The poll gets interesting

My ballot this week. Although Cal Poly won’t get the No. 1 nod, I have to put it there. SLO is unbeaten and has an FBS win, nobody else can say that.
Bison don’t slide very far because a batch of top 25 teams lost last weekend including four of the top five with No. 4 James Madison barely escaping. I refuse to put unbeaten Harvard in my top 25; play somebody.
 
 
  1. Cal Poly
  2. Eastern Washington
  3. North Dakota State
  4. Montana State
  5. Georgia Southern
  6. Old Dominion
  7. Illinois State
  8. Wofford
  9. Northern Arizona
  10. South Dakota State
  11. James Madison
  12. Tennessee State
  13. Stony Brook
  14. Sam Houston State
  15. Towson
  16. Appalachian State
  17. Indiana State
  18. New Hampshire
  19. Lehigh
  20. Youngstown State
  21. McNeese State
  22. Villanova
  23. Albany
  24. Delaware
  25. Central Arkansas
  •  
 

20 thoughts on “The poll gets interesting

  1. Is Harvard the FCS program to Boise State of the FBS?

    1. EW
    2. Georgia Southern
    3. Cal Poly
    4. NDSU
    5. James Madison
    6. Montana State
    7. Wofford
    8. Old Dominion
    9. Northern Arizona
    10. SDSU
    11. Illinois State
    12, Stony Brook
    13. Tennessee State
    14. Harvard (Boise State FBS respect)
    15. Sam Houston State
    16. Appalachian State
    17. New Hampshire
    18. Lehigh
    19. Towson
    20. Villanova
    21. Indiana State
    22. YSU
    23. McNeese
    24. Delaware
    25. Albany

    • Harvard is a non-scholarship program (like the rest of the Ivy League) and has not played anybody. They beat San Diego of the non-scholarship Pioneer League. They beat Holy Cross and Bucknell of the Patriot League (which is non-scholarship this year for football, but will offer 15 at the start of the 2013 season (but still don’t this year)). Then they have beaten Cornell and Brown of the Ivy League. So Harvard has not beaten a single team that awards athletic scholarships. Hence why that have not played anybody.

  2. ndsu should still be # 1, poly and ewu are not better football teams.
    brent vigen needs to switch things up on offense, trent miles scouted the short level passing game and had his defense in the right spot. heck half the time brock threw to a spot and didnt even look at the defensive player. wheres the screens, the crossing patterns, the TE down the middle, just pathetic display of offensive play calling.

    • You can call all the fancy plays you want, but if you have poor execution, you’re not going to get anywhere. Vigs knows how to call a game. The players just did not play well. Jensen threw his 3rd pick on a crossing pattern. When you’re players come and play flat, that’s not anything that play-calling can fix.

    • And you would know that Cal Poly and EWU are not better than NDSU how Sam? Their undefeated, NDSU is not. They deserve to be ranked higher. You would be upset if the reverse were true and they had one loss and NDSU did not but were ranked lower. Stop being such a homer.

  3. This will be an interesting Saturday. Do the Bison bounce back in a big way or are they slowed by injuries and maybe go down for a second straight week? Does UNI pack it in and watch the Jacks run right over them? I think the Jacks are on a roll and destroy UNI with their ground game. I’ll say SDSU-38 UNI-13. It was a big win for Southern Illinois but we will see this week if UNI is a good win or if they are done. Do we know how serious Vraa, Crockett and the others injuries are? Jeff or Dom, last week Terry Vandrovec told me that the NDSU-USD game had only sold 6,500 tickets. What’s going on? Why are Bison fans staying away?
    GO BISON!

  4. James Madison is for real and should be ranked in the top 5! Their only loss this year has been to West Virginia, a ranked FBS team as opposed to EW win over Washington State (2-5), NDSU win over the lowly CSU Rams and Cal Poly’s win over the Wyoming Cowboys (1-5).

