We had more shifts in this final D2 ranking than you'd normally get after the finals weekend.
That's in part because Norwich came so achingly close. That overtime loss to IUP, a game they could certainly have won, might have moved Norwich up to #2 (it didn't, but it was a discussion we had at GRR World HQ). It certainly moved Vermont up, though. We took a close look at the various results that had the potential for moving the rankings around.
Here's what we have: Montana State taking Northern Iowa to overtime. UNC-Wilmington playing IUP to within a try at 29-25. They beat Vermont (which we decided was a strong team) and two D1AA teams, and, overall, played consistently well. We had them at #6 two weeks ago, but with IUP winning it all it seems fair to have them dragged up, too. Same with MSU, as their close loss to UNI was nice, but we had to see how close UNI was to the top ... turns out pretty close.
The team that moves down is Towson. That's not a knock on Towson; they did superbly this season. But they did lose relatively convincingly to UNI and then lost the 3rd-4th game. Now, we don't put a lot of credence in consolation matches, but we pay some attention to them. What we saw in the 3rd-4th match was, we hoped, a reason to keep Towson ahead of UNW, Montana State, or Vermont. It was tough to see that.
Grand Valley State moves down a bit, too, and so does Memphis. But the reason for all of that is much more that we identified three teams that deserved to be higher in the Top 10. All of the Top 10 teams had great seasons; it's just our job to sort them out.
One final note: IUP was our #1 in every ranking we did. Northern Iowa was in the top 4 all season, and starting in Week 4 either #3 or #2 all season. Towson started at #22 and ended up at #7. UNC-Wilmington started at #10, moved up to #4, dropped to #7, and ended up back at #4.
Thank you everyone fo following us this D2 season.
