The Cal Poly football team is ranked 10th in The Sporting News Football Championship Subdivision Top 25 preseason poll released this week.
That’s three spots higher than the Mustangs were slotted in the Any Given Saturday preseason rankings. Mustangs seniors Ramses Barden (at wide receiver) and Stephen Field (at center, although in actuality he’s been moved to guard) were both named TSN preseason All-Americans.
Interestingly, Lindy’s left Cal Poly out of its preseason top 25, and even slated the Mustangs third in the Great West Football Conference, behind — get this — UC Davis, which Cal Poly beat 63-28 a year ago and North Dakota, which is in transition from Division II.
Of UC Davis, Lindy’s holds, “Aggies boast pair of top WRs in Brandon Rice and Bakari Grant.” It would stand to reason the same could be said with regard to Cal Poly, of which nothing was written in the half-dozen or so sentences devoted to breaking down the conference.
Even so, Lindy’s named Barden a preseason All-American First Team member and, naturally, the GWFC Offensive Player of the Year.
More curiously, the magazine named Sean Lawyer its favorite for GWFC Defensive Player of the Year. What’s curious about it is that Lawyer is actually a Mustang, but is listed as playing for UC Davis.
Yikes. There’s always next year, Lindy’s.