It’s a real wow or “yuk” in Arkansas’ case.
Hogs came in at #74, ahead of only TX San Antonio and UTEP. AR State came in at #33! Vandy was 2 spots ahead of us.
IMO, a really pathetic attempt at ranking. After back to back 2-10 seasons and 0-16 SEC record, I guess we should expect this.
Please, please, don’t let us go 0-10 this year!
Coming from USA Today, no major surprise. Rag.
Not a very impressive pediction IMO.
Surprised at A-State, not at UA.
No worries. We have some true talent, and an impressive coaching staff. I haven’t bet on sports in decades, but I’m REALLY tempted to bet our over. Man, do I wish we had a few real LBers!
GHG
I don’t guess I’m too surprised, but that’s still very disheartening. I’m convinced we’re better than that, but this schedule will make it awfully hard to prove. Heck, we could go 0-10 & still be better than many teams. Just no one would believe it.
Consider the reality of having Arkansas State ranked higher than 5 SEC and 4 Big 12 teams. That just seems bizarre.
Well you can bet the Ar St cronies will be out in full force using this ranking as a catalyst for UofA not wanting to play them.
Which is a very good reason to be skeptical of such a ranking. Unless Ar St is much much better than it has been historically, they’re just not better than many P5 teams. To my knowledge they’ve won exactly one game against a P5 opponent. Against a bad TAMU about 15-20 years ago. And it’s not like they’re coming off a 10-2 season with big wins & close losses to good teams. They did win their bowl game against a G5 program last year, but that was about it.
I’m not going to say we’re a better team than they are right now. A team that got blown out by N. TX & WKU over the past 2 years can’t claim to be better than anyone. However, I think our talent is better than it has shown under what was perhaps the most inept coaching in college football. The coaching staff is new & I believe is SEC caliber. We desperately need an SEC win.
Since 2011, when Hugh Freeze first got the program rolling, Arkansas State’s record vs. the Power 5 is 0-14, with an average loss margin of 27 points.
A-State is a good program in its conference. I’d be hesitant to say it is better than any Power 5 programs.
Thanks for that info, Matt. I didn’t know those stats, but I can’t imagine ASU has made the kind of leap from that history to be a top 33 team this year. USA today apparently fails to adequately consider the quality of opponents a team plays.
I think they frankly feel anything below 20 no one cares about anyway. So they just throw the last half in a pile.
I’d be interested to know if this is a reflection of a panel of USA Today reporters, or just Paul Myerberg’s opinion. The methodology isn’t explained.
It’s not uncommon for a single voice to be passed as the opinion of a news organization. For instance, when Baseball America rated Baum Stadium the best college ballpark a couple of years ago, it was actually just the opinion of its lead college baseball writer, Teddy Cahill.
There are more than a few dumb people ranking teams before they have played a game this fall.
Well I’m old school so I have no problem with it, respect is earned not given
I think #74 out of 76 teams is pretty salty stuff…way to go coach Mo; we can only go up.
Winning fixes everything
With this loss tonight, Arkansas State is 10-12 vs. Group of Five teams from outside the Sun Belt during the same time period.
What is “Group of Five” teams?
The Group of Five conferences are the non-autonomous leagues in FBS. They are the American, MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West and Sun Belt.