Men DI College Rankings Spring 2016 #14

We almost didn't run a new DI rankings this week, given that there were so few games and they ran according to plan.

But ... we also had some mistakes to fix. Our assessment of one of the consolation games last week in DIAA seems to have been wrong, and so we're bumping Utah State up. And also, given the score of Life v. Lindenwood, we'd decided that Davenport's loss to Life by a similar score shouldn't have hurt Davenport so much. We also bumped up Utah because we think Utah should be ahead of Davenport. And UCLA then has to move up because UCLA beat Utah. 

The whole thing kind of falls apart when we look at Notre Dame College and AIC. AIC got their high ranking in part because of a season-opening win over Penn State, and a big win over Clemson at the end of the fall. But the Penn State result was a looong time ago, and things change - basically Penn State got a bit better. Clemson? Well their results weren't awe-inspiring this spring, and so maybe the win over the Tigers wasn't so impressive for the Yellow Jackets. So when Notre Dame College beat AIC, you'd think we would bump NDC up to #10 or something. But NDC's resume includes losses to Navy, St. Bonaventure (!), and to Davenport. And we looked at that with new eyes and realized we had to adjust the rankings that way.

There are three games this weekend, and the college 15s season is basically over:

#1 BYU v #3 Cal

#2 Life v #5 Saint Mary's

#19 UC Davis v #17 Notre Dame College

It's highly unlikely that Saint Mary's would be ranked over BYU or Cal because the Gaels lost to both of those teams, with BYU winning twice. Should BYU or Cal just crater on Saturday and Saint Mary's play perfectly, maybe the Gaels move ahead of the losing Varsity Cup team. But that's unlikely.

Life, however, is still in the hunt for #1, and would earn it with a strong win over Saint Mary's and BYU losing, or playing really poorly in a win. If Cal beats BYU, the Bears could be #1, especially if Life loses to Saint Mary's.

Anyone who had played those teams might see a little shift of somebody wins really big. 

If UC Davis wins big over Notre Dame College, then they might push closer to #10. But NDC's big loss in the fall to Davenport is sort of a glass ceiling for them. They'd have to unleash a performance that really says they're different now. Beating AIC was close, but to negate a 38-3 loss takes a lot.