Fully a dozen teams moved four or more spots this week.
The reason for that is we finally saw some teams with strong preseason rankings hit a speed bump. Oddly, while we move three teams out of the Top 10, only one of those teams lost. Virginia tied D3 team Hampden-Sydney; Georgetown beat Salisbury (but in a very close game), and then Villanova lost to Scranton.
We are not surprised to see Scranton do well, and they deserve a move up; we just needed a game like this to do it. Georgetown might be harshly treated, because we could have moved Salisbury up, as well. However, it was difficult to tell SLU, Montana State, or UNH that they should move down after all performed well over the weekend. UVA might be harshly treated also when they played a team that isn't actually an opponent that would challenge them as the top D2 team in the Cardinals Conference. But we don't think the Cavs took H-S lightly.
Grand Valley State moves up because they beat quite handily a ranked side and a big rival in their conference. Objectively we think they are a strong team. But ... they haven't played as tough a schedule as the teams in the MARC play. UNC-Wilmington, meanwhile, keeps beating D1AA teams, so we're thinking maybe they should be moved up.
We also have some movers near #40 and that's just a case of lower-ranked teams winning games they needed to win to move up. The team to keep an eye on right now? University of Maryland Baltimore County, up four spots to #29; RPI, up three spots to #3; and yes, Scranton.
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