Fresh off a dominating performance against the bye week, the Ags move up in the polls!

Up a spot in the STATS poll as well.

Athlon Sports have the Ags down one spot to #10:

1. Sam Houston State
2. North Dakota State
3. James Madison
4. Montana State
5. EWU
6. Northern Iowa
7. Southern Illinois
8. South Dakota State
9. Southeastern Louisiana
10. UC Davis
11. Kennesaw Stater
12. Sacramento State
13. Montana
14. Villanova
15. Eastern Tennessee State
16. Weber State
17. Missouri State
18. U of Tennessee Martin
19. Princeton
20. VMI
21. William & Mary
22. Chattanooga
23. South Dakota
24. Eastern Kentucky
25 tie Jackson State
25 tie Mercer

https://athlonsports.com/college-football/fcs-rankings-top-25-power-poll-following-week-9-2021

:lol: Yep, the bye week moved us up in a couple of polls so far and down in another!

Stats FCS Poll:



https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/fcs/stats-perform-fcs-top-25

And the Ags move up 2 spots in the AFCA Coaches Poll to #7:




https://www.afca.com/fcs-poll-william-mary-jumps-into-the-afca-top-25-for-the-first-time-in-2021/

How does UC Davis drop a spot?

how do they move up? Still surprised Sac is a low as they are in some polls

I don’t think Davis has covered a point spread since Weber game. I’m not talking specifically from a gambling point of view but point spreads reflect a consensus of opinion, Davis has underperformed week after week, relative to score expectations.

A lot of the polls are too influenced by where teams were in early polls. Teams get ranked based on last season or first couple of games and then it’s hard for a team to move up. Based on point differential and record this season Sac should be right there with us.

I can't recall if anyone has brought up the Sagarin ratings (http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm), but counting only FCS schools, it rates UC Davis #18 (127 overall). To Riveraggie's point, Sac State is #16 (124 overall), just ahead of U. of Arizona. Sagarin uses strength of schedule, as well as points, but also how teams have done in more recent games.

Sagarin list several different ratings for teams, one of which weights more recent games heavier. At one time they had a rating based on wins and losses, but now all algorithms use only point differentials. Our next game we’re picked by various algorithms to win by between 4.75 and 7.91 points, with the closer margin based on both teams recent performance. In summary a close game.

And it's also generally hard for teams to be dropped unless they lose. Sure, you might drop a spot if you barely beat a bad team and somebody behind you wins, but if teams in front of you lose, even if it's to another good team, you'll jump up.

Northern Colorado was a cover

yep I overlooked that one

How can the FCS coaches poll have Montana #10 and Sac #22 ?
Ranked 12 places higher than Sac who beat them at home and also has only one loss to a FCS opponent?

I suspect Sac is stuck with the stigma of being poor sports and taking cheap shots. It will take time for that to change but maybe some of that influences voting?

That is just totally wrong. Sac beats Montana in their house. Also Montana sneaks by a 1 win SUU at home. Montana just does not look good at this point. Quite a different feel from after their first game. I think injuries have something to do with it - but Montana State will likely beat them and a loss at NAU would not surprise me.

I wonder if there is some “coach envy” from Taylor getting coach of year honors and maybe not being considered (along with Sac) as in the “insiders club”.

it seems like they are holding that UNI loss over their heads, even though they really didn’t penalize cuz for losing to a one-win team. They played a PAC12 team tough, we beat not so good AAC team. They beat Montana, we beat Weber. Seemed like similar bodies of work

Cal is not very good this year. They played their best game of the year last saturday. I think the team that beat Tulsa would have beaten them.

I think Cal would beat Tulsa easily. A not so good PAC12 team should beat a not so good AAC team with suspensions

Which is weird because UNI lost to Iowa State, NDST and South Dakota (No. 23) and has beaten 3 ranked teams, two of which are in the top 10. Montana beat Washington, which is a good win, but haven't done much since. Resume wise, UNI should probably be ahead of both teams.

Tulsa has been a major disappointment this season. If they had not fumbled the ball through the end zone they would have likely scored and we would not be a top 10 team.
Really, imperfect as it is, judging teams purely by a matrix of all teams comparative scores is the best method. For one thing it’s objective. Second, whether a team wins sometimes is pure luck, Not ranking a team based on their having one more loss than another leads to the kind of injustices we’ve been noting.
Northern Iowa is ranked by Sagarin higher than any Big Sky team.

What i was trying to say in a round about way was that I think the Aggie team that beat Tulsa had a good chance of knocking off Cal. Clearly we are not the same team now. Sac was able to hang in there with them.