FCS Preseason Polls Are Worthless, but JMU is 5th in One

I put very little stock in FCS rankings in the middle of the season, so to say that I’m slightly less than concerned with preseason rankings would be an understatement. Thankfully, the FCS Championship is decided on the field in a real playoff with all of the top teams in the country participating. That means that FCS rankings and polls are much less important than the FBS versions. With that being said they offer at least a relative barometer of how the FCS contenders stack-up. And JMU is ranked 5th in the Athlon FCS Preseason Poll, so apparently at least some folks think JMU has the talent on paper to be a contender. The full top 25 can be seen in the Athlon College Football Preview magazine, but the top 10 is below.

1. Sam Houston State
2. GSU
3. NDSU
4. Montana St
5. JMU
6. ODU
7. Towson
8. App St
9. YSU
10. UNH

And if we were going to go to 11, you’d see that JMU’s conference mate, the Delaware Blue Hens are in that spot. The highlight here is that JMU is ranked one spot higher than those miserable Monarchs. We kid, we kid. If ODU trolls are going to drop comments or start message board threads about how jealous we are of them, we might as well give them some ammo. And while we’re addressing the topic of ODU fans, if JMU fans are venting about things and they knock the academic reputation of your school (which is admittedly pointless), you’re doing yourselves no favors if you mention how amazed you are that ODU can “illicit” so much jealousy from JMU. But I digress. The real story here is that once again, the CAA is garnering a lot of respect  on a national level. Shuffle the order around however you see fit, but the fact is that 4 CAA teams are in this particular top 10. In fact, you can probably just shuffle around the teams and assume that the top 3 or 4 teams in the CAA (whomever they turn out to be) will be top 10 worthy.

While I might not think preseason rankings are anything to puff your chest out about, CAA football fans have a right to brag about the conference as a whole. Just last week The Sports Network declared the CAA the best conference in the FCS. And that’s coming off a down year for the league. Yes, I said last year was a down year. Sure the CAA was deep and plenty of teams were ranked throughout the season. The fact was that none of the league’s teams were true contenders for the National Championship. The bar has been set really high for the league. A season without a national champion or final four run is a bit of a letdown. And I have a feeling this season will not be a letdown.