    • Eastern Washington lost to Washington State. Their FBS win was against Idaho, 20-3, in the season opener. The issue with James Madison is that their last two wins have been really close wins over a 3-3 Towson team and a 2-5 William & Mary team, and that one went to overtime where W&M went for the win on their two point conversion instead of kicking the PAT to tie. EWU just went into the #3 ranked team’s house and beat them.

  5. Our d gave up 3 points. Our offense could not have played worse and we lost by 3. I do not think we will drop from #1 but we do need to win out from now.
    SU 1
    Ewu 2

  6. 4 of 7 of the computers used for the GPI (FCS BCS Rankings) have NDSU still at #1. They were #2 in 2 of them and #5 in the 3rd. Depending on the human polls, they should still either be #1 or #2 when it comes to the GPI which helps determine playoff seeding. The loss squashed the dreams of an undefeated season but with many others in the Top 25 losing, it did not derail home field advantage yet. Their destiny is still in their own hands.

  7. It is hard to place Cal Poly. Undeafeted but no wins against a top FCS team and FBS Wyoming is awful this year. Cal Poly at EWU in a few weeks will help sort out the top team from Big Sky and probably the number 1 seed for the playoffs.

  8. I think everybody is getting a little too excited about the polls, there are still 5 long weeks of games left and lots can change. Just a few short weeks ago, we were hosting UND in the semi-finals of the playoffs and it looks now like they may not win another game. Let’s let the schedule play out and see who is still standing in the conference at the end of the regular season.

  9. Bottom-line of the loss is Brock threw three interceptions, two returned for points and one killing a potentially game tie-ing/winning final drive.

    Watch the first one (at 4:51 into the Craig Bohl Show). Brock isn’t under pressure, he has a man open. Watch Brock’s head: once he gets the snap he never looks anywhere but towards the primary target, broadcasting to this good defense exactly where the ball is going to go. but he overthrows by about 10 yards right into the defender’s numbers. That isn’t the fault of the receiver, the line, or the play caller. That’s on no one but the guy who threw the ball.

    The second pick (at 8:34 in the Show) six could almost be forgiven as a freak event, as the guy who runs it in nabs it off a deflection. But it deflected off another defender who almost had it himself. And again Brock never checks any other target or does anything to hide the fact he’s going to throw it straight to that spot. He had all kind of time to find a target too, since the line and fullback did a great job picking up the rushers.

    The final pick(10:31) Brock has a bad throw to Ryan. Again he is broadcasting his primary target. He throws it behind Ryan, even though he has all kinds of time again. If the guy who does grab had missed there’s **another** defender behind him just standing there waiting for it to hit him in the numbers. Don’t forget this is after two other bad throws this drive (not in the Show) that luckily had pass interference called.

    Brock screwed up, big time, three times and it cost us the game.

  10. I am shocked. How is UNI even getting one vote. They would actually be ranked 32nd I think. Were heading into week 8 and they don’t even have one win that counts. It is truly amazing. What a joke. Is anyone else just slightly amused by this?

  11. NDSU’s o coordinator needs to earn his money and last weekend he didnt and we as fans deserve answers. better yet he left brock and the recieivers out to dry on a couple of those patterns. mix it up, teams have scouts and film ya know

  12. One loss and the sky is falling? Maybe ISU was just the better team on this given Saturday. NDSU’s opponents also recruit, have athletes, practice, have game plans, and are out to win every week.
    One week at a time and maybe hold off on moving to FBS talk, Sagarin ratings, or buying your FCS tickets without realizing there are other FCS teams who are very good and vying for a W each week.
    Back to reality!

  13. It’s a good thing you’re not the AD. I can’t imagine what it would look like if Gene Taylor fired every O-coordinator we had who lost two games in two years while winning a national championship.

  14. I agree BIGTIME, but I hope we play them again in the playoffs. Until then Bison have to get refocused and play hard this Saturday, you know “One game at a time.”