Griz remain at #3 in TSN poll, lose a lot of votes
The University of Montana Grizzlies still sit as the third ranked team in The Sports Network's I-AA rankings. While the Griz did not get bumped down in the rankings, they now have only 11 first-place votes after having 40 first-place votes last week. It looks like NDSU, who beat Minnesota this weekend, picked up most of those votes.
Here are the complete rankings, courtesy of The Sports Network.
Here are the complete rankings, courtesy of The Sports Network.
Others receiving votes: San Diego 250, Alabama A&M 211, Eastern Washington 147, Cal Poly 104, Eastern Illinois 96, Villanova 59, Holy Cross 56, Jacksonville State 40, Northern Arizona 38, Fordham 37, South Carolina State 33, Illinois State 30, Central Arkansas 23, Harvard 19, Hampton 12, South Dakota State 9, Sam Houston State 3, Austin Peay 2, Albany 1, Dayton 1.
Team (First-place votes) Record Points Previous Rank 1. Northern Iowa Panthers (56) 7-0 2,696 1 2. North Dakota State Bison (47) 7-0 2,621 2 3. Montana Grizzlies (11) 7-0 2,473 3 4. Massachusetts Minutemen (4) 6-1 2,411 4 5. McNeese State Cowboys (2) 7-0 2,335 6 6. James Madison Dukes 6-1 2,155 8 7. Southern Illinois Salukis 7-1 2,101 9 8. New Hampshire Wildcats 5-2 1,821 11 9. Delaware Blue Hens 6-1 1,679 14 10. Appalachian State Mountaineers 5-2 1,665 5 11. Wofford Terriers 6-2 1,533 7 12. Delaware State Hornets 6-1 1,340 15 13. Yale Bulldogs 6-0 1,240 16 14. Richmond Spiders 5-2 1,110 18 15. Hofstra Pride 6-1 1,057 10 16. Elon Phoenix 5-2 1,000 24 17. Eastern Kentucky Colonels 6-2 849 13 18. Nicholls State Colonels 5-2 849 13 19. Montana State Bobcats 5-2 813 20 20. Youngstown State Penguins 5-3 719 12 21. Grambling State Tigers 6-1 514 23 22. Georgia Southern Eagles 5-2 503 NR 23. Norfolk State Spartans 6-1 432 25 24. Western Illinois Leathernecks 5-3 288 17 25. The Citadel Bulldogs 5-2 282 NR
sadly these rankings don't mean much. And I really don't think the griz can match up against app st, Umass, Northern iowa. appst and nIowa have beaten Div-1a teams and a scary mention would be NDSU though not eligible this yr, have beaten 2 upper div teams. And the Umass defeat to BC ranked 2 in the nation wasn't a blow out in any sense. I hope I'm wrong but i doubt it.
I'm baffled that NDSU isn't No.1. I watched them just steamroll Minnesota on Saturday. From my perch in the upperdeck at the Metrodome, I saw what could be the best I-AA team in the country (not that I've seen them all, but NDSU was REALLY impressive).
I am thankful the Griz won't have to worry about the Bison making noise in the playoffs until next year!
As long as the Griz can hang in there and remain undefeated or just one loss, they can probably keep home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Even if some of these other squads are better, we have a good shot if we're at home. Just look at last year against UMass. In that game, UMass looked like the much better team, but we still hung around and had a chance to beat them at the end. So, in that sense, these rankings are important, and hopefully the Griz can hang around the top 2 or 3 (not including NDSU, who doesn't count for playoffs).