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Men Fall DI College Rankings Week #7

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Men Fall DI College Rankings Week #7

Steven Zomberg photo.

Not too many changes in the Men's DI fall rankings, however, one result has us making a shift for two entire conferences.

With Army's emphatic win over Air Force, Air Force gets bumped down, and because Air Force gets bumped down, so, too, do the other teams from the West DIA. In addition, Navy, which lost to Air Force by a single point (on the road) gets pulled down, too. Now, Navy could have stayed higher, but the Midshipmen have a fairly quiet fall - tough games, but not a lot of them, and they needed one more tough game to get out of Air Force's gravitational pull. They can do that next weekend with their game against Penn State. While Penn State will split their squad and play St. Joseph's also, we still think a good outing from Navy will (to use another metaphor) release some ballast.

So AFA, Colorado State, and Navy drop. Who benefits? Well Bowling Green has won impressively over everyone, and since Davenport beat Arkansas State, BGSU's 29-20 loss to the Panthers reflects quite well on the Falcons. So combine that with BGSU's fantastic MAC playoff efforts, and they move up. Same goes for James Madison. This is a case where we've essentially thrown out one of their losses, saying they're better now than they were. JMU is pretty darned good, that's sure.

Inertia as much as anything else sees Wisconsin, Ohio State, AIC, and Bowling Green move up the line. And so we come to Wheeling Jesuit and Kutztown. Kutztown almost beat Penn State this past weekend, losing 41-36. We looked at that, and the fact we had bumped KU past WJU, and wondered if we should throw out the WJU 33-20 win over KU from earlier this fall.

So, when in doubt, go to the data. Kutztown and Wheeling Jesuit played each other, and also have had six other common opponents. In three of those six games, Kutztown had the better result. In three, it was Wheeling Jesuit. Add to that the fact that Wheeling Jesuit actually beat KU, you'd think WJU was the better team (four better results to three). However, it's also worth noting that the difference in points is markedly on Kutztown's side. If you include the WJU v KU game, KU's points difference in those seven games is 180, WJU -180 ... a huge difference. So we could put KU ahead of the Wheeling Jesuit. We could ... but we won't. Not now. We'd love to see one or both of these teams play a bowl game (c'mon guys). 

We're still waiting on Tennessee and Kentucky. Would be nice to see them play out of their conference. The same goes for Baylor. Out of the top 50, Central Florida, Georgia, and maybe someone else from the SIRC could break in soon.

 

 

Goff Rugby Report All-DI Men's Fall 2016 Rankings - Week #7
Rank Prev Team Notes
1 1 Penn State Bt. Kutztown (15)
2 2 Notre Dame College Bt. Lindenwood-Belleville (17)
3 3 Indiana Idle
4 4 Davenport Bt. U. Notre Dame (31)
5 5 Army Bt. Air Force (8)
6 6 Arkansas State Bt. Oklahoma
7 10 Bowling Green Bt. Dayton, Cincinnati (46)
8 22 James Madison Bt. Virginia Tech (32)
9 11 Wisconsin Idle
10 12 Ohio State Idle
11 13 AIC Idle
11 13 Boston College Idle
13 16 Wheeling Jesuit Bt. Delaware
14 15 Kutztown Lost to Penn State (1)
15 7 Colorado State Bt. New Mexico
16 8 Air Force Lost to Army (5)
17 9 Navy Idle
18 17 Lindenwood-Belleville Lost to Notre Dame College (2)
19 18 Dartmouth Idle
20 19 Utah Idle
21 23 Tennessee Bt. Kentucky (20)
22 20 Kentucky Lost to Tennessee (23)
23 27 Iona Bt. St. Bonaventure
24 21 Colorado Idle
25 30 Mt. St. Mary's Bt. Virginia
26 25 St. Joseph's Idle
27 24 South Carolina Bt. Auburn
28 26 Missouri Bt. Oklahoma State
29 28 Baylor Bt. Texas State (40)
30 29 Arkansas Idle
31 31 University of Notre Dame Lost to Davenport (4)
32 32 Virginia Tech Lost to James Madison (22)
33 33 Alabama Bt. Florida
34 34 UMass Idle
35 35 Texas A&M Idle
36 36 Mary Washington Bt. Maryland
37 37 Towson Bt. Georgetown
38 38 Kansas State Idle
39 39 Rutgers Idle
40 46 Cincinnati Bt. WMU (42), lost to Bowling Green (10)
41 40 Texas State Lost to Baylor (28)
42 41 North Texas SMU
43 42 Western Michigan Lost to Cincinnati (46), Bt. Dayton
44 44 Michigan Idle
45 45 Temple Idle
46 43 Utah State Idle
47 47 NEC Idle
48 48 Pittsburgh Idle
49t 49t Binghamton Bt. Syracuse (49) 21-20
49t 49t Syracuse Lost to Binghamton (49) 21-20
49t 49t Fordham Idle