DIAA-Level Men College Rankings Week 8

We have a very complicated situation to deal with, which we will in some detail, so let's dispense with the less complicated stuff.

Dartmouth beat one of the top teams in the Liberty Conference in convincing fashion, so the Big Green holds on to #1. Good thing they did that because Tennessee's win over Clemson would have been enough to take them to #1 had Dartmouth played poorly. We are loathe to drop Mary Washington down because they keep winning by large margins, but they haven't played the other two top teams in the Chesapeake, so UMW is like one of those gigantic rocks in the parks in Utah balancing on a single point. One nudge the wrong way and they could topple. On the other hand, if the Mothers beat Mount St. Mary's by a big score next week maybe they go to #1.

Notre Dame, of course, moves up after beating Bowling Green. Could Notre Dame be the #1 team? Certainly. Heck, we had Bowling Green at #1 just a couple of weeks ago, so, yes, that could be the case. But we thought Tennessee and Dartmouth had done enough to earn their spots, and UMW hadn't done anything to warrant being dropped. And remember, Notre Dame lost to Ohio State, a team Tennessee beat. 

Wheeling comes up more after the tie with Davenport. What's nagging at us is that Wheeling's best arguments for their ranking are not wins—close loss to Notre Dame College and a tie with Davenport. So #10, but no further. By the way, Queens vs UMW October 30 could have a huge effect on the rankings.

Some other big movers include Boise State, who beat Oregon State and quite convincingly, and James Madison, who hammered Delaware.

The MARC Puzzle

Here's how this goes. Salisbury beat Rowan, so Salisbury should be ranked above Rowan, right? But Salisbury has lost to West Chester, so then WCU should remain ahead of Salisbury. But ... WCU lost to St. Joseph's, who lost to Rowan, who beat Salisbury, who lost to West Chester, who lost to St. Joseph's.

You see? It's all circular. We tried separating them based on results against other teams, but they've all won those. We tried separating them based on scores among this group of four only: West Chester 41-45, Rowan 31-29, Salisbury 38-39, St. Joe's 36-33. Not much there. We tried tries: St. Joe's 6-5, Salisbury 6-7, Rowan 5-5, West Chester 7-7.

Two of these games were virtual ties, meaning both teams scored the same number of tries and the difference was conversions. The other two games saw a difference of one try per team. In the end we can't rop Rowan down too far or move Salisbury up too far based on a 12-10 result. And Rowan did beat St. Joe's, even if St. Joe's beat West Chester this week. So we keep the order but move them all closer together. Now the other thing is we won't really resolve this until November, when Salisbury takes on St. Joe's and then, a week later, West Chester faces Rowan. 

Of course if an improving James Madison trips somebody up so much the more interesting.

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Rank	Prev	Team	Conference	Notes
1	1	Dartmouth	Ivy League	Beat Northeastern
2	4	Tennessee	SCRC	Beat Clemson (8)
3	3	Mary Washington	Chesapeake	Beat Virginia Tech (42)
4	7	U. Notre Dame	Independent	Beat Bowling Green (2)
5	2	Bowling Green	MAC	Lost to U. Notre Dame (7)
6	5	Kentucky	SCRC	Beat South Carolina
7	6	Iowa Central CC	Independent
8	9	Queens University	Chesapeake	Beat Southern Virginia (31)
9	8	Clemson	SCRC	Lost to Tennessee (4)
10	13	Wheeling	Independent	Tied Davenport
11	11	Louisville	MAC	Beat Western Michigan (12)
12	10	Mount St. Mary's	Chesapeake	Beat NC State
13	14	Kansas	Heart of America	Beat Oklahoma State
14	12	Western Michigan	MAC	Lost to Louisville (11)
15	15	Cincinnati	MAC	Beat IUPUI (30)
16	16	Brown	Ivy League	Beat Harvard
17	17	Arkansas	Heart of America	Beat Kansas State (40)
18	22	Western Washington	NCRC	Beat Washington
19	20	Minnesota	Heart of America
20	18	Rowan	MARC	Lost to Salisbury (24)
21	21	Iowa State	Heart of America
22	19	St. Joseph's	MARC	Beat West Chester (23)
23	23	West Chester	MARC	Lost to St. Joseph's (19)
24	24	Salisbury	MARC	Beat Rowan (18)
25	30	IUPUI	MAC	Lost to Cincinnati (15)
26	25	CSULB	Gold Coast
27	26	Florida Atlantic	Florida
28	27	Arizona State	Gold Coast
29	28	South Florida	Florida
30	29	Central Florida	Florida
31	31	Southern Virginia	Chesapeake	Lost to Queens (9)
32	Unr	Boise State	NCRC	Beat Oregon State (32)
33	37	UT San Antonio	Lonestar	Beat UT Dallas
34	33	Fresno State	Pac West
35	34	UCSC	Pac West
36	35	Iowa	Heart of America
37	36	Texas State	Lonestar
38	38	Sam Houston State	Lonestar	Beat Angelo State
39	39	Chico State	Pac West
40	40	Kansas State	Heart of America	Lost to Arkansas (17)
41	41	Georgia	SCRC	Forfeit win
42	32	Oregon State	NCRC	Lost to Boise State
43	Unr	James Madison	MARC	Beat Delaware (44)
44	43	Mizzou	Heart of America
45	42	Virginia Tech	Chesapeake	Lost to Mary Washington (3)