We wrap up this fall in our D1AA rankings after the NCR final.
We actually had a lot of thinking to do about this. Yes, of course, Kentucky is #1. The Wildcats were wire-to-wire this fall and there wasn't much doubt most of the season that they should be. Only their weird 8-7 SCRC final against Clemson sowed any doubt. But the final ... well the final sealed the deal.
Can Kentucky lose their #1 spot at the end of the spring, now that we enter into ranking the winter-spring teams? Yes they can, but it's going to be tough. Whoever wins the CRAA D1AA championship will have to be dominant. Last year, they were. San Diego, if you remember, had a final in which they controlled the game over Iowa State. This time around might well be different.
What we were expecting, however, was for Bowling Green to be fairly close to Kentucky—within 14 at least. If that had happened we would have likely kept BGSU at #3, moved Clemson to #4 or #5 and Louisville at #4 or #5. But instead the NCR D1AA final was a blowout. Bowling Green struggled. Meanwhile, admittedly in a bowl game that doesn't mean a ton (but means something), Sam Houston State shut out Kansas 64-0. If we were to move anyone up, and remember Virginia Tech is in that conversation, as well, we needed to avoid bumping down SHSU. If we didn't move SHSU to #3, then they've move down to #8 despite winning big.
As it is, we have a hard time moving down a team that won 64-0 against a good team, and a hard time moving up or keeping steady a team that lost 57-14 to an excellent team. We're pretty sure Bowling Green, Louisville, Clemson, and Virginia Tech are very close. UMass is almost there, and if Clemson had been a shade close to BGSU we might have moved them above the Falcons based on that close SCRC final. But it all hangs on the fact that BGSU beat Louisville, Clemson, and Virginia Tech, but lost big to Kentucky. Admittedly, Sam Houston State didn't play Kentucky, but sometimes we have to make an objective judgment.
Can it change? Absolutely. SHSU could slip and we could be writing an article saying "we got it wrong!" But this is what we've seen right now.
Two more notes: We made a clerical error and dropped Oklahoma out last time. We fixed that. And second, the New Year will bring a whole new group of teams to be ranked Winter-Spring. These teams will be Florida and California teams plus we will keep on nCRC, Heart of America, and Lonestar teams playing during that time.
