WSU placed 7th in Pac-12 post-spring power rankings

Good morning. As the sun dawns on the Pacific Northwest, and Mike Leach has presumably shed his "Trump 2016" pin for a, well, whatever he sleeps in, we resume the football talk. The website collegefootballnews.com has long been a favorite of mine, mostly because that's all you get on their website, all football, all the time. Now that spring practices have concluded throughout the land, they've begun to post some of everyone's favorite things to read and get pretend-outraged about.

That's right, they're publishing power rankings for each conference. This week, it was the Pac-12's turn. Now, I've always respected that website, mostly because they're dedicated to thorough analysis of my favorite sport. Pete Fiutak is a really thoughtful and funny writer. However, it seems like somebody just looked at the composite standings over the last few seasons and listed the teams accordingly.

They pegged WSU at seventh in the conference. While most of us think WSU is a much better team than that, their 9-4 season in 2015 is a pretty big outlier in relation to the last decade, so a ranking that far back doesn't seem that unfair. Here is what they have to say about WSU:

After a breakthrough season, the offense should continue to be fantastic with Luke Falk growing into a stronger pro prospect quarterback. The D will be more than just an afterthought, but it’ll hardly be a rock – the offense will have to bomb its way to wins.

That seems nice enough, but it also seems a bit shallow. The top four-ranked teams in the conference are, in order: UCLA, Oregon, USC and Stanford. Second verse, same as the first. While I don't know who will win the Pac-12, I can guarantee you that UCLA will not.

That said, we haven't even entered summer, also known as the season of arrests and suspensions. For that reason, and many others, I can't pretend to feign outrage. Do I think they undervalued WSU? Hell yes I do. But like a formerly-funny now-terrible ESPN announcer is fond of saying, that's why they play the games.

Football

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Beer

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Non-Sports

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