The only objection to such a high ranking at this point is we haven’t beat anyone of note, Teams that looked tough prior to the season haven’t done well, for example Idaho. Our top win is probably Idaho State, which preseason looked easy. So we still are a little untested.

The next 4 weeks will tell us a lot.

I will say that SJSU is looking somewhat better than their abysmal record indicates. They've had a lot of close games against FBS opponents and SDSU barely beat them 16-13 on a 51-yd field goal on Sat. So it does say something that we put over 40 on a team that is hanging with decent mountain West opponents

Aggies move up to #3 in the anygivenday.com poll:



http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?215962-AGS-Poll-Results-WEEK-8-POLL-2018-SEASON

The FCS coaches continue to rank the Aggies cautiously as the Ags only move up 3 spots from #16 to #13 in the latest Coaches Poll:



https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/fcs/fcs-coaches-poll

Edit: from #16 to #13.

Thanks...I need a proofreader! Corrected it.

#3 seems...optimistic.

I think the coaches poll is the worst of the FCS rankings. I wonder if whoever fills out the ballots for the coaches knows anything about other conferences.
I like computer rankings based on wins and comparative scores of all games. Sagarin shows us #9 of the AA teams. At least that isn’t subjective.

The Massey Rankings average all the various polls and you can go to the website and link to any of the many polls:

https://www.masseyratings.com/cf/compare1aa.htm

Massy Rankings with the mean, median and standard deviation:

Thanks.... The good thing about all these is they are based on actual scores; using an algorithm defined before the season. So they aren’t polls in the sense of collcting people’s subjective opinion.

I know we're probably a bit overrated and the real test is yet ahead, but just for a moment I'm enjoying sitting back and marveling all that Hawkins has done for the program. I know for many on the forum this is a return to form, but I've never been an Aggie fan in an era where UCD Football got an ounce of respect, so these past few weeks have been absolutely blowing my mind.

I did not expect a 2-year turnaround at all. Heck, I was skeptical about any turnaround even last year. But 100% hats off to Hawk, Blue, Hexter, May, the players, the boosters, Pint, everybody. This is crazy and I have to think based on the recruiting and money inflow that we'll get that this is just a warm-up act.

Nice post, Zander. Many of us who have been following the Aggies for a long time have seen us at the pinnacle and then watched the bottom fall out. I think many of us old timers have forgotten that for many of our younger fans, like you, this is the best you've had. I'm so happy this program is proud again. Take it in and enjoy the ride!

I recall when 6 - 4 was a disappointing year, w 2 loses against scholarship programs.

Playoffs seemingly every 2 years, and then North Dakota State. Such great games, they seemed huge.

At the end of the Poly game someone in the stands exclaimed that this was the first winning season in years, and we might have more than 6 wins in who knows how long. Zander, I'm with you. I became an Aggie when we were still at our D2 high, newly transitioned to D1, but I didn't get to witness any of that. So this is really mindblowing for me as well.

We might be overrated, who knows? What I do know is that the Coaches Poll is the only major FCS poll that has us ranked outside of the top 10 right now, seriously. STATS FCS, Athlon, HERO Sports, Massey Ratings, Sagarin Ratings... and then Coaches Poll has us at 13. Now 13 isn't bad by any means considering where we were 2 seasons ago, but most of the FCS guys out there think we are a top 10 team.

I don't think they have much of a choice, we're 6-1 coming from an FCS power conference. The problem is that 5 of those 6 wins are over pretty bad teams (maybe 4 if we exclude SJSU as a "good" opponent for FCS teams). These next 3 weeks should tell us a lot.

I'm in the same boat. Started at UCD in 2006. That summer orientation was the first one after the Stanford win, and also after a year of beating Stanford in 5 major sports or something. We were pumped up for the transition to D1, and there was this general "it's a great time to be an Aggie" feeling among a lot of us. Aggie Pack had great leadership and we were about to begin a new era with a new stadium. A few months later, we barely secure a winning season with close losses to teams like NDSU (their last visit to Toomey was such a heartbreaker), but the future still looks bright as we prepare for our D1 grand entrance.

The next year, we open Aggie Stadium with a loss to D2 Western Washington and also give up the 37 year streak, and its pretty much downhill from that point on with only a few brief highlights (last minute win against USD, Hail Bakari, playing competitively against Chris Petersen's #5 Boise State, one shared conference championship, and some excellent Causeway Classics). But during that span of a little over a decade, the one thing we could still hang our hat on was the fact that our program has a very deep history of really strong core values, tradition, and character (as evidenced by our coaching legacies). And for a fan that has really only ever seen the Aggies disappoint on the scoreboard or conference standings, that's what Aggie Pride has meant to me since 2006. The recent winning is of course very nice, but that's not how I've learned to enjoy UCD football or support Aggie student athletes.

