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The top of the Pac-10 is easy to figure out: Top-ranked and unbeaten Oregon is barreling toward a shot at a national championship.
Same with the bottom: Washington State, despite its progress, is still playing catch-up.
The rest of the conference? A mishmash of teams that can't distinguish themselves and are prone to wild fluctuations.
So, as the Pac-10 heads into the second half of the season, starting Thursday with UCLA-Oregon, expect more of the unexpected.
''I don't think you can predict anything,'' UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel said. ''You just have to play great football as often as you can and hopefully you're good enough to take a team down and be consistent enough not to be that team.''
Inconsistency has been the defining characteristic of most teams through the first six games.
Washington has been on an every-other plan this season, following losses with wins every week, the latest a double-overtime victory over Oregon State on the heels of a loss to Arizona State.
The Beavers were respectable in losses to Top 10 teams TCU and Boise State, then beat Arizona - No. 9 at the time - on the road before failing on a potential game-winning two-point conversion attempt in the loss to the Huskies.
Arizona had an impressive win over then-No. 9 Iowa, held off Cal, then got bumped from the Top 10 with the loss to Oregon State.
Arizona State pulled out a solid win over Washington to end a three-game losing streak, USC had its first losing streak in nine years before running over Cal last week.
The biggest fluctuations have come from the Bruins and Bears.
UCLA played Kansas State tough on the road, was blown out by Stanford, beat ranked teams Houston and Texas in consecutive weeks, then had a lopsided loss to Cal.
The Bears were caught off guard by Nevada's Pistol, played tough at Arizona, had the 28-point win over UCLA, followed by last week's pummeling at the hands of the Trojans.
''Our team has the potential, if we execute, to be a very good team,'' Cal coach Jeff Tedford said. ''That said, if we don't (execute), the conference is so competitive you have a chance to not be successful.''
How competitive? There are five teams at 3-3 and all but Oregon have at least one conference loss.
The muddling will become clearer as the season winds down, though based on the way the first half went, it'll probably be a few weeks.
Here's a look at some of the highlights of those first six games:
CONFERENCE KING. Oregon has been the best team in the Pac-10 so far. Hasn't been close, really.
The Ducks lead the nation with 54.3 points and 567 yards per game, have a Heisman Trophy candidate in LaMichael James and enough talent on both sides of the ball to make teams dizzy. Oregon turned its highly anticipated Top 10 showdown with Stanford into a runaway and this week climbed atop the rankings for the first time in program history.
The Ducks still have some tough tests ahead - at USC, against rival Oregon State - but they've got their sights set higher than another Rose Bowl berth.
HEISMAN HOPEFULS. Washington's Jake Locker and Stanford's Andrew Luck were the conference's Heisman Trophy front-runners at the start of the season. Luck still has a shot, Locker doesn't. Luck has the nation's ninth-best passing efficiency on a team ranked No. 12, while Locker has too much ground to make up after a rough start to the season. The Pac-10's best bet? James at Oregon.
MOST IMPRESSIVE WIN. UCLA 34, Texas 12. The Longhorns were ranked No. 7 and looking for long-awaited redemption from the last time the Bruins were in Austin, a humiliating 66-3 loss in 1997. Instead, UCLA forced four turnovers and churned out yards against the nation's No. 2 rushing defense to bounce Texas from the Top 10.
BIGGEST SURPRISE. Arizona's defense. As expected, the Wildcats have been able to move the ball behind quarterback Nick Foles but the defense playing like this? A little tougher to predict. Arizona currently leads the conference in total, scoring and rushing defense, keeping the Wildcats in the Rose Bowl hunt.
TOUGHEST BREAK. Oregon State losing flanker James Rodgers. The dynamic senior went down with a season-ending left knee injury against Arizona two weeks ago, leaving the Beavers without one of the conference's best playmakers. Silver lining for him and Oregon State: it happened early enough to qualify him for a medical redshirt and a return next season.
GUTSIEST CALL THAT DIDN'T WORK. No contest: Oregon State coach Mike Riley's decision to go for a two-point conversion in Saturday's double overtime loss to Washington. Trailing by 1 after matching TDs with the Huskies, Riley decided to end the game right there. It did - when Joe Halahuni couldn't hold on to Ryan Katz's pass after being hit.
