Our latest All-D1-Fall-Only ranking sees very little change near the top but a lot of movement in the middle.
Our task in this ranking is to recognize that D1A, NCR D1, and both CRAA D1AA and NCR D1AA all play across boundaries. Ohio State played Bowling Green this past weekend. St. Bonaventure played Virginia Tech. Davenport played Iowa Central.
Interesting, all of those games ended up with the higher-division team winning by a relatively large margin. But it's not cut-and-dry. We see some programs moving up a division and doing well and we're acknowledging that. But readers might also see paradoxes. So let's talk about the paradoxes.
Thomas More moves up 10 spots after beating Wheeling (ranked below them anyway). Why? Because combined with their win over Kentucky, and the pretty solid way those games were won, we think that maybe, maybe, Thomas More is as good as the best D1AA teams. We still don't have them ranked ahead of Penn State, which has struggled so far.
Yet, in the same conference, the Big Rivers, Adrian beat Marian and we don't move Adrian up (OK, 1 spot); we move Marian down. We do that in part because Iowa Central lost pretty emphatically to Davenport, and Iowa Central already beat Marian. With that balance of power we have a hard time putting all of those teams in the mid-20s.
Colorado edged down last week after a big win against a relatively unknown in Utah State, but then they move up after a big win over a relative unknown Wyoming. Why? And why does Colorado State move up too? CSU moves up because they lately have been about the same as Colorado, so we've paired them up for now. Also, since both teams play BYU this coming weekend, we should have a direct comparison before they play each other in a month.
The movement for Colorado is because two big shutouts tells us a bit more than just one. At the same time, we have some other teams that lost games that slip past those two Rocky Mountain teams. Are Brown, Bowling Green, Louisville, and Fairfield better than Colorado State and Colorado? Hard to know. That's why we get paid the big bucks. But what we do know is those other four have played more games, and given us more data, so they sit ahead of the Rams and the Buffs for now.
Should Texas A&M be ranked? This is a tough one for us. A&M is running basically a development team in the Lonestar this fall. Likely they will do well and could be considered good enough to be ranked. But, right now, we haven't seen them play and, in addition, what happens if A&M Grey loses to UTSA? Do we rank the Aggies on that result for the rest of the year? Right now we are waiting for them to play to see what we've got.
The Rugby East teams are all over the place. Is SVU's one-point loss to Kutztown an indication Southern Virginia should be in the Top 50? Maybe. We'll see. That result was enough to drop Kutztown down slightly. But at the same time we dropped Virginia Tech big-time after a huge loss to St. Bonaventure. Mary Washington edged up after a loss because they made life difficult for a very good Navy side. Mount St. Mary's is dropping—we need to see more from them—and yes Penn State won but we need to see more from them, too. So the conference as a whole is spreading out. inside these rankings.
Remember these are for teams that play in the fall.
