Conference finals and a play-in mixes up our rankings.
Louisville's win in the MAC shows us how a team that might have lost to one or two other opponents could yet improve and become strong than those teams. Louisville lost to Bowling Green and Western Michigan, but in the conference playoffs, which you know we have to value more in the rankings, it was the Cardinals that came out on top.
So of course Louisville will move up, and quite possibly most up further. Iowa State does the same. Iowa and Western Washington both get boosts.
This coming weekend we have a really nice clash of ranked teams in the NCR playoffs:
#11 Tennessee at #4 Louisville
#18 NC State at #1 Kentucky
#14 UMass at #2 Virginia Tech
#26 West Chester at #12 Boston College
Why is West Chester, 5-0 in conference play, ranked #26? Well they lost to IUP, and lost 50-22 to Virginia Tech. One of their wins was a forfeit, and their victory over St. Joseph's was 12-10. So their ranking depends on wins over Princeton, Rutgers, and Rowan—all solid teams but only one of those teams is ranked. So really the MARC North is not, in our opinion, one of the strongest DIAA conferences, and the Rams will need to win across a conference border in order to bump up in our rankings. Beating BC would do it, for sure.
