2024 Preseason Polls

[MSU01]

It's hard to think of anything more meaningless than end of season Top 25 polls. The MSU program is strong enough these days that if they didn't bring home the National Championship trophy, who cares if they're 9th or 19th or out of the poll entirely. MSU will be somewhere in the Top 10 to start next season and that's really all that matters, if they win their games they'll move up and be where they need to be by playoff time.

[Cat Grad]

Next year Haslam will not be the chair of the selection committee; therefore, that place 200 miles west that is continually draining Montana in general and MSU specifically will continue its downward spiral beyond irrelevance and force the MUS and BOR to take action. Meanwhile, everybody have a happy and prosperous new year. FTG! ESG & Go Cats Go!

[catatac]

It's hard to think of anything more meaningless than end of season Top 25 polls. The MSU program is strong enough these days that if they didn't bring home the National Championship trophy, who cares if they're 9th or 19th or out of the poll entirely. MSU will be somewhere in the Top 10 to start next season and that's really all that matters, if they win their games they'll move up and be where they need to be by playoff time.

Yep. I mean it KINDA matters in the grand scheme of things but not a crazy amount as long as they take care of business. For example, if Cats start 10th and run the table... there's still a slight chance they don't end the season with the #1 or #2 seed (based on several teams with easier schedules that might run the table too). However if they start at #4 or #5, it's pretty much 100% that the end up with the #1 or #2 if they run the table. SDSU and NDSU both have FBS games, and they have to play each other, and they both have a couple tough games against the Dakotas. UM or MSU will likely end up with the #1 or #2 seed.

[John K]

I really don't understand how we can be ranked as low as 8th or 9th in the final polls. Obviously SDSU, UM, NDSU, and maybe even Idaho should all be ahead of us, since those were our four losses, but Albany, Furman, South Dakota and Villanova too? With three of our losses being to the four semi-final teams, and two of those games being extremely close which easily could have gone the other way, I really can't see how any of those four teams deserve to be ranked ahead of us. I think we have a legitimate claim to being number 5, but absolutely no lower than 6th or 7th at the very least.

On a semi-related note, how in the world can Alabama be only number 5 in the final FBS polls, behind Georgia, Texas, and Washington? I know they lost to Texas early in the season, but they beat Georgia in the SEC championship game, and took Michigan to OT in the CFP semi-finals, before Washington was blown out by Michigan in the championship game. I think they were clearly the 2nd best team in the nation at the end of the season

I guess it just goes to show how meaningless the polls really are, and how little thought and research the poll voters put into their rankings.

[kwcat]

Final Stats poll.

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/ ... fcs-top-25

No surprises except for maybe Albany.

[John K]

I know you have to take the Sagarin ratings with a grain of salt, but for whatever it's worth, their final top four are 1. SDSU, 2. NDSU, 3. MSU, 4. UM. They actually have SDSU as the #18 team in the country, FBS and FCS combined. I don't know if they're quite that good, but I think they legitimately belong in the top 35 or 40 at the very least.

[MSU01]

It's hard to think of anything more meaningless than end of season Top 25 polls. The MSU program is strong enough these days that if they didn't bring home the National Championship trophy, who cares if they're 9th or 19th or out of the poll entirely. MSU will be somewhere in the Top 10 to start next season and that's really all that matters, if they win their games they'll move up and be where they need to be by playoff time.

Yep. I mean it KINDA matters in the grand scheme of things but not a crazy amount as long as they take care of business. For example, if Cats start 10th and run the table... there's still a slight chance they don't end the season with the #1 or #2 seed (based on several teams with easier schedules that might run the table too). However if they start at #4 or #5, it's pretty much 100% that the end up with the #1 or #2 if they run the table. SDSU and NDSU both have FBS games, and they have to play each other, and they both have a couple tough games against the Dakotas. UM or MSU will likely end up with the #1 or #2 seed.

The good news of course is that the Playoff Selection committee isn't using the media/coaches Top 25 polls to do their seeding for the playoffs. The only potential issue would be if there's another situation like 2022 in which two Big Sky teams go 8-0 in conference play. Unless Weber improves drastically next year that shouldn't be an issue for MSU when the other opponents MSU doesn't play are Cal Poly and NAU, neither of which should be championship contenders in 2024.

[RickRund]

Massey has
South Dakota State
North Dakota State
Montana
BOBCATS
South Dakota
Villanova
Idaho
Southern Ill
Albany, say what
Northern Iowa
Sac
Furman

[catatac]

Massey has
South Dakota State
North Dakota State
Montana
BOBCATS
South Dakota
Villanova
Idaho
Southern Ill
Albany, say what
Northern Iowa
Sac
Furman

That's the exact order I put them when I started this thread, thanks for sharing the Massey list!

[iaafan]

MSU has the best chance to win it next year. polls…lol

[iaafan]

no one has as good of a combination of a qb, OL, rbs, wrs as msu. no one has as good of a combo of dl, lbs, dbs either. need a kicker. punter is awesome. kickoffs are awesome.