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FCS STATS Poll Guesses (Nov 11)

IdaGriz01

IdaGriz01

Well-known member
Of all the crazy weekends we’ve had in FCS. this – in some ways – could have been the craziest. We have had (like the week before) eight ranked teams losing before. In this case, five of those losses were to unranked opponent. What made this weekend different was the number of “Others” receiving votes that lost. As was pointed out earlier on another thread, nine of the top 13 Others lost on Saturday. With three low-ranked teams losing, that opened up three slots for teams to move up … but I had to dig deep to find winning teams to fill those slots. I chose to fill one of those with the Griz. And, no that was not just a “homer” call. I had what I considered a good reason, which I will explain in my follow-up comments.

Guess, Team (Record), [Current Rank]
#1 NDSU (10-0) [1]
#2 Kennesaw State (9-1) [2]
#3 Weber State (8-2) [3]
#4 EWU (8-2) [5]
#5 SDSU (7-2) [6]
#6 Jacksonville St (8-2) [8]
#7 JMU (7-3) [9]
#8 Colgate (9-0) [10]
#9 UC Davis (8-2) [4]
#10 Stony Brook (7-3) [12]
#11 Princeton (9-0) [13]
#12 Elon (6-3) [7]
#13 NC A&T (8-2) [14]
#14 Delaware (7-3) [11]
#15 Wofford (7-3) [15]
#16 Maine (7-3) [16]
#17 Nicholls (7-3) [17]
#18 East Tennessee State (8-2) [19]
#19 Towson (7-3) [20]
#20 Dartmouth (8-1) [25]
#21 Incarnate Word (6-4) [NR]
#22 McNeese (6-4) [18]
#23 San Diego (8-2) [NR]
#24 Montana (6-4) [NR]
#25 SEMO (7-3) [21]

#NR Northern Iowa (5-5) [22]
#NR Illinois State (5-5) [23]
#NR Idaho State (6-4) [24]
 
Comments:
Since UC-Davis lost on the road to another ranked team, I can see them not dropping quite as far as I moved them. Trouble is, they got pummeled, so they could drop even further.

The reverse effect may cause Elon to drop more than I show. They lost to a ranked team, but they were at home … and got pummeled. Delaware, on the other hand, played a ranked opponent on the road and only lost by two TDs.

I might have dropped McNeese more, since they lost to an unranked opponent. But they were on the road and the game went into two overtimes.

Dropping three low-ranked losers was an easy call. I might also have dropped Southeast Missouri State, but their (7-3) record will probably allow them to just barely hang in there.

So that brings up to the slot-fillers. The first two were easy enough, since four of the top six “Other” vote-getters lost. That left San Diego and Incarnate Word. (We’ve seen Inc-Word play, BTW, and they look like they deserve to be ranked.)

Dropping past more losers, I found four teams in the mix: Lamar, Montana State, North Dakota, and Montana. All have (6-4) records and none received more than 30 votes in the last poll. Pollsters do not dig much (if any) into the past records to look for head-to-head matchups and the like. In my experience, they look at the overall record and then the latest game results. So here’s what I had:
Team A: Won by 19 points on the road, opponent record (4-5)
Team B: Won by 7 points at home, opponent record (4-5)
Team C: Won by 28 points at home, opponent record (2-8)
Team D: Won by 29 points at home, opponent record (1-8)

The two real blow-out wins were home games against pitiful opposition, so I ranked those last. The other two games were against, shall we say, mediocre opponents. As I’m sure most will recognize, UM was the only one of these four teams that won handily against okay opposition, and on the road. Whether the pollsters agree remains to be seen.
 
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