Even though Alcorn State completed a 10-3 season on their way to a SWAC East championship and conference title, the Braves’ resume was not impressive enough for coaches to place them in the top 25.
Three schools that finished 2014 unranked — McNeese State (No. 23), Idaho State (No. 24) and Eastern Illinois (No. 25) — were ranked ahead of Alcorn State.
What’s confounding here is that Eastern Illinois ended the 2014 season with a 5-7 record and still garnered enough votes to sneak into bottom of the poll.
While it is understood that preseason rankings can be taken with a grain of salt, the coaches should be obligated to explain the reason Alcorn State isn’t better than a school that wasn’t ranked for the final 11 weeks of the regular season after getting off to a 1-5 start in the Ohio Valley Conference.
Bethune-Cookman, North Carolina A&T, Jackson State and South Carolina State were the only other HBCUs to receive votes in the poll.
