PUEBLO, Colo. – Thanks to its 24-21 win at home on Saturday over Black Hills State, Colorado State University Pueblo moved into the Top 12 of this week's latest AFCA Division II Coaches and D2Football.com poll that were released Monday.
In this week's latest national Division II football polls, the ThunderWolves, who moved to 7-1 overall and 6-0 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference following its home win this past Saturday over Black Hills State, jumped two spots to No. 12 in the AFCA Division II Coaches Poll presented by Hudl and also jumped two spots to No. 11 in the latest D2Football.com Media Top 25 poll.
The Pack received 419 points in this week's AFCA poll to jump from No. 14 to No. 12 as they are 20 points behind No. 11 Charleston (W.Va.) (7-0) and 78 points in front of No. 13 Minnesota State (6-1), while in the D2Football.com poll, the Pack jumped two spots as they moved from No. 13 last week to No. 11 this week.
It marks the fifth consecutive week and sixth time this season that the Pack has been ranked in both national polls in the same week as the Pack were ranked No. 13 and No. 14 last week, while being No. 14 and No. 16 two weeks ago and were ranked No. 18 and No. 19 respectively three weeks ago and was ranked No. 22 and No. 24 four weeks ago and was ranked in both polls the week of the Grand Valley State game on Sept. 9.
The Pack are one of three RMAC teams ranked in both the AFCA and D2Football.com polls this week as Western Colorado (7-0 overall, 5-0 RMAC) remained ranked No. 8 and No. 10 in this week's AFCA and D2Football.com polls, while Colorado School of Mines (6-1 overall, 4-1 RMAC) jumped two spots in each poll as they are now ranked No. 10 in the AFCA poll and No. 12 in the D2Football.com poll. Colorado Mesa (5-2 overall, 4-1 RMAC) received seven votes to be eighth among the 17 teams earning votes in this week's AFCA rankings.
This week's polls have a new No. 1 team after previously No. 1 ranked Harding (6-1) suffered a 17-13 loss this past Saturday at home to Ouachita Baptist and is now ranked No. 7 and No. 8 in each of the polls. The new No. 1 team in both polls is Grand Valley State (7-0), while Valdosta State (7-0) is No. 2 in both polls this week. The AFCA has Ferris State (6-1) ranked No. 3, while Kutztown (7-0) and Ouachita Baptist (7-0) are ranked fourth and fifth respectively in the AFCA poll, while the D2Football.com poll has Pittsburg State (6-1) at No. 3, Ferris State (6-1) at No. 4 and Kutztown (7-0) at No. 5 this week.
CSU Pueblo will have a bye this coming weekend before returning to the football field on Saturday, Nov. 2 with a 1 p.m. game in Gunnison, Colo., against nationally-ranked Western Colorado. The Pack has won 13 consecutive RMAC games dating to last season and that 13 game win streak is the second longest active streak in Division II football as only Kutztown (15) has won more consecutive conference games than the Pack.
