Forgotten5 Group of Five Top 10 Poll, Week Thirteen

Well that was a, uh, fun week huh?

UCF absolutely dominated the Bearcats of Cincinnati, and everyone else… uh… made sure to show up and play.

Not an insane amount of shakeup in the rankings, since so many teams lost, but quality of win/loss definitely played a factor in some shifts in exactly where each team was ranked.

Away we go!

1. UCF – The Knights have now attritioned their way (its a word, shut up) into a #9 ranking in the latest CFP rankings, which now puts them one win over USF and another over UH/Memphis away from sneaking into “first out of the playoff” talk with a little more chaos. Say what you want, but the national media has now been talking about UCF for almost two full years, which is nothing but positive.
2. UAB – Yes, the Blazers lost, but we weren’t expecting them to win this one, and there’s only a couple teams with better records. Then again, the way the Blazers lost hurt a little more; falling by 21 in a game where they missed two field goals, an extra point, and fumbled the opening kick away. Play mistake free, and they probably lose by one score.
3. Boise State – Smacked the crap out of Foobaw Bawb and the Lobos. NEXT.
4. Fresno State – Their defense was not as dominant as I expected against a notoriously inconsistent SDSU offense, but it was still enough to clinch a title game appearance against the Boise/USU winner this coming weekend.
5. Army – Ho hum, another win against an FCS opponent. An otherwise-undefeated, ranked-in-the-top-eight-of-the-FCS-playoffs opponent, and now they’re on the doorstep of 10 wins. Again (Did I type that right, Alex? Back your power chair off my foot, Jesus. Animal)
6. Utah State – Do they have one loss? Yes. Did they literally just barely survive one of the worst and most inconsistent teams in the Mountain West? Also yes. They blew a 10-point lead twice, didn’t score on offense until the last minute, and were about a literal foot away from a massive Hail Mary upset.
7. Cincinnati – This wasn’t exactly a surprising outcome for a Bearcat team that had played well but finally met their expected superior. Still, Luke Fickell has only needed two seasons to get UC back to heights that are practically… Tubervillian.
8. Appalachian State – The Mountaineers continued to roll on, chugging through another weak Sun Belt opponent. I *almost* slipped them up another spot ahead of Cincinnati, but it seemed only right for them to be directly ahead of their opponent to decide the division title.
9. Troy – The Trojans were a bit more “survive and advance” in their half of setting up that title matchup. They only made it into the red zone once, and never got into the end zone against an improving Texas State defense, which doesn’t say good things about next week.
10. FIU/UH (tie) – Houston handled their business to set up a division-title matchup for which they will get Ed Oliver back, at which point their defense will be more Houston and less UConn. Meanwhile, FIU joins the party after surviving a Charlotte team that canned their coach this week. They’ve got the inside track to the CUSA title game (just need to survive Marshall)

Interesting matchups: 

Boise vs Utah State, Troy vs App and Memphis vs Houston all decide a division title. FIU/Marshall, MTSU/UAB, ULL/ULM and Arkansas State/Texas State will do the same a little less directly.