Men DI College Rankings Week 17

Well, it had to happen. With the #2 and #3 teams playing each other, the #1 team, Life, was in jeopardy unless they won big over #7 Davenport. They didn't. LIfe edged Davenport 28-25, and BYU edged St. Mary's 32-28. The results move the Cougars of Provo up to #1 and Life slips to #2. 

Normally, beating a top-12 team by over 70 points might warrant your team a move up, but for Cal, the higher-ranked clashes leaves them frustratingly, at #4. Davenport, by virtue of almost beating Life despite the absence of their best player, moves up to #5.

What to do about previous losses? Penn State beat Davenport in September. So shouldn't Penn State be ranked better than Davenport? We're not so sure. That was a long time ago, and it's our view that Davenport has improved since then. However, given Davenport's recent successes and Wheeling Jesuit beating Navy, we feel that Penn State, who beat both of those teams, needs to be shunted up a bit. You could argue that Army should be #5 and Penn State #6 above Davenport (who they beat) and Arkansas State (who Davenport beat). That's a legitimate argument, and we might still listen to it. Right now, our assessment is that Davenport got better, and their close loss to Life trumps Army's large loss to Life.

Big movers are LSU, who are back on the field and shut out Texas A&M 39-0 (!). And Central Florida got the FIU monkey off their backs and we once again see them as one of the best DIAA teams out there (watch for a DIAA-only ranking coming out soon!). Wheeling Jesuit of course moves up a lot after beating Navy, Middle Tennessee State also joins the Top 50.