Northern Iowa football: Ranked ahead of 45 FBS teams including 8 from BCS leagues

UNI Panthers ranked ahead of Pitt Panthers

USA TODAY publishes the Sagarin Ratings, one of the components of the BCS formula.

It doesn’t have a prejudice when it comes to ranking all the Division I football teams. It mixes all 246 FBS and FCS teams.

In its updated rankings, Iowa State is 24th, Iowa 35th, and Northern Iowa 81st.

Strength-of-schedule is a significant component. Since UNI played Division II Central State Saturday, for the Panthers to be as high as 81st is a tribute to their competitiveness in a 26-21 loss at Wisconsin the week before.

UNI is the third-highest FCS team in Sagarin’s rankings, behind defending national-champ North Dakota State (55th) and Georgia Southern (78th). The Panthers are ranked ahead of:

Big East: 82. Connecticut, 85. Temple, 107. Pittsburgh

Big Ten: 90. Indiana

Big 12: 100. Kansas

ACC: 108. Duke

Pac-12: 91. Washington State, 153. Colorado

Three Mountain West, eight Conference USA and 10 Mid-American Conference teams are below UNI.

All told, 45 of the 124 FBS teams are ranked lower than the Panthers.

Iowa plays UNI this week, and Central Michigan next week. Central Michigan is 138th in the Sagarins.

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Northern Iowa football: Ranked ahead of 45 FBS teams including 8 from BCS leagues

Mike Williams said: On September 10, 2012
UNI will be tough but it’s obviously still a game Iowa should win. I said “Should” not “will”.
And Central Michigan the same. I’m not giving up on this team but the offense is as bad as I’ve seen it under Ferentz with the exception of his first year.
headhawks said: On September 10, 2012
Iowa no where near deserves to be raked 35th…Maybe by the end of the year but this has been a train wreck. These rankings are a joke…. and obviously biased by the big conferences there are many smaller schools including UNI who may very well beat Iowa this year…
Iowa alum ’87
- Jay Long said: On September 11, 2012
  Thank goodness I State kept the final score close. That will help pump up the SOS all season.
Mike Hlas said: On September 10, 2012
Strength-of-schedule has a big impact after just two games, and Iowa’s first two games stack up better than those of a lot of teams.
Paul Davis said: On September 10, 2012
Maybe so, but I still think we are in deep kemchee!
sanji azad said: On September 11, 2012
It’s a pretty sad commentary when playing Northern Illinois and Iowa State provide a strength of schedule advantage.
If Iowa really were the 35th best team in the country right now, that might be reason enough to just cancel the rest of the season…for everybody.