Polls can be crazy things.
Check out this week’s Associated Press Top-25: Oregon doesn’t move through the bye-week and remains at No. 9, Washington beats Oregon State and rises to No. 11, UCLA wins and advances to No. 13, Arizona takes USC out of the polls and puts itself in at No. 22 and, after putting up an impressive-but-losing battle, the Beavers stay put at No. 23.
Doesn’t sound too bad, right?
Well check out the ESPN/USA poll. The Ducks moved up to 12th after sitting out for a week. While that may seem conceivable under some circumstances, the poll has — get this — Washington at No. 10.
Say what?
That’s pretty funny, but it gets even better. Despite losing to the Huskies, Oregon State is No. 20.
Huh?
Perhaps the pollsters forgot which Oregon school was which, and accidentally moved the wrong one further up in the rankings. It happens.
But what are the Beavers doing in any top-25 poll? Looking at Oregon State’s wins, it beat one overrated Pac-10 team at home, almost lost to two sorry nonconference teams (one that wasn’t even a Division I-A opponent) and then beat up on another hapless opponent.
Luckily, Beaver quarterback Jonathan Smith connected enough big plays to keep his team hanging with Washington. It should not have been so close.
The AP poll is reasonable, with Oregon State’s No. 23 seeding arguable. The ESPN/USA Today poll, on the other hand, is completely ridiculous.
Do they know something that we don’t?
Maybe they don’t know something that we do, such as the difference between Oregon and Oregon State.

Dropping the ball
Speaking of the polls, Southern California was, not long ago, ranked No. 8 in the nation. Back-to-back losses to the Beavers and the Wildcats changed that.
Not only are the Trojans unranked now, but they are on their way to a repeat of last season when they won just three Pac-10 games.
“I think we’re not going to know how this team responds to adversity until it plays Arizona,” USC coach Paul Hackett said last Friday. “I’m hopeful and I feel good, but they have to show something Saturday.”
That said, Hackett probably felt a little sick on Saturday night.
To make matters worse, receiver Kareem Kelly sat out against the Wildcats with nagging injuries, and fellow receiver Marcell Allmond broke his leg in the fourth quarter and is gone for the season.
Instead of playing two seasoned veterans, the Trojans’ receiving statistics now depend on Matt Nickels, a nonscholarship athlete, and freshman Keary Colbert, who had six receptions for 113 yards on Saturday.
At least USC still has Carson Palmer in good health. His injury early last season set the tone for the Trojans’ soon-to-have disappointments. Oh yeah, his injured shoulder was sustained in his team’s triple-overtime loss to the Ducks.

Dawg tired
The Huskies kept themselves in the Rose Bowl race by taking care of business against a passionate Oregon State team. But will the bruising win hurt the Dawgs in the long run?
“It was a costly victory,” Washington head coach Rick Neuheisel said. “We’ve got a lot of guys who are nicked and banged up, to the extent I don’t know. The team was certainly fired up and excited from the victory, but there wasn’t much left in the tanks.”
Among the most “banged up” Husky is starting fullback Pat Conniff, who could miss the next few weeks with a sprained knee.
Fortunately for Washington, it faces Arizona State, California and Stanford before it plays No. 22 Arizona on Nov. 4 and 13th-ranked UCLA on Nov. 11.
“While people might point to the UCLA game as the reason we didn’t go to the Rose Bowl, Arizona State looms every bit as large,” Neuheisel said, referring to last season when the Sun Devils upset the Huskies, 28-7.