I am grateful to have a vote in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 media poll for the 2025 season. I’ll publish my ballot every week and provide some reasoning for my order.
Notes at the bottom.
FCS Top 25
1. North Dakota State
2. Montana
3. Montana State
4. Tarleton State
5. Lehigh
6. Harvard
7. North Dakota
8. Tennessee Tech
9. Mercer
10. UC Davis
11. Monmouth
12. South Dakota State
13. Youngstown State
14. Villanova
15. Abilene Christian
16. Illinois State
17. Southern Illinois
18. SFA
19. Southeastern Louisiana University
20. Rhode Island
21. Western Carolina
22. Jackson State
23. South Dakota
24. Austin Peay
25. Northern Arizona
Leaving: Lamar
Entering: South Dakota
“There wasn’t much drama in FCS results this weekend.”
That’s how I started last week’s Top 25 breakdown.
Jinx!
Seven upsets occurred this weekend. Four Top 10 teams lost. Six ranked teams lost to unranked teams.
No. 24/25 ACU beat No. 2/2 Tarleton State
Indiana State beat No. 4/5 SDSU
Idaho State beat No. 6/6 UC Davis
South Dakota beat No. 8/10 North Dakota
UIW beat No. 14/14 Lamar
Idaho beat No. 19/21 Northern Arizona
Southern Utah beat No. 22/24 Austin Peay
I’ve done about 25 different versions of my Top 10, and I hate them all. No matter how you rank it and rationalize it, there will be fair rebuttals.
There were times when I kept teams like Tarleton State and UND ahead of Lehigh and Harvard. But that meant not moving those two teams at all after losses because teams behind them also lost. And I didn’t like that. But losing on the road to rivals/teams in the playoff hunt in close games is different than UC Davis and SDSU losing at home to Idaho State and Indiana State. There were times when I had Lehigh at No. 4, and I didn’t like that. I’m not convinced Lehigh is the 4th-best team. But they have kept winning dominantly, and they have beaten a couple of good Ivy League teams who are now 5-2 (Penn and Yale, who are in the conversation of being Top 25ish teams). Lehigh’s opponents have a combined record of 37-29.
Is Lehigh better than Tarleton State? Maybe not. Is it fair to not drop Tarleton any spots while dropping UC Davis and SDSU a few spots? Maybe not.
That’s the dilemma when that many Top 10 teams lose in one weekend.
Do you move them behind teams that you didn’t think were as good a week ago, just because of one loss? Do you take overall body of work into account? Do you take injuries into account? Do you reward teams for winning despite their strength of schedule not being as strong? Do you try to move teams that got upset down an equal number of spots? Do you try to weigh which upsets were worse than others? How do you compare undefeated teams that haven’t beaten anyone good to a team with a couple of FCS losses in a Top 10 toughest schedule? Do you just reward wins? Or is that not fair to teams playing tougher schedules? After all, a 4.0 general studies student isn’t necessarily smarter than a 3.8 pharmacy student.
It makes for entertaining debate and chatter. And while it’s a tough task for voters, it’s more fun than a vanilla weekend of results where all the favorites win. There will be a lot to pick at in any ballot, including mine. Trust me, I hate it too. And to all the rebuttals about where a team is ranked, I say “fair point.”
