Polls/Rankings as of 10/26/2015

[ST_Lawson]

Just for reference, in my experience of watching the various FCS polls for quite a while, the AGS (AnyGivenSaturday.com) poll seems the be the most accurate (and no, it's not just because we're ranked higher in that one). STATS poll (and Sports Network, when it was that) is still decent, but not quite as good, the FCS coaches' poll I have very little regard for (they seem to only look at previous poll + win/loss record rather than who the team played, margin, other circumstances, etc.). Also, the Sagarin ranking (a computer-based ranking) is fairly accurate although seems to have a little bit of a MVFC bias to me.

MVFC teams and other Western opponents ranked in the various polls this week (previous week in parentheses following team name):

STATS FCS Poll
#2 Coastal Carolina (2)
#3 Illinois State (3)
#7 North Dakota State (8)
#14 South Dakota State (6)
#18 Northern Iowa (22)
#21 Indiana State (18)
#23 Western Illinois (20)
#25 Youngstown State (16)
Others Receiving Votes:
#28 South Dakota
#34 Eastern Illinois
#36 Southern Illinois

AGS Poll
#1 Illinois State (3)
#3 Coastal Carolina (4)
#6 North Dakota State (8)
#11 South Dakota State (5)
#18 Northern Iowa (21)
#19 Western Illinois (16)
#24 Indiana State (17)
Others Receiving Votes:
#26 South Dakota (28)
#28 Youngstown State (19)
#31 Southern Illinois (T-38)
#34 Eastern Illinois (NR)

FCS Coaches' Poll
#1 Coastal Carolina (1)
#3 Illinois State (4)
#6 North Dakota State (8)
#13 South Dakota State (6)
#21 Northern Iowa (25)
#23 Indiana State (21)
#24T Youngstown State (17)
Others Receiving Votes:
#27 Western Illinois
#33 South Dakota
#34 Eastern Illinois

Sagarin Rankings (numbers listed on left are in all of Div. I, including FBS, numbers in parentheses indicate rank in FCS)
#67 Illinois State (1)
#70 North Dakota State (2)
#83 South Dakota State (3)
#94 Northern Iowa (6)
#108 Youngstown State (13)
#114 Southern Illinois (16)
#117 Western Illinois (18)
#136 Indiana State (26)
#150 South Dakota (35)
#213 Missouri State (85)

[Western_101]

EIU would not even be a middle of the pack team in the
mvfc. Only team EIU is better than would be MSU.

[ST_Lawson]

EIU would not even be a middle of the pack team in the
mvfc. Only team EIU is better than would be MSU.

Well, to be fair, the AGS and FCS Coaches' polls do have EIU behind everyone in the conference except for MSU.
STATS poll has them barely ahead of Southern IL as well.
Also, Sagarin has them at #146 overall, which just barely ahead of South Dakota.

Plus, EIU did take Illinois State to overtime, eventually losing by 3. They started off with three straight losses against strong teams (us, Northwestern, and Illinois State), then won the first 4 in-conference against pretty easy opponents. They'll win their next one against Murray State, but then they get tested against a top-3 ranked Jacksonville State, a decent (4-2 overall) UT-Martin, and then (currently 5-2) Eastern Kentucky. Those last three game will really show if they're a good team and we just caught them early before anyone had a chance to remember how to play football, or if they're a mediocre team that got lucky with an easy schedule mid-season.

Gotta remember, even a middle-of-the-pack MVFC is still as good as most other conference's champions.

[ST_Lawson]

The College Sporting News GPI (Gridiron Power Index) for this week is out: http://www.collegesportingnews.com/arti ... 27gpi.html
Here's the schools we play this year and conference members:

#1 Illinois State
#3 North Dakota State
#5 Coastal Carolina
#7 South Dakota State
#13 Northern Iowa
#14 Western Illinois
#22 Youngstown State
#25 Southern Illinois
#26T Indiana State
#28 South Dakota
#34 Eastern Illinois
#98 Missouri State

The GPI is historically been one of the most accurate predictors of the playoff field.