Top 25 Poll

[AppStFan1]

Is that the highest ever ranking for a Sun Belt program?

Yes. We had the highest ranking with 18 last season but that just got shattered by Coastal Carolina. Chadwell is a heck of a coach. He knows how to get media attention and I would imagine they will beat the spread in every game against SBC bottom dwellers.

I believe I read somewhere that its the second highest. Marshall was higher at one point back in their ‘belt days.

Marshall was never in the Sun Belt. I went back and checked because I did not think they had been. They were ranked in the top 10 back when they were in the MAC. Sun Belt has never had a team ranked in the top 15, until now. We were the record at 18 last year.

[EastHallApp]

Gotta give Liberty, an independent, credit for putting that schedule together this year. Three ACC opponents. Wow.

I agree. They're having an excellent season and have a couple of decent wins. I will still be surprised if they don't lose at least two games before the end of the season though. VT, NC State and Coastal are all likely "L" for the Flames. Should be interesting though.

I would favor them over State and say Coastal is about a toss-up.

[Apple@chin1]

Gotta give Liberty, an independent, credit for putting that schedule together this year. Three ACC opponents. Wow.

I agree. They're having an excellent season and have a couple of decent wins. I will still be surprised if they don't lose at least two games before the end of the season though. VT, NC State and Coastal are all likely "L" for the Flames. Should be interesting though.

I would favor them over State and say Coastal is about a toss-up.

Please, for the love of Christ, stop touting Liberty as a quality football team, worthy of a top 25 ranking. Their opponents combined record is 4-28! It is an absolute joke that they’re even receiving votes. I know they’re undefeated. Caldwell Community College would be undefeated playing against the competition they’ve faced. The meat of their schedule is in front of them. Let’s see how it plays out. Then we can offer them congratulations, if they’re unscathed. Hell, Coastal’s combined opponents record is a paltry 12-19. They’ve only beaten 2 teams with a winning record (UL & Stink). Being the highest ever ranked Sunbelt team doesn’t make them the best ever! They’re overrated too. I’m saving my judgement on CCU until after we play them. But, I will say that they’re considerably better than Liberty. And their success is good for our conference. So I give them a pass and an “at-a-boy” for drawing media attention to the Sunbelt. We all rise together!

[Yosef84]

Gotta give Liberty, an independent, credit for putting that schedule together this year. Three ACC opponents. Wow.

I agree. They're having an excellent season and have a couple of decent wins. I will still be surprised if they don't lose at least two games before the end of the season though. VT, NC State and Coastal are all likely "L" for the Flames. Should be interesting though.

I would favor them over State and say Coastal is about a toss-up.

I disagree, but it's just a feel. Really hard to get a true read. The good part is we'll get to see. Should be good games. It might be just wishful thinking because I want App to pass them by year end. I think we're living the old "Chinese curse": May you live in interesting times!

[EastHallApp]

Gotta give Liberty, an independent, credit for putting that schedule together this year. Three ACC opponents. Wow.

I agree. They're having an excellent season and have a couple of decent wins. I will still be surprised if they don't lose at least two games before the end of the season though. VT, NC State and Coastal are all likely "L" for the Flames. Should be interesting though.

I would favor them over State and say Coastal is about a toss-up.

Please, for the love of Christ, stop touting Liberty as a quality football team, worthy of a top 25 ranking. Their opponents combined record is 4-28! It is an absolute joke that they’re even receiving votes. I know they’re undefeated. Caldwell Community College would be undefeated playing against the competition they’ve faced. The meat of their schedule is in front of them. Let’s see how it plays out. Then we can offer them congratulations, if they’re unscathed. Hell, Coastal’s combined opponents record is a paltry 12-19. They’ve only beaten 2 teams with a winning record (UL & Stink). Being the highest ever ranked Sunbelt team doesn’t make them the best ever! They’re overrated too. I’m saving my judgement on CCU until after we play them. But, I will say that they’re considerably better than Liberty. And their success is good for our conference. So I give them a pass and an “at-a-boy” for drawing media attention to the Sunbelt. We all rise together!

What’s the combined record of the teams App has beaten?

I will say, you’re probably right about both Liberty and Coastal not being quite as good as their rankings. I’ll give Coastal the edge in that one, though not a huge one.

State is just not good, though. Liberty can be well short of top 25 and still better than them.

