Our countdown of the Pac-10's top 25 players continues.

No. 16. Nick Foles, QB, Arizona

2009 numbers: Foles, a 6-foot-5, 245-pound junior, passed for 2,486 yards in 10 starts with 19 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He completed 63.4 percent of his passes.

Most recent ranking: Foles was ranked 20th in our final Pac-10 top-30 list last year.

Making the case for Foles: Foles came off the bench in game three -- the Wildcats loss at Iowa -- and never surrendered the job. He would go on to lead the Wildcats to the Holiday Bowl and a tie for second in the conference. Moreover, his solid stewardship of the offense came without standout tight end Rob Gronkowski and a consistently healthy stable of running backs, as the running game was mostly inconsistent all season. Foles, who earned honorable mention All-Pac-10 honors, had a couple of monster games, most notably his effort in a 43-38 win over Stanford, when he completed 40 of 51 passes for 415 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. And he had some poor ones, most notably the Holiday Bowl disaster, a 33-zip defeat. With most of his support cast back in 2010, however, Foles figures to take another step forward this fall.

No. 17. Vontaze Burfict, LB, Arizona State

No. 18: Colin Baxter, C, Arizona

No. 19: Chase Beeler, C, Stanford

No. 20. Lawrence Guy, DT, Arizona State

No. 21. Matt Barkley, QB, USC

No. 22. Owen Marecic, LB/FB, Stanford

No. 23. Kristofer O'Dowd, C, USC

No. 24: Casey Matthews, LB, Oregon

No. 25 Kai Forbath, K, UCLA