The All Important Polls

[iramurphy]

2 hours ago, CMSioux said:

Come on Ira do you really think some of the last in teams with worse records were better than us. We win this week and 5 others ahead of us lose and we stay.put?

No I don't.  I don't think they were very good but I didn't think we were that good either.  We were decent. I thought we were going to get in.   If we are on the bubble, then we have to depend on someone else to get us in. We didn't get in, cuz we lost a couple of games we could  have won.  This year we are playing through adversity with the injuries and are playing well right now.  We lost a game at Stony Brook with a poor start offensively and a punt block.  We lost at Bowling Green with a poor start offensively and a missed 2 pt conversion.  Similar play for TD against CP with better thrown ball and better technique and catch by receiver would have been helpful at BG for the win.  If we don't get in this year it will be those 2 games that will haunt us.

Guys are playing hard. Studsrud played his best game of career against CP and followed with very good game against Sac St.  O line dominated Sac St and we are loaded at RB if we can stay healthy.  We have very good possession receivers and they are good athletes.  Defense remains of ur strength.  If we continue to improve each week, minimize penalties and get healthy we will be in and we I think we can take a run at a title.  I don't care what happened last year cuz it doesn't matter anymore.  Go Hawks!  

[iramurphy]

2 hours ago, homer said:

Winning matters right now but positions in the polls right now is equally important.  I am not 100% convinced the polls will take care of themselves. 

Winning is more important.  If we win the polls will catch up.  Big Sky team at 8-3 won't be left out.  

[CMSioux]

I thought I read that last year was the first that a 7-4 team was left out and a 6-4 team got in. It's all about the loudest voices in the room.

[Oxbow6]

4 minutes ago, CMSioux said:

I thought I read that last year was the first that a 7-4 team was left out and a 6-4 team got in. It's all about the loudest voices in the room.

Then win out........ problem solved but as I mentioned and so did ira a 8-3 Big Sky team will get in.

[dmksioux]

1 hour ago, CMSioux said:

I thought I read that last year was the first that a 7-4 team was left out and a 6-4 team got in. It's all about the loudest voices in the room.

Actually, W. Illinois had a 6-5 record.

[homer]

1 hour ago, CMSioux said:

I thought I read that last year was the first that a 7-4 team was left out and a 6-4 team got in. It's all about the loudest voices in the room.

Don't forget a 7-4 team with a FBS win. 

[Cratter]

27 minutes ago, homer said:

Don't forget a 7-4 team with a FBS win.

And a win vs a top ten team in the FCS playoffs.

[Vegas_Sioux]

The 0 for October last year didn't help

[nd1sufan]

4 hours ago, UNDBIZ said:

So much for style points making a difference. 

What style points? You beat a 1-5 team that lost at home to a Division 2 team. You don't get style points for that, you just better win. I heard someone (Jack Michaels or Joel Heitkamp) saying the toughest game left in UND's schedule may be Northern Colorado in Greeley. There are no style points left on your schedule. You just better win all of your games if you want a slam dunk playoff bid. 8-3 with that schedule is not a guarantee. 

[UNDBIZ]

3 minutes ago, nd1sufan said:

What style points? You beat a 1-5 team that lost at home to a Division 2 team. You don't get style points for that, you just better win. I heard someone (Jack Michaels or Joel Heitkamp) saying the toughest game left in UND's schedule may be Northern Colorado in Greeley. There are no style points left on your schedule. You just better win all of your games if you want a slam dunk playoff bid. 8-3 with that schedule is not a guarantee. 

And if we beat that 1-5 team by a score of 9-7 you'd be saying what about the UND football team today? 

[UND-1]

6 minutes ago, nd1sufan said:

What style points? You beat a 1-5 team that lost at home to a Division 2 team. You don't get style points for that, you just better win. I heard someone (Jack Michaels or Joel Heitkamp) saying the toughest game left in UND's schedule may be Northern Colorado in Greeley. There are no style points left on your schedule. You just better win all of your games if you want a slam dunk playoff bid. 8-3 with that schedule is not a guarantee. 

Southern Utah is the best team left and beating Poly will be big come end of the year.  

As we saw last year, all it takes is 7-8 wins and one good one.  EIU and UNH had all decent/poor wins and they got in.  

Oh, and you sound worried.

