Pac-12 power rankings: Oregon starts strong; California, Washington State struggle out of the gate

Published Wednesday, Sep 5, 2012 at 6:10 pm EDT Last updated 37 minutes and 5 seconds ago

Each week, Sporting News college football writer Matt Hayes ranks the Pac-12 schools. Here's how the league shapes up after Week 1.

1. USC

2. Oregon

3. Utah

4. Washington

5. Stanford

6. UCLA

7. Arizona State

8. Arizona

9. California

10. Oregon State

11. Washington State

12. Colorado

Rising: Oregon. Not sure anyone outside the Oregon coaching staff knew what the Ducks had in redshirt freshman QB Marcus Mariota. The Ducks have made yet another smooth transition at the quarterback spot ? and this time may have their most dynamic runner yet. Darron Thomas was more of a thrower and wasn?t much of a threat on the zone read option. Mariota can be special in both the run and pass game.

Falling: California. There couldn?t have been a worse start to the season for Bears coach Jeff Tedford. First AD Sandy Barbour give Tedford a vote of confidence, then Tedford?s team opens beautifully renovated Memorial Stadium with a stinker of a loss to Nevada. The Bears have been uninspiring enough of late under Tedford. The last thing he needed was an ugly loss to start a season of big hopes ? especially with back-to-back road games against Ohio State and USC after this week?s cupcake Southern Utah.

Lead story: It was like some strange time warp back to the days of Buddy Teevens and Walt Harris, with Stanford struggling to fight off San Jose State in the season opener. We all knew the transition from Andrew Luck to Josh Nunes would be difficult ? but not this hard. The defense was listless at times, and the offense converted just 2-of-13 third downs ? a staple under Luck. The Cardinal get Duke this week before a critical home game against Pac-12 favorite USC.

On the spot: Mike Leach and Washington State. Maybe we just expected too much too soon from Leach, who won consistently (and sometimes big) at Big 12 outpost Texas Tech. Wazzu failed to score a touchdown against BYU, and worse, were pushed around on both sides of the ball. There?s a chance to get better this week against FCS Eastern Washington, and in the following weeks against UNLV and conference foe Colorado before the heavy lifting in the Pac-12 begins.

Source: http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-09-05/pac-12-power-rankings-week-2-2012-usc-oregon-california-stanford-washington-stat

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