Following back-to-back losses, the Cal Poly football team fell to No. 19 in the ESPN/USA Today poll. The Mustangs were ranked as high as No. 3 prior to losses at No. 4 Montana and No. 21 UC Davis.
The Mustangs are No. 18 in The Sports Network poll.
Cal Poly, which dropped to No. 10 after a 36-27 loss at Montana on Oct. 22, has three games remaining on its 2005 regular season schedule, all in Mustang Stadium.
The Mustangs have played four of their last five games on the road.
UC Davis, which beat Stanford earlier this year, climbed into the Top 25 with its win over Cal Poly.
The Mustangs were ranked 17 in both 2005 preseason polls. After a 38-10 win over then No. 11 Montana State on Sept. 17, Cal Poly climbed to No. 12.
The Mustangs opened defense of their Great West Football Conference title with a 24-16 victory at South Dakota State on Sept. 24 and jumped to No. 10 in the polls, then climbed one more position to No. 9 following their 31-14 triumph at Northern Colorado.
In this week’s polls, the top five teams are Furman (7-1), New Hampshire (7-1), Hampton (8-0), Montana (6-2) and Southern Illinois (6-2).
Western Kentucky, last week’s top-ranked team, lost to then No. 8 Southern Illinois 31-20 on Thursday night. Furman is ranked No. 1 for the first time since 1990.
James Madison, the 2004 NCAA Division I-AA national champion, fell out of the Top 25 this week.
Hampton is the lone undefeated team in Division I-AA and just six other teams in the division have one loss; Furman, New Hampshire, Coastal Carolina, Grambling State, Brown and San Diego.
Cal Poly is also ranked No. 17 in the Any Given Saturday poll, dropping seven positions.
In last week’s Gridiron Power Index (GPI) rating released by I-AA.org, Cal Poly was No. 8. The top three teams were New Hampshire, Texas State and Western Kentucky.
In this week’s Jeff Sagarin ratings published Monday in USA Today, Cal Poly is ranked 108th among the 239 football teams in Divisions I-A and I-AA. The Mustangs are No. 10 among I-AA schools (New Hampshire is No. 1, followed by Appalachian State and Montana) and are ranked ahead of such Division I-A schools as Syracuse, Utah State, Troy, Duke, San Jose State, UNLV and Rice, among others.
Cal Poly hosts Eastern Washington for Homecoming on Saturday at 4 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on KXTY-FM Radio (99.7 fm) and GoPoly.com, beginning with a 3:30 p.m. pre-game show.