PUEBLO, Colo. – Colorado State University Pueblo Football enters Saturday's Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference game at Colorado Mesa ranked No. 12 in both of this week's latest AFCA Division II Coaches' and D2Football.com polls that were released Monday.
In this week's third weekly national Division II football polls of the season, the ThunderWolves, who are 2-1 on the season after earning a 29-24 win last Thursday at Central Missouri, jumped two spots to No. 12 in the latest AFCA Division II Coaches' Poll presented by Hudl and jumped one spot to No. 12 in the latest D2Football.com Media Top 25 Poll.
The Pack received 391 points in this week's AFCA Coaches' Poll to sit 16 points in front of No. 13 West Alabama (3-0) and 83 points behind No. 11 UT-Permian Basin (2-0).
The Pack are one of three Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference schools either ranked or receiving votes in the latest AFCA poll and one of three league schools ranked in the D2Football.com poll. Besides the Pack in the AFCA poll, Western Colorado (2-0) jumped two spots to No. 7, while Colorado School of Mines (2-0) was one of 20 teams to earn votes this week as they received 60. In the D2Football.com poll, Western Colorado jumped one spot to No. 6 and Mines advanced one spot to No. 23 this week.
There were two upsets in the Top 10 of the national polls this past weekend as previous No. 3 ranked Grand Valley State (2-1) fell 17-14 at Pittsburg State (1-2), while Minnesota State suffered a 17-14 loss at home to Minnesota Duluth.
With those two losses, there was some shake-up in this week's rankings as the top two teams in the AFCA poll remain the same as Ferris State (3-0) sit atop the rankings as they earned all 31 first place votes and 775 points, while Harding (2-0) remained at No. 2. With Grand Valley State's loss, West Florida (3-0) jumped two spots to No. 3 and is followed by Slippery Rock (2-0) at No. 4 and Kutztown (2-0) at No. 5.
Meanwhile, the three of the Top 5 teams in the D2Football.com poll remain the same as Ferris State and Harding are still ranked No. 1 and No. 2, but Kutztown moves up one spot to No. 3, while West Florida jumps three spots from No. 7 to No. 4 and Western Colorado advances one spot to No. 5. this week.
CSU Pueblo will look to improve to 3-1 overall and 2-0 in the RMAC this coming Saturday, Sept. 20 as the ThunderWolves travel to Grand Junction, Colo., for a 2 p.m. RMAC contest against Colorado Mesa (1-1). The Pack has won 10 straight road games and has also won 17 straight RMAC games dating to the 2023 season. Both of those streaks are the longest active in Division II football.
