People ask us how we put together these rankings, and we have to admit that sometimes it's a gestalt thing - just go with a feeling.

We do use as much data as we can, but sometimes the data doesn't help ... the data makes it more confusing. Sometimes we have to look at the rankings and just use our imagination - if Team A played Team B at the best possible time for both, who would win? It's tough to know sometimes, but that might be the explanation why a team is idle this week (or any week) and moves up or down.

In addition, sometimes we get results (data) that make our job more difficult. Three results come as examples for us: October 22, 2016, Notre Dame College 31 Indiana 30; October 1, 2016, Air Force 32 Navy 31; February 25, 2017, Clemson 34 Davenport 33.

All of these games were a situation where what we thought was the better team lost by a single point. In two of the examples the losing team was on the road and not in the prime of its season. In the other (NDC at Indiana), the losing team was missing two of their best players, one because he was training with the USA team (Bryce Campbell, who is still with the Eagles). Davenport's loss to Clemson comes as Clemson has had several games to get into the season, and Davenport has had to huddle up against winter, not play since November, and then go on the road.

Because of these results, we are pushed to rank Clemson ahead of Davenport, who is ahead of Notre Dame College due to a 26-24 win in October, and then NDC over Indiana, who also just lost to Arkansas State. And Air Force should be ahead of Navy.

But here's where it gets especially complicated. Navy beat Clemson 15-10 on a weekend when Clemson was also fielding a couple of 7s teams. Meanwhile, Air Force's results outside of their conference have not been good. They've played a bunch of good teams, and been beaten convincingly. In addition, other teams from the West DIA have struggled outside of their conference. Doe we take Navy's win over Clemson at face value, but then ignore their losses to Notre Dame College and Air Force? What about Davenport's 15-12 win over Arkansas State last fall? 

In the end, we've decided to de-emphasize some of these problematic results and move things around, but maybe not to anyone's liking. We forgive, but we don't forget. If Clemson pulls off another big result and Navy, say, beats Dartmouth convincingly this weekend, or if Indiana gets blown out by Penn State (or vice-versa) we might go back to those other results and revisit. At the moment, though, we've moved Clemson up, but a lone one-point win at home doesn't prove you're better than Davenport over the long run; we move Navy up, but Navy has to win more games; we move Arkansas State up, but Indiana hangs around, and is now ahead of Notre Dame College based on gestalt.

Arizona moves up after beating Arizona State. Cal Poly got thrashed by Saint Mary's and moves down. Arkansas and Baylor move up because we think they're good. LSU moves up because Arkansas State logged a good result, and LSU is on their coattails.

Oh, and by the way, there is currently a solid gap between the top four and the rest (although BYU could bounce back up to that top group fairly easily), and a massive gap between the top seven and the rest.