Southern Utah Close To Breaking Into FCS Top 25 Rankings

The Football Championship Subdivision, better known as the FCS, has released it’s annual Stats Perform Top 25 preseason poll.

As the tradition goes, the votes compiled help give fans, teams and media an understanding of who is the predominant favorite and who is on the rise.

Set to be released every Monday as the season unfurls, the poll will change and adapt as the season does, based on upsets, big wins and general overall results.

But with it being released now, fans can get a grip on who to keep a close eye out for when the FCS season begins with Idaho State taking the field for a week zero battle with UNLV in sin city on August 23^rd.

This year, North Dakota State University was the overwhelming pick, with 54 of 56 first place votes in their favor.

This isn’t a shock, as NDSU, has been the preseason darling 8 of the last 14 years and has the longest active streak of appearances in the top 25 poll with 203 showings.

The Bison are last years champion as 35-32 victors over Montana State.

With 10 titles under their belt since 2011, one would be wise to pay heed to NDSU.

Last years #1 seed and runner up in the title game, Montana State slots in to where they finished last year, as the team right behind the Bison.

South Dakota State, South Dakota and Incarnate Word round out the top 5.

The future home of Utah Tech and Southern Utah, and the Current home of Weber State, the Big Sky conference, touted the most teams in the Top 25, those being:

#2 Montana State

#7 Montana

#8 UC Davis

#12 Idaho

#15 Sacramento State

#19 Northern Arizona

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The United Athletic Conference, the home of Utah Tech and SUU for one more year, had two teams make the cut:

#10 Tarleton State

#16 Abilene Christian

No Utah FCS team made the top 25, but Southern Utah, who went 7-5 last year and 6-2 in conference play did receive votes putting the T-Birds right on that bubble.

The 25^th team, the Richmond Spiders, received 154 points whereas the teams just outside had 139 (Harvard), 127 (Southeast Missouri) and 123 (Southern Utah).

So if you want to get technical, SUU currently is the 28^th ranked team in the FCS.

Neither Weber State nor Utah Tech received votes.

All three FCS teams in Utah will play multiple of these Top 25 teams through the regular season at home and on the road.

If you want to watch these Top 25 teams right here in Utah, here’s what dates to pay attention to.

Utah Tech will host:

#8 UC Davis, August 30^th, Season Opener.

#10 Tarleton State, October 11^th

Southern Utah will welcome the following to Cedar City:

#19 Northern Arizona, September 13^th

#16 Abilene Christian, October 18^th

Appearing in Ogden to do battle with Weber State will be:

#15 Sacramento State, October 11^th

#7 Montana, November 1^st

#19 Northern Arizona, November 22^nd, regular season finale.

These are just the home games, with more preseason Top 25 squads scheduled on the road, it’ll be fun to see how the local teams respond to some tough sledding ahead.

If anything, the schedule will give the Wildcats, Trailblazers and Thunderbirds a chance to prove their mettle early and often.

Ratings and rankings are cool, but when it’s time to put it all together on the gridiron itself, the results are bound to vary and we cant wait to see what transpires.