Poll Guesses, October 19

Guess, Team (Record), [Previous Rank]
1. NDSU (7-0) [1]
2. Eastern Wash (7-1) [2]
3. New Hampshire (5-1) [3]
4. Coastal Carolina (7-0) [4]
5. Villanova (6-1) [5]
6. Jacksonville State (5-1) [6]
7. Montana (5-2) [7]
8. SE Louisiana (6-2) [8]
9. Montana State (6-2) [9]
10. Illinois State (6-0) [10]
11. McNeese State (4-2) [11]
12. Fordham (6-1) [12]
13. Bethune-Cookman (6-1) [16]
14. Chattanooga (4-3) [17]
15. South Dakota St (5-2) [18]
16. Richmond (5-2) [19]
17. William & Mary (4-3) [15]
18. Southern Ill (5-3) [14]
19. Eastern Ky (6-1) [13]
20. Youngstown St (5-2) [21]
21. Harvard (5-0) [25]
22. Albany (5-2) [NR]
23. Indiana State (4-3) [22]
24. Northern Iowa (3-4) [20]
25. Sacred Heart (6-1) [NR]


NR Char Southern (5-2) [23]
NR Sam Houston St (3-4) [24]

[Comments below.]

Quite a weekend of football! The top of the list did all right (of course, four of the top-12 were not “at risk” because they had Byes). But over half of the teams at the bottom (7 of 13) lost, including two significant upsets.

With 13, 14 and 15 losing, the block of teams that won just below them will surely move up to fill the gap. Then it gets tricky. I do not think William & Mary will get hurt too bad, since they lost to the #5 team. That’s also why I don’t expect #22 Indiana State to get hammered too bad, since they lost on the road to #1.

#13 Eastern Kentucky, however, lost to Tennessee Tech, an unranked team that still -- after the upset -- has a losing record. I dropped them quite a bit, and wouldn’t be surprised if they get pushed even lower.

#20 Northern Iowa played #18 SDSU pretty tough, so I don’t expect them to drop too much. Still, they now have a losing record, so that may hurt them more than I’m guessing. In fact, I kept them in while dropping #23 Chas Southern out of the top-25 ... but it could be CS's 5-2 record will keep them in while UNI’s losing record drops them out.

Oddly enough, except for Sacred Heart, the top “Others receiving votes” for last week lost (Delaware, for example), so I'm guessing that Heart’s 6-1 record should move them into the top-25.

Should be even more interesting than usual tomorrow!

stick a fork in UNI, they are done. Fordham still remains my sleeper, how good are they?

NorthEndZoneDan said:

stick a fork in UNI, they are done. Fordham still remains my sleeper, how good are they?

Click to expand...

I tend to agree about UNI ... their remaining schedule, which includes NDSU, Illinois State, and SIU, looks like a killer.

Fordham has a great record, but I'm not so sure about their sleeper-ness. They have won by a lot of points (nearly 35, not including the Villanova game). However, 'Nova absolutely blew them out, 50-6. So, while the winning margin looks wonderful, the combined records of those six opponents is 8-31, and two of them have yet to win a game. Still, their upcoming opponents in the Patriot aren't so hot either, having a 14-19 combined record. They do have to go through Colgate and Bucknell to win the conference (Fordham and those two are all undefeated in conference). [I can't remember. Does the Patriot now get an auto-bid?]