[Siouxperman8]

6 hours ago, iramurphy said:

He also has UND ahead of Stony Brook. Who cares?  Doesn't matter yet.  We just need to win the game we are playing and the polls will take care of themselves. 

The reason I think it matters where we stand now is that it is hard to move up but easy to move down with a loss.  At 24 we can't afford to move down at all.  If we were higher we could afford a loss much easier and still be in position for the playoffs.

[homer]

14 minutes ago, nd1sufan said:

What style points? You beat a 1-5 team that lost at home to a Division 2 team. You don't get style points for that, you just better win. I heard someone (Jack Michaels or Joel Heitkamp) saying the toughest game left in UND's schedule may be Northern Colorado in Greeley. There are no style points left on your schedule. You just better win all of your games if you want a slam dunk playoff bid. 8-3 with that schedule is not a guarantee. 

I think there is a chance Weber is ranked or flirting with the lower parts of polls when we play.  

Agree that we have to win the games.  8-3 gets us in.  7-4 is in he discussion.  I think the part that is easy to overlook is UND won't have a buy until the last week of the season.  Will that play a factor as the season goes along?  

[AJS]

3 minutes ago, nd1sufan said:

What style points? You beat a 1-5 team that lost at home to a Division 2 team. You don't get style points for that, you just better win. I heard someone (Jack Michaels or Joel Heitkamp) saying the toughest game left in UND's schedule may be Northern Colorado in Greeley. There are no style points left on your schedule. You just better win all of your games if you want a slam dunk playoff bid. 8-3 with that schedule is not a guarantee. 

I agree with this post. 8-3 might not be good enough depending on which game they lose. UND's 0-2 start really put themselves in a hole that they are just starting to dig themselves out of. Everyone is on the same page that every game here on out is basically like a playoff game. There are no teams left on their schedule that will be a real big shot in the arm to the pollsters like after the Cal Poly win. If they continue to win, I'd expect maybe gaining 1 to 3 spots a week, depending on what else happens. A loss however and when they lose could really be devastating. Each game is obviously important for one reason or another. They absolutely need to win the next 3.

SUU - UND is just beginning to get some traction again. A lose and they most likely fall out of the Top 25 and will have a mountain to climb the rest of the year                           @ISU - Bottom team in the Big Sky                                                                                                                                                                                                            Weber - Middle of the road team at home

After the next 3 weeks the playoff picture should be a little more clearer. They need the next 3. 

 

[AJS]

5 minutes ago, Siouxperman8 said:

The reason I think it matters where we stand now is that it is hard to move up but easy to move down with a loss.  At 24 we can't afford to move down at all.  If we were higher we could afford a loss much easier and still be in position for the playoffs.

What he said. 

[nodakhoops]

9-2 - in, Big Sky champs, good chance for top 8 seed as we would have been 2 plays away from 11-0.

8-3 - in, no question. Bison fans are idiots if they don't think an 8-3 Big Sky team doesn't get in.

7-4 - 50/50 depends how much quality our losses have.

6-5 or worse is out. Let's not kid ourselves we aren't Western Illnois & this isn't the MVFC even though the Big Sky was better head to head this year.

 

lets go for the first option and leave no doubt.

[iramurphy]

1 hour ago, Siouxperman8 said:

The reason I think it matters where we stand now is that it is hard to move up but easy to move down with a loss.  At 24 we can't afford to move down at all.  If we were higher we could afford a loss much easier and still be in position for the playoffs.

Good point but I guess I'm still more focused on winning the game we are playing.  That is the best way to influence the polls.  

[iramurphy]

1 hour ago, nd1sufan said:

What style points? You beat a 1-5 team that lost at home to a Division 2 team. You don't get style points for that, you just better win. I heard someone (Jack Michaels or Joel Heitkamp) saying the toughest game left in UND's schedule may be Northern Colorado in Greeley. There are no style points left on your schedule. You just better win all of your games if you want a slam dunk playoff bid. 8-3 with that schedule is not a guarantee. 

I'll take that bet.  Jack and Joel are media guys.  The toughest game on the schedule is the one we are playing each week.  I bet the media wouldn't have picked SDak. As your toughest game last year.  Style points?   Wins in the MVC and Big Sky are still wins against teams in good conferences .

