My daughter's soccer game got cancelled so we made the last minute decision to go to the game. So if they play well, I'm taking full credit. But if they lay an egg, I'll take the blame too.

I would have to believe 10-2 absolutely gets us a top-8 seed and a bye. Wins over a top-10 ranked 9-3 Idaho and on the road against a top-15ish 8-4 Montana (lets say they lose to MSU). Losses only to an FBS team and either a 0- or 1-loss Montana St.

We'd likely have to beat Montana and go 10-2 to be a top-5 team, or a scenario where we hammer Sac and UNC but lose tight games to the Montana's. But a 9-3 UCD is definitely behind NDSt, SDSt and Montana St. And I would argue you'd have to give a 9-3 Montana the edge on H2H, even if you consider them basically even. A 9-3 South Dakota would probably be above us (losses to Wisconsin, SDSt by 3 in OT and then NDSt). But I agree that 14 is probably too low.

I don't know enough about the bottom to speak on NAU, but Idaho being #5 vs. us at #14 definitely stood out to me. We'd both have an FBS loss and a loss to Montana State. They would have lost to us while we lost to Montana. I'm sure you could make an argument for them to be ahead of us, but not 9 spots.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2024-10-31/2024-fcs-playoff-bracket-predictions-entering-final-month-season

FWIW. Has us finishing 9-3, beating Northern Colorado and Sac. Predicts us to get the #14 seed and hosting NAU in the first round. Winner would get #3 South Dakota St.

Agreed on NAU vs. UCD. For 8-4 NAU (7-4 vs. FCS or better like you said) to get in over an 8-4 UCD, I think we'd have to squeak by Northern Colorado and get hammered by the Montana's and Sac. NAU would also probably need Sac to win out to bolster the resume.

Assuming a win over Northern Colorado (not a sure thing!), yes, if we lose all three we'd be 8-4. According to the probabilities, that's a 25% chance of happening.

So the second part of his post is that if there's a 25% chance we lose all three, that means there's a 75% chance we win at least 1 of the 3 games, which means there's a 75% chance we finish with at least a 9-3 record. Again, assuming a win over Northern Colorado.

Even though I don't think we're actually the 4th best team in the FCS, it's still cool as hell to be ranked that high.

Let's just hope they treat Northern Colorado the same way they treated Cal Poly and put this thing away quickly.

You'd probably need a scenario where two of the Dakota's win out, giving a couple losses to the others, and we would have to lose tight games to the Montana schools while handling Northern Colorado and Sac relatively easily.

NDSt only plays South Dakota and they have 3 ranked wins. Losing that one puts them at 10-2 so they'd be ahead of 9-3 UCD regardless.
Montana State would also likely be ahead of us since in that scenario they'd beat us and, at worst, have the same 9-3 record.
The other Dakota's come down to how the games go. You could have a scenario where SD beats NDSt but loses to ND and SDST. Then you'd have NDST with 2 losses, SD with 3 losses, the winner of SDST-ND would have 2 losses and the loser would have 3 losses. All four would probably be ahead of us.
If Montana beats Montana St and UCD, they'll likely win out, would be 10-2 and ahead of us. Even if they lose to MSU, a 9-3 Montana with a H2H win over a 9-3 UCD is probably ranked above UCD.

So realistically, we'd have to finish 10-2 to be in the top-3 or 4 unless some upsets happen.

I definitely do. Bad Beats is one of my favorite TV segments and it was awesome that Davis got on there, especially since we still won the game.

In a dream last night we beat Northern Colorado 52-49. I think that would count a let down game but at the same time, it's a win.

Does Sac not count as a ranked win now? They were 8 going into the game and 15 after the game.

9-3 would almost certainly get us a home game, even if it's not a bye. It says they're seeding the top-16 teams this year rather than 8 like normal.

9-3 where we play well but lose relatively close to the Montana's might still get us a bye depending on how the other results shake out.

After four straight punts, UCD ended the game with 6 TDs and 2 FGs on 9 drives (not counting the 10th where we knelt to end the game).

FWIW, Massey has us rated 8th and Sagarin has us 11th.

Definitely. 10-2 would almost certainly get us a bye since it would mean beating two of Mont, Mont St and Sac. 9-3 should get us a first round home game at the very least.

For sure. Would be really nice to get to 8-1 because I would think 8-4 including a win over Idaho (hopefully they finish strong) would be enough. But I really don't want to be sitting at 7-4 needing a win against Sac to get in. Not to say that Sac is unbeatable or anything like that. I'd just prefer to not have that essentially be a play-in game for us for the playoffs.

Plus 8-1 puts us in position for a potential bye if results break right and we do well the last 3 games.

But yeah, it feels great to pound Poly but we're one week removed from needing a 95 yard drive and a last play TD just to beat a team that's now 1-5.

Didn’t come out flat today!

We easily could beat Idaho again but what the computer ratings are saying is that if we played Idaho again on a neutral site, they'd be favored (and would deserve to be). Our results outside of that game are not very impressive. Far from an FCS expert but our results are not those of a top-8 team. Idaho lost by 10 to Oregon, beat FBS Wyoming, won at Abilene Christian (now #10) and their only loss is by 2 on the road to us. Meanwhile our ranking is based on us almost always being a decent team (i.e. we started the season ranked) and beating Idaho. Put this way, if Idaho gets the 2-point and wins by 3 in OT, its highly unlikely that we're in the top-10 right now.

Now I get it, the goal is to win the game. And you should absolutely get credit for doing so in the polls. Case in point, we needed a 90+ yard drive and a last play TD just to beat a now 0-5 team and we moved up 3 spots because other teams lost. Just saying I don't necessarily disagree with the computer models that we're not the #6 best team in FCS.

Of course the good thing is we're going to have the chance to prove it over the next 6 games. Similar to how in 2021 we started out 8-1 and were No. 6 but got beaten by 18 and 20 points before SDSt crushed us in the playoffs. Or 2019 we were No.4 after four games but finished 5-7.

Got to win your clunkers and today seems like a clunker. As others have said, I’ll take it but they need to play better going forward if they’re going to make the playoffs.