Athlon Sports Top 25

[HootyHoo]

https://athlonsports.com/college-football/college-football/athlon-sports-preseason-fcs-top-25-2021-spring

North Dakota State shall fall! The end is nigh!

Solid write up though...

[caribbeanhen]

Weber St seems to have emerged as the media darlings

this poll seems more accurate than the Hero poll

[OhioHen]

this poll seems more accurate than the Hero poll

Particularly with the relative positioning of Delaware and Southeastern Louisiana. I thing North Carolina A&T (if they get to play) is the biggest miss on this one (too low, IMO).

[Redbird 4th & short]

ISUr is not top 10 now (i.e. 9th), nor do I believe they will be in 8 weeks. If they are, I will be very pleasantly surprised. Just knowing what we've lost since 2019's top 8 finish, if we are top 20 end of season, this will be good start to our reload for next fall. Here's what we lost from 2019:

- graduation: #1 RB (Robinson, 80% of offense, NFL), #1 Safety (Kirk, NFL), #1 MLB plus 2 other good PT starter LBers)

- pandemic: #1 QB Davis (nothing special, but good leader), #2 RB Proctor (#1 this spring, 500 yards in 2019 behind Robinson), #1 DE McKnight (all MVFC, FBS starter at Charlotte), #1 CB Taylor (FBS starter at WV), #1 Safety Uphoff (NFL prep, Reese's top safety), plus #2 DT Podkudkulski (PT starter, injury, done with football)

Plus we play NDSU, UNI, SDSU all on the road, so likely 0-3 or 1-2 at best. Which most likely means have to go 4-1 in our other 5 games, just to get to 4-4 ... which should be a playoff bid, but probably not.

Our offensive skill positions will go 2 deep with what looks very likely to be .. no seniors and just 1 junior (WR stud Edgar), possibly even our 3 deep. We return very little statistically in terms of passing and rushing. WR group looks great ... but may be hard to tell, if we can't throw or run consistently. Our RB group is very young and talented .. also very unproven ... 3 RS FR and 1 SO will likely get all the reps. Rumor is SR RB Proctor left because they young guys are developing well and he didn't want to share a lot of reps after playing behind Robinson. Our back up QB will be a true FR from a small HS.

Our defense will have strong starters, but our 2019 depth took big hits from pandemic, as did our secondary starters. We lost 4 stud starters plus our MLB, plus 3 more PT starters from our 2 deep. To give you idea how good AND deep our 2019 defense was, we will still field a pretty good defense this spring .. but our secondary will be a big question mark, and are 2nd string will require some 3rd stringers to step up a lot. But getting banged up/injuries combined with spotty offense will wear our starters down.

8 conference games ... best guess 3-5, just can't even see 4-4 right now. I see this as Spring 2021 as opportunity to develop our youth for Fall 2021

[VandalBasher]

I don't care which FCS rankings are out there. I really don't like seeing Idaho as a "top 25" until it is earned. This hasn't been done up to this point.

[Mocs123]

North Dakota State shall fall! The end is nigh!



I'm not sure if the end of the run will come in the spring or the fall - but I bet they can't win both. That's too many games in a year without much downtime.