This was an entertaining NCR D1 ranking to update, but also a tough one to work on.

First off, we'll address the fact that Fordham won a game and drops out. This is tough, because Fordham did indeed beat Harvard. But ... Fordham had already lost to Iona and were ranked #20. We were looking at teams poised to come into the Top 20 and the #20-ranked team is almost always the most likely to drop out (not always, but often). We were thinking about dropping out Iona after their huge loss to Dartmouth, but Iona, as we said, had already beaten Fordham. So Fordham has to stay behind Iona until something happens that changes that dynamic.

Could we have still dropped out Iona as well? Yes. Yes we could. Wisconsin's huge win over Minnesota almost prompted us to put the Badgers in there. We're on the fence about that but will wait for next week's Purdue at Wisconsin game. Likely the winner of that game goes into the Top 20.

AIC has won two games against solid ranked teams. The games have been very close, but, really, this has been a good couple of weeks for the YellowJackets. They move up, and one of the teams they beat in a close game, Fairfield, get pulled up with them despite not playing. 

However, it's a bit of a house of cards for AIC. Indiana, Iowa Central, and Southern Nazarene all played D1A opponents. Those games are very difficult to judge because the results are all pretty much expected. SNU lost to a 2nd-side Air Force team, and Air Force is not ranked as highly as Lindenwood or Arkansas State, so they nudge down a spot (update; this was actually SNU's 2nds so sorry about that as they beat Montana State. Fortunately a one-slot drop isn't much of a penalty either way). Indiana doesn't move down much yet, but two big losses to Army and Lindenwood will have to pay off with lessons learned for them to hold onto #6. Iowa Central moves down mostly because other teams move up—they don't get penalized for a loss to Arkansas State.

Those two teams to move up are ... AIC, which we talked about, and Dartmouth. Yes, Iona gets hit after the loss to Dartmouth, but we're looking at that result from two perspectives. Dartmouth had already beaten a pretty good Syracuse team and then put 69 on Iona. It's possible ... possible that Dartmouth is one of the top teams in the Liberty. We'll keep an eye on it, but right now the Big Green moves up to #7.

But back to the house of cards. Because teams are moving past some teams who lost to D1A teams, or are challenging those teams (such as Indiana), we might see major changes. If Iowa Central takes so much out of their loss to ASU (which they are likely to do) that they get stronger, we'll see them move up. Same with Indiana. Sam with SNU. And Belmont Abbey, which just beat SVU, could beat another team in the Rugby East and move up as a result.

So buckle up.