Pac-12 power rankings: Or is that what the AP poll is for?

Eight conference teams are ranked in the AP Top 25 this week.

A team currently ranked in the AP Top 25 poll will finish this season in eighth place in the Pac-12 — or worse.

The conference dominates this week’s rankings after compiling a 20-3 nonconference record through two weeks, with Colorado, Washington State and UCLA joining the five programs that appeared on everybody’s preseason ballots.

Four of those ranked teams — Colorado, Utah, Oregon and WSU — defeated opponents from other Power 5 conferences on Saturday (two of them from the Big Ten). Colorado and Utah each have two such victories. And USC, the top-ranked team in the league, won its conference opener by 46 points.

For now, it’s a tricky task to properly rank this conference. Beginning Sept. 23, we’ll have more head-to-head data with which to whittle down the list of contenders. 

Here’s how I see it after Week 2.

(These rankings are intended as a snapshot of the conference at this specific point in time, and not a predicted order of finish. Previous week’s rank in parentheses.)