Nationally-ranked once again: UMHB Football makes season debut in D3football.com Top 25

Photo by Russell Marwitz/True To The Cru/russellmarwitz.com

A monumental weekend for UMHB Football only got better on Sunday afternoon with the release of D3football.com’s Week 3 Top 25 Poll. After dropping out of the national rankings in Week 9 of last season, The Cru finds itself back in the Top 25, ranked at No. 14. 

The Crusaders are the only new addition to the poll from Week 2 to Week 3, and went from earning 17 points a week ago to 251 points in this edition of the Top 25. 

>> Link to full Week 3 D3football.com Top 25

The return to the national poll comes almost exactly 24 hours after The Cru left Whitewater, Wisconsin with a statement win, forcing eight turnovers in a 35-17 victory over third-ranked UW-Whitewater. It was the first regular season home loss by double-digits for UWW since Oct. 20, 2012, and the first time since the 2015 Stagg Bowl in which the Warhawks did not record an offensive touchdown. 

With the loss, UW-Whitewater dropped back seven spots to No. 10 in the Top 25. 

North Central remained in the No. 1 spot, with 16 first-place votes, followed by reigning national champion Cortland, who picked up nine first-place votes to stay at No. 2. UW-La Crosse went from No. 5 to No. 3, followed by Mount Union to round out the Top 4. The ASC is also represented in the national poll by Hardin-Simmons, who moved up from No. 12 to No. 7 despite not playing on Saturday.

UMHB is now 1-0 against Division III opponents in 2024. The Cru opened its season with a 20-10 loss to the NAIA’s sixth-ranked team, Bethel University, and beat down on Westgate Christian University, an independent program, on Sept. 14. 

After going 6-4 in 2023, The Cru entered 2024 with the most points amongst unranked teams in the D3football.com Preseason Top 25. Through the first two weeks of the regular season, UMHB received 15 points in Week 1 and 17 points in Week 2, as one of several teams listed in the “Others Receiving Votes” category, composed of teams that earned points from the voters, but were still outside of the Top 25. In Week 2, Frank Rossi was the only voter (out of 25) to have UMHB in his ballot, putting The Cru at No. 9. 

UMHB returns to action next Saturday in Belton, facing John Melvin University at 1 p.m. JMU, an unaffiliated program from Crowley, Louisiana, is coming off a 55-14 loss to Westgate Christian University, the same program that UMHB defeated 85-6 just eight days ago.