These were the standings as week two began this morning:
San José State 26 at USC 42 on Aug 29, 2026
Fresno State 0 at USC 39 on Sep 04, 2026
UCLA 45 at California 24 on Sep 05, 2026
San Diego State at UCLA on Sep 12, 2026
Sacramento State at Fresno State on Sep 12, 2026
Fresno State at San José State on Sep 19, 2026
Fresno State at San Diego State on Oct 17, 2026
Stanford at California on Nov 20, 2026
USC at UCLA on Nov 27, 2026
Full Enumeration Simulation:
USC 32 [50%]
UCLA 22 [34%]
San Diego State 8 [12%]
Fresno State 2 [3%]
Monte Carlo [Sampled Home Margin Predictor] Simulation:
USC 4512 [45%]
UCLA 3827 [38%]
San Diego State 1369 [14%]
Fresno State 292 [3%]
Monte Carlo [Elo Predictor] Simulation:
USC 8920 [89%]
UCLA 652 [7%]
San Diego State 362 [4%]
Fresno State 66 [1%]
USC 2-0
UCLA 1-0
San José State 0-1
Fresno State 0-1
California 0-1
2026, 9, ,
As I write this Fresno State is blowing out Sacramento State in a delightful all-Central Valley FBS game. The first such game, by my informal research, since Pacific lost at Fresno State on September 15, 1995. (After that year Pacific dropped football and Fresno State was the only Central Valley team remaining at the top levels.) Fresno has four California games this year and it would be nice if this was the start of a potential run that kept all of them interesting. But that’s not how it is. Due to Fresno’s earlier loss to USC and UCLA’s easy win over SDSU today, the current standings look like this:
San José State 26 at USC 42 on Aug 29, 2026
Fresno State 0 at USC 39 on Sep 04, 2026
UCLA 45 at California 24 on Sep 05, 2026
San Diego State 10 at UCLA 28 on Sep 12, 2026
Sacramento State None at Fresno State None on Sep 12, 2026
Fresno State at San José State on Sep 19, 2026
Fresno State at San Diego State on Oct 17, 2026
Stanford at California on Nov 20, 2026
USC at UCLA on Nov 27, 2026
Full Enumeration Simulation:
UCLA 16 [50%]
USC 16 [50%]
Monte Carlo [Sampled Home Margin Predictor] Simulation:
UCLA 5425 [54%]
USC 4575 [46%]
Monte Carlo [Elo Predictor] Simulation:
USC 8692 [87%]
UCLA 1308 [13%]
USC 2-0
UCLA 2-0
San José State 0-1
Fresno State 0-1
California 0-1
San Diego State 0-1
There is a brutal symmetry there. The two best teams in LA scheduled the rest of the state early, beat them up, and now the final winner will be determined by USC/UCLA on the final weekend.
Should San Diego have won today it would have opened the door for a world where either they or Fresno could have run the table and won on record. Current Elo is making UCLA an early +600 dog in that USC game which seems a bit harsh, but we have a couple of months to watch those ratings tighten up. UCLA doesn’t look too bad.