Sagarin speaks: How North Dakota State ranks with FBS' best

Craig Bennett | USA TODAY Sports

The parallels are eerie.

Going for a third consecutive national title. A 10-0 record and rarely tested this season. Ranked No. 1 in the polls from the outset. Leader of the highest-rated league.

Each applies to the Alabama Crimson Tide. And the North Dakota State Bison.

One place where the descriptions diverge, however, is in Jeff Sagarin's computer ratings. Alabama is second, and the two-time defending FCS champion Bison are 24th. Use the version of the ratings that Sagarin supplies to the BCS, in which margin of victory is not a factor, and the Bison slip to 29th.

Nevertheless, North Dakota State is in rare air in either spot.

Sagarin says that the best finish in recent years in his ratings by a team in what used to be labeled Division I-AA was Marshall in 1996. The Thundering Herd won the national title while going 15-0 and were 14th in Sagarin's final ratings.

"Hey, they had ... one of the best wide receivers of all time (Randy Moss)," Sagarin says of the quality of that team.

Sagarin is a 1970 mathematics graduate of MIT, and his computer ratings have been a staple of USA TODAY Sports since 1985. From the very start of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, his college football ratings have been part of the formula that determines the BCS standings.

Another high I-AA finisher was Holy Cross in 1987. The Crusaders went 11-0 but were in a league that didn't allow its members to take part in the playoffs. They featured a two-way phenom named Gordie Lockbaum and were 17th in Sagarin's final ratings list.

North Dakota State is bidding to be the first undefeated FCS champion since that Marshall team in '96.

At 24th in the overall Sagarin rating, NDSU is ahead of five teams that appear in this week's USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll Top 25: No. 16 Fresno State, No. 20 Central Florida, No. 21 Northern Illinois, No. 23 Minnesota and No. 24 Duke.

Boosting the Bisons' Sagarin rating is a season-opening, three-point win on the road against an FBS team, Kansas State.

"And Baylor won by only 10 points (35-25) in the same place," Sagarin says.

He also points out that in the FCS playoffs, North Dakota State presumably will face stronger and stronger teams each round it advances, further boosting its chance of rising in his ratings.

Sagarin accepts that some fans won't be able to fathom that his current ratings would mean North Dakota State would be favored by roughly 2½ points against Oklahoma and 4½ points against Texas on a neutral field.

But he doesn't exactly understand why they take that view.

"People enjoy basketball, but it's kind of a religion to them in football," Sagarin says. "Everyone loves the Butler-Duke game (the 2010 NCAA final that Duke won by two points). People treasure that.

"(But in football) they don't seem to accept that (possibility) intellectually."