Sagarin says

[westnodak93bison]

Dont care about MT ST my only concern is Youngstown.

Agree. I wonder if the spread has every been two touchdowns between #1 and #2.

[CaBisonFan]

Dont care about MT ST my only concern is Youngstown.

Yup...this old playoff rival will bring it. Our defense simply must answer.

[riceweb]

Using Sagarin's Predictor rankings, NDSU (74.59) is currently ahead of the MAC-leading Ohio Bobcats (69.07). Not too shabby. It'll be fun to check again when the teams are well connected.

[THEsocalledfan]

It'll be fun to check again when the teams are well connected.

I knew a few girls in college who were, ahem, "well connected" to the team. I never knew whole teams did the same thing.

[SamsRams]

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt12.htm

this says NDSU at 50..........where are you all seeing 46?? I know I know I should just claim stuff and not use a link, but it aint my style

[tjbison]

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt12.htm

this says NDSU at 50..........where are you all seeing 46?? I know I know I should just claim stuff and not use a link, but it aint my style

Those were Sept 29th rankings

Today is Oct. 1st

[Tatanka]

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt12.htm

this says NDSU at 50..........where are you all seeing 46?? I know I know I should just claim stuff and not use a link, but it aint my style

ndsu is 46 in the predictor column...

[BisonNation11]

I can't imagine where'd we be ranked if our SOS was half of what it is now.

[Hammersmith]

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt12.htm

this says NDSU at 50..........where are you all seeing 46?? I know I know I should just claim stuff and not use a link, but it aint my style

I was wondering how long it would take for this question to come up this year. Took longer than I expected.

Look at the ratings on the USA Today link. You'll see this for NDSU:

                               RATING    W   L  SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 10 | VS top 30 | ELO_CHESS    | PREDICTOR  
 50  North Dakota State   AA =  74.31    4   0   46.11( 209)    0   0  |    0   0  |   71.79   59 |   74.59   46

Notice the columns labeled RATING, ELO_CHESS and PREDICTOR. Sagarin(the guy) likes the PREDICTOR rating. It includes margin of victory and is the best predictor of future games(hence the name). The BCS wanted to use Sagarin's ratings, but didn't like that margin of victory was included. In order for Sagarin's numbers to be used for the BCS calculation, he had to strip margin out of the computation. That resulted in the ELO_CHESS version which only looks at wins and losses. For some reason, either Sagarin or USA Today decided to create a third computation which sort of splits the difference. That became the RATING number.

The main list is arranged using the RATING computation. Personally, I prefer the PREDICTOR column because Sagarin himself says it's the most accurate. It takes a little more work to redo the top-10 FCS teams and top-4 FCS conferences as PREDICTOR rankings, but I think it's worth the time. Either I've convinced enough other posters to switch to my side or they're just sick and tired of this explanation. Either way, most of BV seems to use the PREDICTOR column now. Of course NDSU seems to always rank a little higher in the PREDICTOR ranking, so that might also be the reason.

[Tatanka]

I can't imagine where'd we be ranked if our SOS was half of what it is now.

Teams that player dii or naia schools are enjoying some big time SOS inflation. As it stands for ndsu, pvamu is going to be an anchor in that ranking all year long. But hey at least they ain't valpo.