PUEBLO, Colo. – Colorado State University Pueblo comes into Saturday's showdown in the ThunderBowl with undefeated Western Colorado for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship ranked No. 3 in both of this week's Division II national football polls that were released Monday morning.
In the this season's 11th weekly national Division II football polls, the ThunderWolves, who are 10-0 overall and 8-0 in the RMAC following Saturday's 31-0 shutout win at South Dakota Mines, remained ranked No. 3 in the latest AFCA Division II Coaches Poll, presented by GoRout Gridiron and jumped one spot to No. 3 in the D2Football.com Media poll. Meanwhile, the Pack's opponent on Saturday, Western Colorado, is ranked No. 4 in both of this week's national polls.
The Pack received 685 points in this week's AFCA Coaches' Poll to sit 34 points behind No. 2 Harding (10-0), who received 719 points after earning a 76-0 win over Southern Nazarene this past Saturday and 48 points in front of No. 4 Western Colorado (10-0 overall, 8-0 RMAC), who picked a 41-20 home win on Saturday over Colorado School of Mines.
CSU Pueblo and Western Colorado are the only two RMAC schools ranked in this week's latest national polls, while one RMAC school, Colorado School of Mines (6-3-1 overall, 6-2 RMAC) received one vote in this week's AFCA poll to be one of nine teams receiving votes.
Eight of the Top 25 teams ranked in this week's AFCA Coaches poll are from Super Region Four, including five teams from the region ranked inside the Top 8.
The top two teams remained the same in both the AFCA and D2Football.com polls as Ferris State (10-0) and Harding (10-0) are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in both polls. In addition to Ferris State and Harding, the AFCA has CSU Pueblo at No. 3, Western Colorado at No. 4 and Slippery Rock (10-0) at No. 5, while D2Football.com has CSU Pueblo at No. 3, Western Colorado at No. 4 and Central Washington (8-2) at No. 5.
CSU Pueblo will look to remain undefeated on the season as they return to action this coming Saturday, Nov. 14 as they host fourth-ranked Western Colorado in a 1 p.m. match-up in the ThunderBowl to determine the 2026 RMAC Football Champion. The Pack enters the game having won 19 straight regular season games dating to last season's 36-35 home setback to Fort Hays State, and a school-record 33 consecutive conference games dating to the 2023 season, which is the longest active conference win streak in Division II football. The Pack's 10-game win streak this season is tied for the second longest active win streak in Division II football behind Ferris State's 40-game win streak, which is tied for the longest win streak in Division II history.
