Final DIAA-Level Men College Rankings of the Fall

This is the final DIAA ranking of the fall of 2021, and we make a few changes, based largely on the two games of the past weekend, Wheeling vs Iowa Central and, of course, Virginia Tech vs West Chester.

Virginia Tech won the DIAA playoffs for NCR, but it's also worth noting that we have been ranking all of the teams in the Chesapeake and none of the teams in the Liberty in our DIAA. We followed what conferences billed themselves as. The fact that NCR moved the top teams in the Chesapeake into their D1 playoffs isn't something we can get too worked up about. We rank the same group of DIAA teams all fall. (This is at odds with the mixed-up DIA rankings we did, as we ended up putting the Liberty teams in there, and then took them and a few Rugby East teams out because our published DIA rankings are what we vote on the official DIA rankings, which do not include Liberty or some of the Rugby East teams.) 

So then, with the teams we have, how do we go about ranking them? Does Virginia Tech have a shot at #1? If not #1, could they be in the Top 10? The Top 5?? Let's have a look:

1. Tennessee ended the fall undefeated, beating Clemson twice as well as Kentucky, Georgia, and everyone else in the SCRC. In addition, Tennessee beat Bowling Green, the MAC champion, and Ohio State. This last result is key.

2. Ohio State (a DIA team and Big 10 champion), split their games against Indiana, and beat Penn State. It was a close game with Penn State, but a win nonetheless. We'd say Ohio State could be seen to be marginally better than Penn State, and equal to Indiana (a close loss and a close win). Penn State, for their part, beat Brown and also Queens by a single point, and then lost to St. Bonaventure by a point. One could legitimately argue that Ohio State, Indiana, Penn State, Brown, and Queens are roughly equal.

3. Queens rates ahead of Brown for two reasons: 1) they had a somewhat tougher schedule and 2) Queens was one pass away from actually beating Penn State. Brown maybe weren't quite that close (although very close). It's a slim distinction, but enough for say Queens is a tiny bit stronger than Brown.

4. We've established that Tennessee is stronger than Ohio State, and by extension Queens and Brown. Tennessee, by virtue of beating Bowling Green and Clemson, should be considered stronger than those teams. What about Notre Dame? UND's results were pretty solid, and they did beat Bowling Green, but they lost to Ohio State and Indiana, and by 17 and 23 points. So they are below Tennessee and also below Queens and Brown. Bowling Green, of course, has to be behind Notre Dame, but remember that BGSU lost to Tennessee by five points — we can't drop them down too far. Similarly, Clemson stays close.

5. Queens beat Mary Washington by a convincing score. Mary Washington and Queens and Mount St. Mary's all beat Virginia Tech by fairly large scores (average score 49-5), which makes it very difficult to rank Virginia Tech above them. 

6. We keep Dartmouth near the top because their only loss was a close one to Brown. We put Wheeling into the Top 10 because they tied Davenport (a team that beat Notre Dame by the way), beat Notre Dame College, and just beat Iowa Central. Iowa Central beat Iowa State and Minnesota, but did lose to Lindenwood, Davenport, and Arkansas State. Iowa Central's schedule is a tough one, but did they have enough DIAA wins to keep them in the Top 10? 

7. So Virginia Tech can't be ranked higher than Queens, UMW, or MSM. Those teams can't be ranked ahead of Tennessee, and we know that Brown, Notre Dame, Clemson, and Dartmouth can't be moved too far down. What we then have to do is cast aside VT's loss to Southern Virginia. We don't have a problem doing this because a) that SVU win was very close, b) it was two months ago, and c) since then Virginia Tech has improved and lossed impressive victories over Salisbury, Boise State, and West Chester. So if we cast aside the SVU loss, we can move Virginia Tech up right behind Mount St. Mary's—#11 is as high as we can do.

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There is no doubt, however, that the best DIAA team of the fall was the University of Tennessee.

Rank	Prev	Team	Conference	Notes
1	1	Tennessee	SCRC
2	2	Queens University	Chesapeake
3	3	Brown	Ivy League
4	4	U. Notre Dame	Independent
5	5	Bowling Green	MAC
6	6	Clemson	SCRC
7	7	Dartmouth	Ivy League
8	8	Mary Washington	Chesapeake
9	30	Wheeling	Independent	Beat Iowa Central (10)
10	17	Mount St. Mary's	Chesapeake
11	20	Virginia Tech	Chesapeake
12	10	Iowa Central CC	Independent	Lost to Wheeling (30)
13	11	Kentucky	SCRC
14	12	Western Michigan	MAC
15	9	West Chester	MARC	Lost to Virginia Tech (20)
16	13	Louisville	MAC
17	14	Kansas	Heart of America
18	18	Minnesota	Heart of America
19	15	St. Joseph's	MARC
20	21	Boise State	NCRC
21	16	Rowan	MARC
22	19	Western Washington	NCRC
23	22	Iowa State	Heart of America
24	23	IUPUI	MAC
25	24	Oregon	NCRC
26	25	CSULB	Gold Coast
27	26	Florida Atlantic	Florida
28	28	South Florida	Florida
29	29	Central Florida	Florida	Beat UConn
30	27	Arizona State	Gold Coast
31	31	Arkansas	Heart of America
32	32	Cincinnati	MAC
33	33	Kansas State	Heart of America
34	34	Texas State	Lonestar
35	35	Southern Virginia	Chesapeake
36	36	Iowa	Heart of America
37	37	Salisbury	MARC
38	38	Georgia	SCRC
39	39	UT San Antonio	Lonestar
40	40	Fresno State	Pac West
41	41	UCSC	Pac West
42	42	Sam Houston State	Lonestar
43	43	Chico State	Pac West
44	44	Oregon State	NCRC
45	45	Washington State	NCRC