The Underdogs Poll is a weekly ranking of college football's top non-power FBS teams. Voters from SB Nation sites Bull Run, Down The Drive, Hustle Belt, Miner Rush, Mountain West Connection, The UConn Blog, Underdog Dynasty, Vanquish The Foe, and Voodoo Five.
2014 Underdogs Poll, week 6: ECU, Cincinnati on collision course
Week 5 saw widespread conference play kick off, and in return, we’re now seeing things in the Underdogs Poll will get a bit more confusing before they get clearer.
As the non-conference games die down, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for these teams to grab national attention, which makes slip-ups in conference play that much more detrimental to these teams’ dreams of playing in a New Year’s Day bowl game.
| RANK | TEAM | POINTS | PREVIOUS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BYU (13) | 279 | 1 |
| 2 | ECU (5) | 268 | 2 |
| 3 | Marshall (1) | 245 | 3 |
| 4 | Cincinnati | 186 | 4 |
| T-5 | Nevada | 180 | 7 |
| T-5 | Northern Illinois | 180 | 6 |
| 7 | Colorado State | 159 | 10 |
| 8 | Boise State | 106 | 5 |
| 9 | Temple | 84 | 15 |
| 10 | UCF | 70 | 9 |
| 11 | Air Force | 56 | 22 |
| 12 | Memphis | 54 | 12 |
| T-13 | Middle Tennessee | 49 | 25 |
| T-13 | Navy | 49 | 8 |
| 15 | Wyoming | 38 | 14 |
| Dropped Out: UTSA, Old Dominion | Others Receiving Votes: Louisiana-Monroe (38), Georgia Southern (36), WKU (32), SDSU (28), Houston (27), Bowling Green (22), Old Dominion (20), Toledo (14), UTSA (12), Utah State (11), Arkansas State (10), UTEP (7), SJSU (6), Louisiana Tech (4), WMU (3), Texas State (2), FAU (2), Akron (2), North Texas (1) | |||
Week 5 saw the kickoff of widespread conference action, and while our top three teams all saw byes, there was plenty of action, and some movement in the poll as a result.
Cincinnati may have lost by 22 points on the road at Ohio State, but thee Bearcats showed plenty of reasons to believe they could challenge for the No. 1 spot. Quarterback Gunner Kiel's playing how he looks: wise beyond his years. The freshman has an astonishing 14 touchdowns through three games, but even more impressive is the play of his junior wideout, Chris Moore.
Saturday night against the Buckeyes, Moore hauled in three passes for 221 yards and three scores. That doesn’t count the potential long catches taken away by interference, flagged or otherwise. UC has some obvious flaws (IT CAN’T STOP THE RUN), but it should be able to challenge ECU for American Athletic Conference supremacy. They meet November 13.
Elsewhere around the poll, Nevada has continued to look strong, Boise slipped up once more, and Colorado State just keeps winning.
Then there’s Temple. The Owls have bounced around this poll quite a bit early on, and a solid win over a bad UConn team has probably again caused some inflated value for Bill Cosby’s team. But even with the weak schedule Temple has played, it takes some talent to have the fifth-ranked scoring defense. With the Owls off this weekend, we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see whether or not they’re for real.
Speaking of whether or not a team is for real: Air Force may not have had the preseason hype that Navy had, but with the Falcons currently sitting at 3-1 with a solid win over Boise State, this weekends’ battle with the Midshipmen will go a long way towards deciding which service academy we should put our stock in for the rest of the year.
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