So this is fun ...

Most of the D1A rankings remains unchanged. We have a new #25 and that's about it, but we spent a lot of time pondering two teams, both of which lost of the weekend: Mount St. Mary's and Army.

These two teams have not played each other, and leading up to this week we have ranked MSM two spots ahead of Army. But, we asked ourselves, what is that based on? Mostly it's based on a big win for MSM over Arizona, who then played UCLA and Saint Mary's College very close. But let's look at it a little differently.

These two teams did not play each other, but they share seven (!) common opponents. How did they do against those?

Mount St. Mary's went 6-2, playing one common opponent (Navy) twice. Army went 6-1. MSM lost to Navy twice, 36-8 and 27-8 (average 31.5 to 8) while Army lost to Navy once, by the score of 32-5. So basically the scores are identical.

They both played Air Force: 41-12 and 43-20. They both played Southern Virginia: 52-14 and 51-7. There were some results that were a little different (Army better vs Penn State, MSM better vs Arizona). Against St. Bonaventure MSM won by eight points, Army by four. Against Mary Washington Army won by 10, MSM by nine.

You get the idea. Counting MSM's losses to Navy as one game on average, both teams were 6-1; one team 252 points scored and 163 allowed, while the other was 199-123.

Ultimately, Mount St. Mary's pushing Life close 21-19 is the one result that keeps them ahead of Army; this despite Army's close loss to Cal. We could just as easily have moved Army up next to or past MSM. But we haven't. Cal plays Saint Mary's this coming weekend, and Army has a game against Cal Poly. Those results could prompt some changes.