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Washington State picked to finish 5th in the Pac-12 North

The Pac-12 media poll is out and WSU is right where we expected.

James Snook-US PRESSWIRE

There weren't many surprises when the Pac-12 media poll was released on Wednesday. Oregon was picked to finish first in the Pac-12 North and predicted as the Pac-12 champion for the fourth time in five years. Washington State collected 87 votes in the poll, good for fifth place in the Pac-12 North.

The fifth-place prediction is where we thought WSU would be heading in. The Cougars are clearly ahead of California, which is coming off a dismal season. You might be able to argue WSU should be ahead of Oregon State. Media polls, however, are more a reflection of what happened last year rather than a true prediction of next season. If WSU has a great season, the Cougars will be slotted much higher in the poll next year, even though they'd lose Connor Halliday and a few other key pieces.

The Cougars collected 87 points from the 39 ballots which means at least a couple of votes slotted WSU in at least fourth. A first-place vote is worth 6 points, second 5 and so on. All fifth-place votes would yield 78 points, so WSU had to be higher on a couple of ballots. Oregon collected 37 of the 39 first-place votes in the North with Stanford grabbing the other two. UCLA was picked to win the Pac-12 South by a fairly wide margin. Here is a complete look at the voting.

North
School Points (1st place votes)
Oregon 232 (37)
Stanford 192 (2)
Washington 142
Oregon State 125
Washington State 87
California 41
South
UCLA 231 (37)
USC 181 (1)
Arizona State 163 (1)
Arizona 119
Utah 82
Colorado 43

Oregon was the most-popular pick to win the Pac-12 title game with 24 votes. UCLA collected 13 while Stanford and USC were each picked once.