The USA Today Coaches Poll was released today and the University of Arizona was dropped to the 23 spot on the heals of a disappointing home loss to the University of Southern California. The college football rankings that last week had the Wildcats of Arizona at 19 punished the boys from Tucson less then they could have. Arizona lost to the Trojans by the score of 24-21.
USC running back Marc Tyler ran for 160 yards and a touchdown and quarterback Matt Barkley threw for 170 yards on 21-35 passing in the win. Nick Foles lead his Arizona team with an impressive 353 yards (32-of-48 passes) and three touchdowns in the upset home loss. The Wildcats had already lost their chances at a top bowl game when they were defeated by top-ranked Oregon and the Stanford Cardinal earlier in the year. Still, a home loss to USC is a painful pill for the Arizona faithful to swallow.
The PAC-10's other powerhouse, Stanford, rose one place in the standings to eight after a surprisingly difficult win over Arizona State in Tempe. The Sun Devils defense held the high-flying Cardinal attack to only 17 points and stifled the Stanford running game. Andrew Luck, however, was as good as ever putting up 292 yards on 33-41 passing.
The Arizona State defense played well and the young Sun Devil team had a chance to pull off what would have been the biggest upset of the week.
"No question about it, it's as good of a defensive effort as we have had this year," said Arizona State head coach Dennis Erickson. "We created turnovers and had a lot of opportunities obviously. Offensively we're not very productive as far as getting points on the board. We had some opportunities, we were down there in the first half and ended up turning it over. Thats the story of the game. You turn it over, you get some penalties at the end of the game and you end up losing."
The top five in the coaches poll remains Oregon (1), Auburn (2), Boise State (3), TCU (4), and Wisconsin (5). The only change this from last was Boise State and TCU swapping third and fourth place. Dropping out of the top 25 this week was the former 23-ranked Central Florida (7-3) after a loss to Southern Miss and Florida (6-4) who was ranked 24 before losing to South Carolina.
Full USA Today Coaches Poll is as follows:
- Oregon
- Auburn
- Boise State
- TCU
- Wisconsin
- LSU
- Ohio State
- Nebraska
- Stanford
- Oklahoma State
- Michigan State
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Oklahoma
- Virginia Tech
- Missouri
- South Carolina
- Nevada
- Texas A&M
- Iowa
- Miami
- Mississippi State
- Arizona
- Utah
- Northwestern