ESPN's 2014 Preseason Football Power Index shows the following:

AAC:
UH 34 CF 48 Ci 58 N 60 EC 75 T-O 79
Me 82 SM 84 Te 85 SF 86 Co 93 T-L 94

MWC:
BO 53 Ne 65 FS 68 US 76 CS 78 SJ 80 SD 87
LV 95 Ha 101 AF 104 Wy 105 NM 109

http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings
The MWC has 5 teams ranked lower than AAC's lowest.
The AAC has 2 teams ranked higher than the MWC's highest.

(05-26-2014 01:15 PM)HoustonRocks Wrote:  ESPN's 2014 Preseason Football Power Index shows the following:

AAC:
UH 34 CF 48 Ci 58 N 60 EC 75 T-O 79
Me 82 SM 84 Te 85 SF 86 Co 93 T-L 94

MWC:
BO 53 Ne 65 FS 68 US 76 CS 78 SJ 80 SD 87
LV 95 Ha 101 AF 104 Wy 105 NM 109

http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings
The MWC has 5 teams ranked lower than AAC's lowest.
The AAC has 2 teams ranked higher than the MWC's highest.

Houston and UCF as the conference "powers" - no surprise. Not much space (75 to 86) between the 6 schools in the middle. Also - no surprise. :)

They have ECU and UTSA ranked side by side. UTSA lost its 5th year senior QB last year. I think that's off.

(05-26-2014 01:25 PM)TIGERCITY Wrote:  

(05-26-2014 01:15 PM)HoustonRocks Wrote:  ESPN's 2014 Preseason Football Power Index shows the following:

AAC:
UH 34 CF 48 Ci 58 N 60 EC 75 T-O 79
Me 82 SM 84 Te 85 SF 86 Co 93 T-L 94

MWC:
BO 53 Ne 65 FS 68 US 76 CS 78 SJ 80 SD 87
LV 95 Ha 101 AF 104 Wy 105 NM 109

http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings
The MWC has 5 teams ranked lower than AAC's lowest.
The AAC has 2 teams ranked higher than the MWC's highest.

Houston and UCF as the conference "powers" - no surprise. Not much space (75 to 86) between the 6 schools in the middle. Also - no surprise. :)

I wouldn't be surprised if those 'middle schools' are almost interchangeable. We'll see I guess.

(05-26-2014 01:39 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  They have ECU and UTSA ranked side by side. UTSA lost its 5th year senior QB last year. I think that's off.

In fairness, that's literally all they lost. They have more returning starters than anyone in the country and went 8-4 last year. I don't think they are better than ECU, but they are in the same ballpark.

(05-26-2014 08:36 PM)banker Wrote:  

(05-26-2014 01:39 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  They have ECU and UTSA ranked side by side. UTSA lost its 5th year senior QB last year. I think that's off.

In fairness, that's literally all they lost. They have more returning starters than anyone in the country and went 8-4 last year. I don't think they are better than ECU, but they are in the same ballpark.

you are about to be destroyed by ecu fans

We played both last year, I was more impressed with UTSA's athletes on defense, especially on the second and third level. The fact they have their whole defense back makes me believe they should be pretty stout on that side of the ball. ECU has a lot of defensive question marks this season, but have the offense to cover up a lot of that.

Like I said, there isn't that great of separation between the two teams.

(05-26-2014 10:45 PM)banker Wrote:  We played both last year, I was more impressed with UTSA's athletes on defense, especially on the second and third level. The fact they have their whole defense back makes me believe they should be pretty stout on that side of the ball. ECU has a lot of defensive question marks this season, but have the offense to cover up a lot of that.

Like I said, there isn't that great of separation between the two teams.

Wrong conference mate. If you are here to puff you're chest about beating us than ****, I should point you towards Rice.

You lost to ohio, who we basically tore apart in the bowl game.

(05-26-2014 10:45 PM)banker Wrote:  We played both last year, I was more impressed with UTSA's athletes on defense, especially on the second and third level. The fact they have their whole defense back makes me believe they should be pretty stout on that side of the ball. ECU has a lot of defensive question marks this season, but have the offense to cover up a lot of that.

Like I said, there isn't that great of separation between the two teams.

You have no idea what you are talking about in terms of the ECU def. We return very good and deep players everywhere. The secondary will have some question marks, but we have good athletes replacing the ones we lost at Safety and Boundary Corner.

The lbs we lost split about half their time with superior players, superior players who are returning at both the wil and inside lb position. Def is our not the biggest concern for ECU next year, the OL is.

(05-26-2014 10:45 PM)banker Wrote:  We played both last year, I was more impressed with UTSA's athletes on defense, especially on the second and third level. The fact they have their whole defense back makes me believe they should be pretty stout on that side of the ball. ECU has a lot of defensive question marks this season, but have the offense to cover up a lot of that.

Like I said, there isn't that great of separation between the two teams.

Not surprised you would think that based on what you saw last year. ECU has traditionally had its annual crap the bed game and last year that game was Marshall. If our preseason ranking was based on what we did vs Marshall then we should be ranked around 120. I think UTSA has a solid team and capable of competing for the CUSA Championship in 2015. Marshall has a very good team as well and even if our game vs you guys had been played at ECU, we still would have been doing well to win a close game. I don't think we would have been blown out like we were at Marshall where everything just went wrong for us that day. I have watched almost ever ECU game from 2014 in recent weeks and the Marshall game was just flat out ugly for us. It is games like Marshall that still have a segment of ECU fans who have doubts about Ruff. Everybody loves him but sometimes the team comes out flat for big Conference games like Marshall where CUSA East was on the line. He gets them pumped up for rival games against ACC schools but never closed the deal in CUSA East. We have to be able to win big Conference games on the road like Marshall last year and UCF two years ago to be successful.

ECU has a lot of unknowns from how the OL will gel to our replacement of Coop at RB and how the Defense and especially the secondary will do. I am not going to be offended by any preseason rankings and quite frankly prefer to be overlooked than over hyped.

(05-26-2014 08:27 PM)Tigers2B1 Wrote:  

(05-26-2014 01:25 PM)TIGERCITY Wrote:  

(05-26-2014 01:15 PM)HoustonRocks Wrote:  ESPN's 2014 Preseason Football Power Index shows the following:

AAC:
UH 34 CF 48 Ci 58 N 60 EC 75 T-O 79
Me 82 SM 84 Te 85 SF 86 Co 93 T-L 94

MWC:
BO 53 Ne 65 FS 68 US 76 CS 78 SJ 80 SD 87
LV 95 Ha 101 AF 104 Wy 105 NM 109

http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ex-ratings
The MWC has 5 teams ranked lower than AAC's lowest.
The AAC has 2 teams ranked higher than the MWC's highest.

Houston and UCF as the conference "powers" - no surprise. Not much space (75 to 86) between the 6 schools in the middle. Also - no surprise. :)

I wouldn't be surprised if those 'middle schools' are almost interchangeable. We'll see I guess.

Two years ago we were probably the worst program in the nation. And not that being ranked in the 70s and 80s is to be considered ok, I don't want to be one of those teams long term ---- but we've come a hell of a long way in that short period. No doubt Fuente will continue to move us forward --- the guy can coach.

ESPN has 8 CUSA teams above 100 . . .

Granted I think the way they did these rankings kinda suck but geez

^ Yep! I noted in another thread about these predictions that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if the season plays out this way. The AAC would get the access spot and the extra money for being the top rated conference. Not that many publications pay a lot of attention to G5 schools, but the ones I've seen so far have the AAC at the top of the heap- FWIW.