[AppStFan1]

I’m surprised CCU climbed to 15th. That’s impressive for any SBC team.

With the fact that the Pac-12 still has not played yet, and with so many top 25 teams losing, the voters are going to push up any undefeated team. I don't see Liberty as top 25 caliber yet but they are ranked now. CCU has a win over a top 25 team and they are undefeated so voters will push them up there. If we had played original schedule and were undefeated I would imagine we would have been around 10-12 now. I hope they keep pushing CCU up. We just have to be more creative and unpredictable if we are going to beat CCU. I could see them putting 30+ points on us.

[AppStFan1]

Gotta give Liberty, an independent, credit for putting that schedule together this year. Three ACC opponents. Wow.

I agree. They're having an excellent season and have a couple of decent wins. I will still be surprised if they don't lose at least two games before the end of the season though. VT, NC State and Coastal are all likely "L" for the Flames. Should be interesting though.

I would favor them over State and say Coastal is about a toss-up.

Please, for the love of Christ, stop touting Liberty as a quality football team, worthy of a top 25 ranking. Their opponents combined record is 4-28! It is an absolute joke that they’re even receiving votes. I know they’re undefeated. Caldwell Community College would be undefeated playing against the competition they’ve faced. The meat of their schedule is in front of them. Let’s see how it plays out. Then we can offer them congratulations, if they’re unscathed. Hell, Coastal’s combined opponents record is a paltry 12-19. They’ve only beaten 2 teams with a winning record (UL & Stink). Being the highest ever ranked Sunbelt team doesn’t make them the best ever! They’re overrated too. I’m saving my judgement on CCU until after we play them. But, I will say that they’re considerably better than Liberty. And their success is good for our conference. So I give them a pass and an “at-a-boy” for drawing media attention to the Sunbelt. We all rise together!

What’s the combined record of the teams App has beaten?

I will say, you’re probably right about both Liberty and Coastal not being quite as good as their rankings. I’ll give Coastal the edge in that one, though not a huge one.

State is just not good, though. Liberty can be well short of top 25 and still better than them.

Ask this question. Where would we all have App State if we played CCU's schedule and won by the big margins they are winning by? We would probably be in the top 12 by now.

As for the rankings, it is a joke. CCU is way too high and Liberty should not be ranked, and we don't deserve any votes right now but that is what is happening. I'm actually glad they are overrating SBC teams. If we win those games, and Marshall keeps looking good, then we will definitely be ranked pretty high.

[ah59396]

Coastal is 6-0 and pounding people. They beat a bad BIG12 team in Kansas but they handled them.

They beat a ranked UL in Lafayette.

They beat Georgia Southern by 2 TD’s with their back-up quarterback (a feat we’ve failed to accomplish twice).

Coastal has done everything they can to deserve their ranking. Dismissing them just makes us look petty and jealous that it ain’t us.

We will find out how good Liberty is this week when they see VT. They can solidify their ranking with a W or be gone from the polls for the rest of the year with an L.

[bigdaddyg]

Not only does the Top 25 include the Liberty juggernaut (record looks a lot like what UNCC had last year) it has CCU at 15 with the only quality win against La. There are also 2 teams at 0-0, one at 1-0, 3 at 2-0, one at 1-1 (that means of 25 7 are combined 4-1). There are also 4 teams with 4-2 records. This year more than ever things have to play out. While CCU looks nice in the poll they beat winless Kansas, FCS Campbell and what appears to be a horrible Ga State team. If they beat Troy at their place maybe the perceptions change.

[t4pizza]

The perception of CCU has already changed, maybe not to some of our posters but to the national media it has. They are all over the major college football media and getting rave reviews from everyone. And it isn't just the commentators, the computers are liking them more and more.
Going into this last weeks games the computers still had App as a 64% chance to win the game against UCC, it is now 45.4% chance App wins after this past weekends games. They have done everything, and more, than we have done in any given year (beat FBS and won as a ranked team) and yet some on here still seem to question them. Don't get me wrong, I think we beat them and beat them badly when we play, but they DESERVE all the publicity and rankings that they are getting. Not recognizing this just makes us sound like all those other team's fans that are dismissive when App gets recognition.

