The biggest thing about this week's rankings is pretty clear—who should be #1?
We had Cal #1 because they had started really well on the West Coast and beat Arizona, UCLA, and then UBC. But Cal then lost to Navy.
So should Navy be #1? Well the question there is that Navy lost to Life 23-20 on October 19. So that seems like, maybe, we should put Life at #1. And you'd be perfectly justified in thinking that. Life beat Saint Mary's, and they also beat Lindenwood. But they also lost to Queens. And Navy beat BYU. So everybody seems to have a shaky result on their resume. Everybody has a top result on their resume, too.
As it is, there is only one common opponent between Navy and Life and that's Queens. Life lost 29-26, and Navy won 49-19.
OK, at this point, Life has the edge. The win over Navy and wins over two highly-ranked opponents is slightly stronger than Navy's better performance vs. Queens and the win over two other highly-ranked teams that weren't ranked as high as Life's opponents.
Then Cal happened. Navy won that game and won it in convincing fashion, As we pointed out in the game report—Navy Explodes Out of Hibernation with Win over Cal—this was the first time (at least since 2000) that Cal had been held tryless by a USA-based opponent. That impressive win, in our view, overwhelms 23-20 vs Life. At least for now.