[ClassB]

11 hours ago, iramurphy said:

He also has UND ahead of Stony Brook. Who cares?  Doesn't matter yet.  We just need to win the game we are playing and the polls will take care of themselves. 

I definitely think it matters. We didn't get in last year because we dropped a couple of bad games and then no one in our conference went to bat for us. AJ speaks to the big sky audience in his articles every day - he's never said a good thing about us yet. He helps control the public opinion.

[Siouxphan27]

Obviously a lot of ifs involved here, but the way the polls are shaping up, I could see us going 8-0, win the big sky conference outright, and end up as the third highest seeded playoff team out of the big sky.   Not playing Montana and EWU this year is going to be used against us.  

Add to that the fact MVFC teams with losing records are still rated ahead of us at this point in the season.  If those teams finally start stringing together wins the genius pollsters will think they were right all along in their rankings, and we won't leapfrog them even if we keep winning, with our schedule. 

Hopefully we can eek our way into the playoff field as 8-0 big sky champs. 

[UNDMOORHEAD]

Not too many people are going to give us respect so the boys are going to have to take it. Win out, get in the playoffs, and win some games once they're there. If that were to happen then they will have had back to back winning seasons, a playoff appearance, and some wins in the playoffs. All they would have to do after that is continue to string together winning seasons. If that happens they would then get the benefit of being viewed as a contender year in and year out. That should lead to a little bit of love in the polls year after year. Fair or not they haven't established a good pattern of being a contender in FCS and that is at least in part what the polls are based on for the people that never see us play. I think Bubba has this team on the path to becoming a playoff team every year.

[Siouxperman8]

18 minutes ago, UNDMOORHEAD said:

Not too many people are going to give us respect so the boys are going to have to take it. Win out, get in the playoffs, and win some games once they're there. If that were to happen then they will have had back to back winning seasons, a playoff appearance, and some wins in the playoffs. All they would have to do after that is continue to string together winning seasons. If that happens they would then get the benefit of being viewed as a contender year in and year out. That should lead to a little bit of love in the polls year after year. Fair or not they haven't established a good pattern of being a contender in FCS and that is at least in part what the polls are based on for the people that never see us play. I think Bubba has this team on the path to becoming a playoff team every year.

I agree with all of this.  What is too bad is that we didn't get into the playoffs last year to get this process jump started and a year further down the tracks.

[siouxfan512]

11 hours ago, nd1sufan said:

What style points? You beat a 1-5 team that lost at home to a Division 2 team. You don't get style points for that, you just better win. I heard someone (Jack Michaels or Joel Heitkamp) saying the toughest game left in UND's schedule may be Northern Colorado in Greeley. There are no style points left on your schedule. You just better win all of your games if you want a slam dunk playoff bid. 8-3 with that schedule is not a guarantee. 

A lot of negative marks on this post, mostly because it is from a Bison fan, but unfortunately it is true, and has already been stated on this boar. We don't play EWU or MT this year, and we didn't win our FBS game (however close we may have been). At this point Southern Utah and Northern Colorado look to be the best remaining teams on our schedule.

Since no remaining teams are ranked, the closest we can get to style points is to win multiple games, in the same fashion that we be Sac St. Shows that the offense can be consistently dominant, in addition to our defense.

[siouxfan512]

10 hours ago, nodakhoops said:

9-2 - in, Big Sky champs, good chance for top 8 seed as we would have been 2 plays away from 11-0.

8-3 - in, no question. Bison fans are idiots if they don't think an 8-3 Big Sky team doesn't get in.

7-4 - 50/50 depends how much quality our losses have.

6-5 or worse is out. Let's not kid ourselves we aren't Western Illnois & this isn't the MVFC even though the Big Sky was better head to head this year.

 

lets go for the first option and leave no doubt.

I agree with everything except for the top 8 seed. Not because wouldn't be deserving of it, but because I think the committee would absolutely snub us with those losses.

Hope we can find a way to win out, and hope that if we do that the committee give credit where credit is due.

[Siouxperfan7]

There are 5 games left this season.  If we go 4-1 and finish the season 8-3, no matter who that loss is to, we make the playoffs.  I don't care how bad the team that potential 3rd loss is to.  A team that is 8-3 in the FCS makes the playoffs every time.

But let's #leavenodoubt and finish the season 9-2 and win the Big Sky!!!