Before the season started, many disagreed with our selection of Minnesota State-Mankato as the number one overall team in D2 Football in our preseason HeroSports. We were [lightbox full=”http://www.[CDN_URL]upload/uploads/d2football-7.jpg” title=”http://www.d2messageboard.com/showthread.php?65706-Bennett-Rank-2014-Preview”]blasted on message boards[/lightbox] and comment sections by people who said the top spot should belong to reigning D2 Champion Northwest Missouri State. After all, they said, the Bearcats hadn’t lost in 15 games! Surely they had done enough to deserve top-billing going into the season. This Bennett guy is off his rocker.
The following is our preseason top five:
Preseason HeroSports
1. Minnesota State-Mankato
2. Minnesota-Duluth
3. St. Cloud State
4. Northwest Missouri State
5. Lenoir-Rhyne
Many said the AFCA Coaches Poll and D2Football.com had much more accurate preseason rankings. For a refresher, their preseason top fives looked like this:
[one_half]
AFCA Coaches Preseason Poll
1. Northwest Missouri State
2. Grand Valley State
3. Minnesota-Duluth
4. Colorado State-Pueblo
5. North Alabama[/one_half]
[one_half_last]
D2Football.com Preseason Poll
1. Northwest Missouri State
2. Grand Valley State
3. Colorado State-Pueblo
4. Minnesota-Duluth
5. Minnesota State-Mankato[/one_half_last]
It took a Pittsburg State upset over Northwest Missouri State for the AFCA Coaches and D2football.com polls to come around, but their rankings are finally starting to conform to ours. The following are the current top fives:
[one_third]
BennettRank
1. Minnesota State-Mankato
2. Sioux Falls
3. Minnesota-Duluth
4. Pittsburg State
5. Lenoir-Rhyne[/one_third]
[one_third]
AFCA Coaches Poll
1. Minnesota State-Mankato
2. Minnesota-Duluth
3. North Alabama
4. Henderson State
5. Lenoir-Rhyne[/one_third]
[one_third_last]
D2football.com Poll
1. Minnesota State-Mankato
2. Henderson State
3. Minnesota-Duluth
4. North Alabama
5. Ferris State[/one_third_last]
Northwest Missouri State, the team they both ranked number one from the preseason through last week, has fallen to #10 in both polls. HeroSports has the Bearcats at BR-6, just two spots lower than before the loss. Pittsburg State is an excellent team. Going into the game, we had the Gorillas ranked BR-5, just one spot behind BR-4 Northwest Missouri State. A loss to a quality opponent won’t send a team like Northwest Missouri State plummeting.
BennettRanks are predictive, not reactionary. We’re not here to give teams a pat on the back for wins, nor are we interested in punishing them for losses. We want to predict how teams would fare if they faced one another on a neutral field, and to do that, a steady hand is necessary. That’s the biggest difference between our rankings and human polls: people react to what they see. They’re stubborn, volatile, or both. We were blasted for our D2 preseason football rankings, but we didn’t change a thing about how we go about our business, and the season has played out very much like we expected so far.
If one wanted to poke holes in our preseason top five, one might point to St. Cloud State. The Huskies are currently 3-4, and probably out of the playoff picture, but even with a sub-.500 record they’re still in our top 25. Remember — predictive, not reactionary. St. Cloud State’s four losses haven’t changed the makeup of the team, just showed us where they actually stand. When you consider their four losses were at BR-1 Minnesota State-Mankato, at BR-4 Sioux Falls, to BR-10 Upper Iowa, and to BR-3 Minnesota-Duluth — all BR Top 10 teams — you realize this team might not be so bad after all.
The rest of our preseason top five is still ranked in our top six. The other two polls featured Grand Valley State in their preseason top fives. Grand Valley State is 3-4, with losses at BR-104 Azusa Pacific, to BR-25 Ohio Dominican, at BR-8 Ferris State, and at BR-57 Michigan Tech. Grand Valley State’s ranking was based on what they did last season, not what they were expected to do this season.
The season isn’t over yet, there are plenty of games left to play, but so far we feel good about our predictions. We’re looking forward to the games this weekend, just like our rankings.
