The only objection to such a high ranking at this point is we haven’t beat anyone of note, Teams that looked tough prior to the season haven’t done well, for example Idaho. Our top win is probably Idaho State, which preseason looked easy. So we still are a little untested.

Montana has defeated a tougher team than anyone we’ve beat, Northern Iowa. That’s kind of scary.

Maybe they should just recommend that recruits look elsewhere. Seems reasonable.

perhaps it’s relevant that they were better after those guys left in 2016?
Sac State has always seemed to have large recruiting classes. Can’t keep that up unless players leave..

Hopefully still true after today, our rushing defense is ranked second in the Big Sky,
RUSHING DEFENSE G Att Yards Avg. TD Yards/G
1. Weber State 3 108 266 2.5 2 88.7
2. UC Davis 3 128 427 3.3 5 142.3
3. Portland State 4 151 608 4.0 8 152.0
4. Idaho State 4 153 741 4.8 6 185.2
5. Montana State 3 122 567 4.6 9 189.0
6. Eastern Washington 4 214 777 3.6 5 194.2
7. Northern Arizona 3 128 591 4.6 8 197.0
8. Idaho 4 156 845 5.4 5 211.2
9. Northern Colorado 4 183 883 4.8 14 220.8
10. Cal Poly 3 87 795 9.1 9 265.0
11. Southern Utah 3 123 831 6.8 8 277.0
12. Montana 4 233 1124 4.8 11 281.0
13. Sacramento State 3 153 1072 7.0 13 357.3

Hopefully winning some playoff games at the FCS level will get recognition similar to winning some of the no name FBS bowls. If that’s the case then better to be big fish in small pond

We could lose any game on our schedule but we have a solid chance to win any game. Indeed if we continue to play to the form we’ve established this year we’ll be favored in every game except EW with the Montana game even because they are at home. I think we’ll improve over what we’ve done so far.

Perhaps the opponents but I think Massey is based on more than just points. I think Idaho State has given up a lot of yards

Would that we had a 49-10 4th quarter lead to fritter away every Saturday.

Not to count our chickens before they hatch but this weeks results seem to bode well for us. Sac State and Montana games appear a little more winnable.
Suddenly Idaho State seems as good a team anyone on our schedule except Eastern Washington. Fortunately this ones at home.

I understand your point but I think it’s human nature to lose intensity with a big lead. I think it’s correct that the positives early outweigh the negatives later.

I missed watching the game due to being out of country and Pluto didn’t work. What I’m curious about is we played numbers on defense before
without things falling apart We only had a traveling squad in this game so I don’t think we played guys who hadn’t played in earlier games. So what’s the reason? Just momentum?

If one is myopic one can’t see California from there. I’ve said for a while that we will always be low in polls until we beat Montana, EWU or when we play them Montana State. Montana is the media hub of the big sky. Doesn’t matter much who you beat in California, Arizona or Oregon,

Ok, I admit I lost interest after a couple of Gould seasons... But in our transition years we smoked Montana State. We won the much underrated Great West, and we finished third in the Big Sky one year. Not satisfying but not “disappeared”.

that’s spot on. Won’t change them, have to bypass them. They’ll get in the bandwagon only if we generate enough fan interest first. Whoever is marketing the program should realize that unlike virtually any other program of this size there is no local print content being generated and need to generate content in house.

To me it’s too negative on our FCS past, it’s not that we disappeared, but that’s sports writing.
But it illustrates that you need to beat the name Big Sky teams which we haven’t done. And I’m not talking Northern Arizona, which we beat a couple of years ago and no one noticed.

Welcome to FCS

I’m not sure how to feel about this one. They haven’t played anyone where the outcome wasn’t almost preordained.
If their team from 2017 had played San Jose States 2017 team they would have been 10 point favorites. So either we are in for some trouble or their football talent has fallen off rapidly. I think it will be a competitive game unless we are clicking on both offense and defense. I think our upside is huge but we haven’t put it all together yet.

No governor?

This is a bell weather game for them.
They have some challenges, new freshmen offensive linemen, unsettled QB position, lost most of their receivers to graduation, gave up the most sacks in FBS last year.
Still this will reveal a lot about our team.
San Jose didn’t seem prepared to play us, they got better as the game wore on. Would we beat them again if we played a new game? Maybe Idaho has San Jose level talent but better coaching
San Diego maybe not as good as last two years. They should have done better against Harvard.
Can we replicate the defensive effort against Stanford in a more routine game?
Hopefully we can put the first half offense against San Jose together with the defensive effort against Stanford.