G-5 AP 2018 Pre-season rankings

[Coach Bill Lewis]

 

[Ben Gooding]

No. 

[wardly]

Gee,3 Sun Belt Conference teams.

[outoftown]

What do yall think: By how much does UNT have to stomp the ponies to get a vote or two?

[Harry]

Damn man, FAU is #33 - can you imagine how much excitement if we were able to get in he top 25 this season?  We should be pulling for FAU to win every game except ours and we get them at home to boot!  GO MEAN GREEN!!

[untjim1995]

I’m really surprised this hasn’t happened yet. Somebody in the media will try and make this stick after UCF claimed a national championship last year as an undefeated team that the Power Leagues wouldn’t allow to come anywhere close to their playoff.

[Salsa_Verde]

Army?!.....At the twelve spot? No way. 

[Withers940]

Ha... Army. 

[oldguystudent]

Army?  How they gonna win any games now that Rhyan England is graduated and out terrorizing his battalion with explosives instead of hunting knees in the secondary? 

[MeanGreenTexan]

Army:   No Bradshaw, no chance.   They'll be good, but they wont be great.

FAU:  Still think they're going to struggle a bit more this season without lil Briles & the other Kiffin.

FresnoSt: will be this year's G5 darling.   Coach Tedford has that team skyrocketing.

N.Ill:  I'm telling y'all, we need to get in with those guys.   If C-USA expands again, we need to think about nabbing them and another MAC team (Ohio?) to pair with them.

[Cr1028]

11 hours ago, wardly said:

Gee,3 Sun Belt Conference teams.

I remember we used to beat Sun Belt teams to get into the New Orleans Bowl and get beaten by CUSA teams. Now we beat CUSA teams to get into the New Orleans Bowl and get beaten by Sun Belt teams. 

[wardly]

Great analogy!

[HoustonEagle]

Can someone explain to me like I am 5 why Arkansas state is getting so much love?  They lost to Nebraska, SMU, Troy, South Alabama and Middle Tenn. with no wins that step out and some are giving them top 25 votes.  What am I missing?

 

[TheColonyEagle]

43 minutes ago, HoustonEagle said:

Can someone explain to me like I am 5 why Arkansas state is getting so much love?  They lost to Nebraska, SMU, Troy, South Alabama and Middle Tenn. with no wins that step out and some are giving them top 25 votes.  What am I missing?

 

Nothing against Ark St.....but I don't get it either

Does Phil Steele have influence here? He put them in his top 25. Do people that vote just look at lists and basically copy them?

Like I said...I'll root for Ark St...but I don't get the top 25 love...

being in front of UH, USF and Fresno is a little ridiculous

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by TheColonyEagle

[Aldo]

App State and Troy and Army are all replacing their QBs. That's lofty expectations.

App State and Troy defenses are pretty decent though. Still, higher than a team like SDSU?

But kinda shows how volatile G5 can be imo

[TIgreen01]

6 minutes ago, HoustonEagle said:

Can someone explain to me like I am 5 why Arkansas state is getting so much love?  They lost to Nebraska, SMU, Troy, South Alabama and Middle Tenn. with no wins that step out and some are giving them top 25 votes.  What am I missing?

 

They have one of the easiest (at least according to preseason rankings) schedules in the country.  With lots of experience coming back.  

https://philsteele.com/2018/03/21/toughest-opponent-records-for-2018/

In fact, those 3 Sun Belt teams that are ranked at the top of this thread are all facing bottom 10 schedules.

Check out UAB.  Another reason they are getting so much love.   

[TIgreen01]

1 hour ago, Prettylittleeagle said:

Thats one thing about rankings that I don't like. If UH was to play Ark state they would slaughter them. If Texas A&M who to my knowledge isn't ranked in the top 25, would slaughter ark state, yet they are rank 25? It just doesn't make sense, and I get it, we need to be happy for our G5 partner, but really come on. 

[Arkstfan]

AState returns a QB who will be the school career TD pass leader sometime around the fourth or fifth game in his third season. Some nice transfers in at WR (will likely start an Arkansas transfer on one side and an Oklahoma transfer on the other). Return a defensive tackle who would have been the second fastest defensive lineman at the last combine if he had participated.

Four losses by a combined 27 points and out-gained the opponent in all four, just got clobbered with turnovers.

SMU was the only one that wasn't that close and our QB went out fairly early.

Face only three teams that had a winning record in 2017 and only Alabama is on the road.

Toss in 5 league titles in seven years,  the 18th longest bowl streak in FBS at 7 consecutive years and sooner or later it adds up to someone giving you some respect.

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by Arkstfan

[greenminer]

5 hours ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

N.Ill:  I'm telling y'all, we need to get in with those guys.   If C-USA expands again, we need to think about nabbing them and another MAC team (Ohio?) to pair with them.

Side note: their in-state brethren, Southern Illinois , have one of the best monikers out there, besides The Mean Green of course

[Arkstfan]

1 hour ago, greenminer said:

Side note: their in-state brethren, Southern Illinois , have one of the best monikers out there, besides The Mean Green of course

Until last year, the Salukis were AState's third most played opponent in football.

Back in the 80's when SIU was being named a top party campus I remember watching the coaches show and the first half highlights were hard to see because of the smoke from all the grills, wind finally changed directions. Friends who went up there said there was easily 20,000 people outside the stadium grilling and drinking with the game on the radio and maybe 7,000 inside the stadium.

[MeanGreenTexan]

7 minutes ago, Arkstfan said:

Until last year, the Salukis were AState's third most played opponent in football.

Back in the 80's when SIU was being named a top party campus I remember watching the coaches show and the first half highlights were hard to see because of the smoke from all the grills, wind finally changed directions. Friends who went up there said there was easily 20,000 people outside the stadium grilling and drinking with the game on the radio and maybe 7,000 inside the stadium.

Sounds like Fouts during the Dodge years... except instead of smoke obstructing the view, it was an infestation of crickets.

[oldguystudent]

4 hours ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

Sounds like Fouts during the Dodge years... except instead of smoke obstructing the view, it was an infestation of crickets.

I should've invested in aluminum and InBev during the Dodge years.  Lord knows I personally kept both industries afloat. 

[GrayEagle]

14 hours ago, oldguystudent said:

Army?  How they gonna win any games now that Rhyan England is graduated and out terrorizing his battalion with explosives instead of hunting knees in the secondary? 

He was also a headhunter.  Remember the helmet-to-helmet with Jalen Guyton?  

[greenminer]

1 hour ago, GrayEagle said:

He was also a headhunter.  Remember the helmet-to-helmet with Jalen Guyton?  

There was already a recent discussion about the tackle.  Was there a helmet hit on Guyton, too?

[Ben Gooding]

19 minutes ago, greenminer said:

There was already a recent discussion about the tackle.  Was there a helmet hit on Guyton, too?

Uh, yes. Knocked Guyton out. Arms lookin rigor mortis kind of knock out. 

Of course, refs waived the flag off.