[bigdaddyg]

The perception of CCU has already changed, maybe not to some of our posters but to the national media it has. They are all over the major college football media and getting rave reviews from everyone. And it isn't just the commentators, the computers are liking them more and more.
Going into this last weeks games the computers still had App as a 64% chance to win the game against UCC, it is now 45.4% chance App wins after this past weekends games. They have done everything, and more, than we have done in any given year (beat FBS and won as a ranked team) and yet some on here still seem to question them. Don't get me wrong, I think we beat them and beat them badly when we play, but they DESERVE all the publicity and rankings that they are getting. Not recognizing this just makes us sound like all those other team's fans that are dismissive when App gets recognition.

Last year EVERY FBS team (by now) had played 7 or so games. We didn’t have complete conferences having played zero games. We didn’t have teams having played 7 games and some 2. I’ll give Coastal props for beating the teams on their schedule but to say that they are “legit” top 20...not so sure.

[EastHallApp]

Some of these posts are trying a little too hard to discredit other teams.

Coastal has earned their ranking. Liberty, maybe not to the same extent, but I don't have a gripe with them being ranked. My bigger issues would be with Iowa State and Army, along with Kansas State and Tulsa getting a lot of votes in both polls.

No matter how often the Big 12 reminds us it just isn't that good, the pollsters can't help themselves.

[EastHallApp]

Also why bother getting defensive about Coastal topping our highest ranking when it's midseason? If they end up the year beating our final ranking from last year, then tip your cap to them. Until then, their ranking is just a good opportunity for App to make a statement when we see them.

[JPatH3292]

Our fans (and I guess players) are irritated CCU is getting all the hype even though we have been the class of the sunbelt for the past couple years. They’ve had ESPN articles, viral locker room videos and college game days spotlight segments the past couple weeks. But as Nicholas Cage said above, trying to knock Coastal for their accomplishments is petty. It’s good when the sunbelt has more than just one or two great teams.

Assuming we take care of business the next 2 weeks:
We beat them - all that goes away for CCU. We become the top dog again (with the hardest part of our schedule just beginning) but still control our destiny.
They beat us - they control their destiny while we get to watch from the sidelines and try to finish out our season with only 2 loses (both to ranked teams)

[EastHallApp]

We took an ugly loss to a fellow G5 on CBS, then basically didn't play for a month while other Sun Belt teams were beating Big 12 opponents and racking up 4, 5, 6 wins. It's understandable that people forgot about us a bit. We've gotten a couple national TV wins, we're starting to gain more traction in the coaches' poll now, hopefully the AP will follow suit soon.

Meanwhile we should happy that Coastal and ULL give us the potential for a couple relatively high-profile wins, rather than toiling in obscurity like the Sun Belt does most years.

[mfrench]

I show ASU opponents YTD a combined 10-18...

[t4pizza]

I show ASU opponents YTD a combined 10-18...

Yes but those 10 wins include a 5-0 Marshall team that beat us. The combined record of the 4 teams that we have beaten is 5-18 with 2 of those teams (Campbell and ULM) having not won a single game. So we have played some real stinkers and really only looked like the team I expected to see in one game so far this season (Ark State).

[fjblair]

Who cares where so and so is or isn't ranked, we're not. We just need to focus on winning the games on our schedule.

[bigdaddyg]

Ok so Clemson didn’t destroy a horrible Syracuse team who they were favored over by close to 50 points and then Saturday had to rally to beat a middle of the conference BC team at home yet are still ranked number 1. Isn’t it important to beat the teams you play? Does anyone really think that voters have analyzed our win last week? Would 10 more points have made a huge difference? Again, CCU is doing great and they have some nice wins but if they are unbeaten and ranked like 10th in the country when we meet and we win will that victory get logged into our history book and the second biggest ever over a ranked team (behind Michigan)? Just throwing out something for debate. I’m not butt hurt over the rankings and I’m not belittling CCU’s accomplishments?

[t4pizza]

No, I do not think the voters analyze our wins but I do think they see the score and I do think margin of victory does play a big part in the perception of a team. I hope CCU keeps winning until we meet and beat them. The same goes with ULL and whoever we end up playing for the Sun Belt title (most likely ULL again). Hopefully after winning those games, along with all the other ones, we will be back in the rankings and national discussions as one of the best G5 teams. We dug a hole for ourselves with the loss to Marshall, but we can get out of it by playing up to our standard and winning out. The opportunity is there this year because CCU and ULL are respected teams this year. We just need to focus and take advantage of those opportunities.