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Arizona’s No. 18 AP ranking is its highest since …

by on Nov. 08, 2009, under Sports

Arizona inched higher in the AP poll released today, moving from No. 21 to 18 after its 48-7 victory over Washington State. The Wildcats are still 19th in the coaches poll.

This is UA’s highest ranking in the AP poll since the week of Aug. 29, 1999, when the Wildcats were 15th after beginning the season at No. 4 and getting wiped out at Penn State, 41-7.

Arizona is as high as No. 12 on two of the 60 AP ballots. John Hunt of the Oregonian newspaper and Steve Campbell of the Houston Chronicle each have the Wildcats at No. 12, ahead of every other Pac-10 team.

That doesn’t make complete sense to me, since Oregon, at 5-1 in league play, is still leading the conference by a half game over 4-1 Arizona. And the Ducks already have a win over USC in their pockets.

In any case, UA and UO can settle it on the field on Nov. 21 in Tucson.

(By the way, Ryan Finley of the Arizona Daily Star, who has the state’s lone AP vote this season, puts the Wildcats at No. 19.) You can see his full ballot, as well as everybody else’s, at pollspeak.com, a great place to kill a lot of time.

There are four Pac-10 teams in the AP Top 25 — No. 11 USC, No. 14 Oregon, Arizona and Stanford moved in this week at No. 25. Oregon State is No. 26, the leader in the “others receiving votes” category.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • oldwest2

    It amazes me USC is still ranked so high,  i suppose that is a bit of respect based on the past 7 or 8 years of dominance displayed by the Trojans.
    They appear to be an average team this year, and in my opinion have not improved from week to week. I realize injuries play into the equation, but good teams have depth,  the Wildcats have shown that to be true this year.

  • Mark B. Evans

    I know it doesn’t work this way, but USC’s offense lost to ASU’s offense, 9-7. THe other USC TD was off a pick-6.
    USC is not the best team in the Pac-10 and shouldn’t be ranked higher than Oregon, a team it lost to.
    And ASU’s defense is scary. Good thing it’s offense is scarier (and not in the good way).

    • Anthony Gimino

      I don’t see why USC is ranked highest among the Pac-10 teams. When I had the state’s AP vote last season, I would always start by ranking teams within their conferences and then integrate those rankings onto a national list.
      If I had the vote, I would start my Pac-10 rankings with Oregon, Arizona and then USC (followed closely by Oregon State and Stanford), and keep that order as I compared those resumes to those of other teams.

  • oldwest2

    Mark: I see what you are saying, i actually never thought to look at the stats/score the way you described, after reading your post,  it actually makes perfect sense.
    USC is most definitely  shown the love by the rankings. Oregon should be ranked higher. I think in the end it will all shake out accordingly.

  • oldwest2

    Mark: I see what you are saying, i actually never thought to look at the stats/score the way you described, after reading your post,  it actually makes perfect sense.
    USC is most definitely  shown the love by the rankings. Oregon should be ranked higher. I think in the end it will all shake out accordingly.
     

  • oldwest2

    AG: I like your rankings better than the National rankings, they seem to bear out the overall team performances and standings with in the Pac-10.

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