In many of the rankings it’s not a poll, it’s an algorithm or an average of multiple algorithms based on the matrix of all games and all scores. It is based on who you’ve played, how you scored and how they scored against other opponents, That excludes reputation, history etc. The coaches poll is subjective and reflects reputation, as do any writers polls, or Internet polls. Based on our performance we’re somewhere in the top 10. Based on our reputation where not. If we continue to win we’ll be higher ranked in the coaches and writers polls next year. On one of the radio broadcasts the question was raised on who fills out the coaches ballots. Probably not the coaches who are otherwise occupied.

The anygivensaturday poll began around 2005 and one of the members, professor chaos who is a NDSU fan, has compiled some interesting data about which FCS teams have been been ranked in the Top 25 the most since then along with some other data lists like the number of consecutive weeks ranked in the Top 25 etc.

The following list, which shows the FCS teams ranked the most weeks in the Top 25, was very interesting to me since it really illuminates which teams have been consistently the most competitive over the years since the poll began. It should be noted also that, although the members of the AGS forum certainly have their personal biases, the forum is made up of many FCS fans who have been following FCS football closely for long time and many of those who vote are very knowledgeable about FCS football.

One thing that pops out immediately to me is the demise of Cal Poly. I had forgotten just how significant a player in the FCS that Poly had been since they moved up from D2.



More interesting lists here: http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?213469-AGS-Poll-Historical-Data

The anygivensaturday.com forum is made up of members who are simply big fans of FCS football. I have always felt that, as a group, they know a lot about the FCS and the varied discussion topics are current and informative. They also conduct a weekly poll and rank the FCS like many of the larger media polls.

Many of the members feel that the AGS poll is the most informed and accurate poll released each week...more so than even the Stats FCS poll or the Coaches Poll for example. To prove this point, professor chaos who is an NDSU fan, conducted some research into the which polls were the most accurate in their predictions as to which teams would get into the playoffs compared to the actual teams that were selected by the playoffs committee.

One might think that the AGS poll would be skewed too much by personal biases but the results show otherwise. In comparing the actual playoff seeds and the at-large selections for each year since 2013 the AGS poll was significantly more accurate in their predictions than Stats FCS and the Coaches Poll.

The latest AGS Weekly Poll has the Aggies ranked #3 and I for one, along with some others here, have wondered if that may be too high for us at this point given the level of competition we have played. Then again, given that the AGS poll has shown that it may be the most reliable FCS poll, maybe we deserve to be #3.

View the AGS poll historical data here:

http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?216083-Which-poll-is-the-most-accurate-playoff-predictor

Since I'm killing time until the bay area traffic dies down, I'm currently interested in how Massey ranks all of our opponents in our schedule.

https://www.masseyratings.com/cf2018/ncaa-d1/ratings

Stanford #24
UC Davis #98
Eastern Washington #105
Idaho State #130
Montana #147
Idaho #152
San Jose State #154
Northern Arizona #172
Cal Poly #187
San Diego #189
Sacramento State #199
Northern Colorado #206

If i were to believe these ratings, of which I sort of do, Montana is really equivalent to the talent of Idaho and San Jose State. However, since they're good at home, it will be as competitive as our Idaho State game.

Looking at the rest of the season, we are probably a slight underdog at Eastern Washington if their team is healthy. If their quarterback and other key players are still out, then i definitely like our chances.

We should obviously be favorites against Northern Arizona and especially against Sacramento State.

Damn traffic! I'll just surf the web at Starbucks until traffic dies down.

Someone please post something to read! :)

This is my cynical view of AnyGivenSaturday:

Saturday: Posts on game score updates
Sunday: Posts expressing shock on various top 25 upsets
Monday: Negative reactions to various FCS polls
Tuesday to Friday: Posts on why your poll sucks and why my team should be ranked higher

Rinse and repeat for about twelve weeks.

the coaches poll is a joke. Besides the Ags being ranked too low, North Dakota should be higher and Idaho State could beat most of the ranked schools. It seems much of the ranking is based on memory from last year. As long as the coaches don’t vote in the playoff seedings and this poll does not influence that - I don’t really care. As many have said - polls are too easy to get hung up on.

Does anyone know the criteria or process of forming the playoff selection committee?

Here's an update to the Massey rankings related to our schedule;

https://www.masseyratings.com/cf2018/ncaa-d1/ratings

Current - School - (Previous)

#30 Stanford (#24)
#86 UC Davis (#98)
#97 Eastern Washington (#105)
#126 Idaho State (#130)
#137 San Jose State (#154) Up 2
#157 Montana (#147) Down 1
#159 Idaho (#152) Down 1
#179 Cal Poly (#187) Up 1
#184 Northern Arizona (#172) Down 1
#192 San Diego (#189)
#197 Northern Colorado (#206) Up 1
#209 Sacramento State (#199) Down 1

I personally prefer to rank it this way since it's easier to have an idea of what we can expect from future competition given the history of who we played against.

Our win against San Jose State is now looking more impressive since they've finally won.

I'll ask in the Northern Arizona thread about the status on their injuries.

top 90, jumping 12 teams. Just two below Nebraska! The world turned upside down

They really rank FBS and FCS teams together? Interesting.