting for OSU or Colorado because we had consensus about their placement. However, it's moderately interesting that we have not only one, but two non-consensus integer values for the first time this year.
Figure 3. The rounded Power Rankings for the 2015 season.
Interestingly, we see that Cal stayed in the same spot (well, dropping a tad as shown in Figure 2) whereas Arizona had a steeper drop despite both teams being in pretty similar situations. Is this warranted or is this homerism? Am I the only one who seems similarities between the two teams, contradicting the actual change in rankings?
Change on week | ||||||||||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Post | Team's Madness | |
Arizona | -1 | 0 | 1 | -2 | -2 | 2 | 1 | -3 | -2 | 1 | 3 | -3 | 21 | |||
ASU | -4 | -1 | -1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | -2 | -1 | -1 | 1 | -1 | 2 | 18 | |||
Cal | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 0 | -3 | -2 | -1 | 1 | 0 | 14 | |||
Colorado | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | |||
Oregon | -2 | -2 | 3 | -6 | 1 | -2 | 4 | -2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 27 | |||
OSU | 3 | -4 | 1 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | |||
Stanfurd | -4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 17 | |||
UC L.A. | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | -3 | 1 | -4 | 4 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 2 | 22 | |||
USC | -2 | 2 | -5 | 2 | 1 | -6 | 0 | 8 | -1 | -2 | 1 | -1 | 31 | |||
Utah | 5 | -1 | -1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | -3 | -1 | 15 | |||
Washington | 0 | 2 | -1 | 2 | -2 | 2 | -3 | -1 | 4 | -1 | -3 | 1 | 22 | |||
WSU | -2 | 2 | -2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | -2 | 21 | |||
Total Madness | 30 | 16 | 20 | 20 | 16 | 18 | 18 | 25 | 11 | 10 | 24 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Table 2. Some teams move up and some teams move down (a.k.a. Leland is tired of writing and wants to get back to Jessica Jones).
With four teams registering no Madness, we're back to a non-Mad week. The biggest mover this week was Arizona dropping three spots, but USC still has a stranglehold on the title of Maddest team of 2015 due to their bipolar performance.
That's all for this week. Come back next week for the last Power Ranking of the regular season. Unless your thighs are below-average. No one wants to look at those nasty thighs.