The Rose Bowl concluded the Pac-10 football season, so it's time for one final ranking of the conference.

And just to be clear, this isn't a look ahead at next year --- we'll have plenty of time for that later --- but just a ranking of where they ended up this season.

1, USC --- Rose Bowl confirmed that Trojans might have been the best team in the nation, after all. Again we ask --- what happened against Stanford? Considering what it looks like it cost USC, might be the biggest upset in Pac-10 history.

2, Oregon --- Rip Mike Bellotti all you want, but his staff did a nice job of reviving their team --- and devising a good game plan --- for the Sun Bowl. Looked terrible for a couple games, but when completely healthy this year, as good as anybody in the nation.

3, Arizona State --- Looked bad against Texas, but 10 wins are 10 wins. If they had ever figured out how to stop a blitz might have been really dangerous.

4, Oregon State --- Had a soft bowl opponent, to be sure, but dominated more greatly than the score. Think what might have happened had Sammie Stroughter been available all year and OSU had gotten decent quarterbacking play.

5, Cal --- Inexplicable last-month skid. But bowl game showed how good these guys were when healthy and rolling.

6, UCLA --- But it's all about Rick Neuheisel now. Will be one of most interesting teams in nation next season.

7, Arizona --- Their early losses to BYU and New Mexico ended up not looking quite as bad.

8, Washington State --- Paul Wulff pumping some life into the Apple Cup rivalry.

9, Washington --- Moved up a spot since our last rankings despite not having played due to having maybe the best off-season of any team in the conference so far.

10, Stanford --- A couple nice wins this year, but overall, still looking up at the rest of the conference. Either Stanford or WSU will be picked last next season.

LAPPANO'S QB HISTORY --- Several questions have come up about Tim Lappano's history grooming QBs, so I'll try to answer that here. Lappano has been a QB coach at two previous stops --- Washington State in 1991 when Drew Bledsoe was a sophomore and Oregon State from 1999-2002 when the QBs were Jonathan Smith and Derek Anderson. At both places he worked for head coaches who are heavily involved with the quarterback position --- Mike Price at WSU and Dennis Erickson at OSU. He was aided at UW this year by graduate assistant Luke Huard who did a lot of the hands-on work with the QBs this year. Huard is expected back for another season. The rest of Lappano's career he has been a running backs or wide receivers coach.