They've obviously been better than us the last three full season but we literally almost beat them this year. It's not like Taylor came in and they're all of a sudden beating us by 30 every year. We were up 17-3 in the second quarter and 17-13 entering the 4th quarter in 2019 too. It's hilarious to say we'll never beat them under Taylor. I mean, it could obviously happen. The dude could leave the program in the next month in which case we wouldn't get a chance to beat him.

If Montana was outside the top 25 coming into the season no chance they make it. — CK2

I mentioned this in a different thread but this is a huge part of it. It happens at the FBS level too. Teams that lose don't always drop enough and teams that win don't jump enough. Case in point, we beat Idaho a week ago by 18 at their place. They were 15, we were unranked. Both had 6-4 records after the game. The next rankings come out and they're 2 spots ahead of us.

Wasting a really good Denver defense this year too. If Denver had scored 18 points in regulation in every game, they’d be 9-1 right now.

To some extent it probably was. But make it Idaho instead of Montana. They beat Montana but avoided Montana St and Weber. Plus we beat them by 18 at their place. If we had Idaho’s schedule, we go 8-3 or 7-4 (Montana game being the tossup). If they had our schedule, they go 5-6. So they’re giving Idaho the nod due to luck of the draw. We can do better than that.

Can’t complain about missing the playoffs because we conclusively proved we are unlikely to win a game against ranked competition, doing so once in five opportunities — Riveraggie

We can complain because Montana even more conclusively proved that they’re unlikely to win a game against ranked competition and they got in.

My thoughts also on the schedule. No Montana St or Idaho. Would be really nice to win either the Montana or Weber games. Would give us a little leeway.

3-0 is tougher due to the FBS game but we just need to schedule some crap team out of conference and win. Clearly playing the #1 overall seed tough on the road didn't matter. There's no way you'll convince me a 7-4 UCD team that beat a 3-8 South Dakota (instead of losing to SDSt) isn't in the field.

They kind of earned it after being screwed over drawing South Dakota St last year.

Gardner Webb got the auto-bid from their conference.

There's some talk on AGS that it's due to money and that Montana will draw the 25K fans or whatever which is why they got the home game.

We're out. That's so stupid.

Committee basically saying "don't schedule tough games". If we scheduled some 4-7 team instead of South Dakota State, we're in.

I hope Montana loses the first game and if they win, I hope NDSt smokes them by 50.

Idaho in also. Not good.

Montana in and playing at home. Absurd.

Sounds like Fordham getting in was a question mark too so that doesn't bode well for us.

Still no Montana or Idaho listed though.

1. South Dakota St
2. Sacramento St
3. North Dakota St
4. Montana St

Rough for Sac. They must have not wanted to have two teams from the same conference on the same side of the bracket, though Sac and Mont St didn't play this year.

I'm already prepared to be annoyed when Montana gets in over us. If the Big Sky only gets 3 spots, fine. I can live with that.

It's on ESPNU so I would guess you can stream on ESPN.com or the ESPN app too.

The more I think about it the more I think how crazy it is for anyone to rank either Idaho or Montana ahead of us.

Montana went 7-4 against FCS. Lost to top-3 in conf plus Idaho. Didn't beat any winning teams. Trailed by 41 points in a game.
Idaho went 7-2 against FCS. Lost to Sac but missed Weber/Mont St. Beat Montana at Montana. Never trailed by 41 points in a game.
UCD went 6-4 against FCS. Lost to top-3 in conf plus a top-2 playoff seed. Beat Idaho at Idaho. Never trailed by 41 points in a game.

If you're comparing UCD vs. Montana... both lost close to Sac, both lost close to Weber. Montana lost to MSt by 34, UCD lost by 17. Montana lost at home to Idaho. UCD beat Idaho on the road by 18.

If you're comparing UCD vs. Idaho... both lost close to Sac. They lost two FBS games. We lost an FBS game, 2 games to the likely top-2 seeds an another game to a third potential seeded team. UCD won at Idaho by 18.

All three teams beat the objectively worse teams on their schedules.

There's basically nothing in their resume's that you can point to that would make you rank either of those other teams above us. We performed better against the good common opponents than Montana did. We played a tougher schedule than Idaho did, performed the same against the one common good opponent. Oh, and we beat them handily at their place.

If I'm taking 4 Big Sky teams, UCD is in. If I'm taking 5 Big Sky teams, UCD and Idaho are in.