August 2024 Odin Mortgage Coaches Polls

Time stops for no one, and rarely does the USAFL season.

The 2024 AFL TransAtlantic Cup has dominated the attention of the international Aussie Rules world for the past month.  But back home, the march towards Nationals carried on with sixteen men’s games and two women’s games.

There were slight effects thereof upon the August edition of the Odin Mortgage Polls.  The Women’s top 10 remained exactly the same as July, while the Men’s top 20 saw slight but significant movement up and down the table.

After being stuck together in a second-place tie following regionals, Denver’s two losses at the Tulsa tourney saw them slip behind Golden Gate and into #3.  The Roos and top-ranked Crows were idle during the TAC window, but will put their unbeaten records on the line starting with the first weekend of the next poll period.

New York’s men have made no secret that they felt their 5th place rank wasn’t reflective of how their season is going so far.  And all they did was go out and beat DC and a Philly/Nashville combo, the latter by 114 points.  That was enough to get them to jump up into 4th ahead of Sacramento, as the Suns head into the stretch run ahead of a likely Nationals encounter with the heavyweights.

Boston also had a victory over Philadelphia which allowed them to leap two spots over L.A. and Seattle and into sixth, though the three teams were only separated by 3% of the votes.  The Dragons were Idle, while the Grizzlies, combined with the Burnaby Eagles, went on to win to finish BCAFL play at 3-2 and will face the Vancouver Cougars in Saturday’s semifinal.

Spots 9-11 remained the same with San Diego, Baltimore, and D.C. holding steady.  Minnesota combined with Wisconsin last weekend and fell on the road to Des Moines; the Freeze dropped one spot while Houston went up into 12th.  Columbus remained in 14th, while the Swans’ 77-point triumph over Nashville in the Hendrie Cup on 7/27 moved them into 15th over the ‘Roos.

In spite of their two losses, Philadelphia clung to 17th, while the idle Portland Steelheads were in an unchanged 18th.  Des Moines had a huge month picking up three wins – a two game sweep in KC over the Power and Oklahoma, and that 52-51 thriller over the Frozen Wombats combine.  The Roosters would end up tied with the Buffaloes for 19th but won the head-to-head voting tiebreaker to jump into the pool and force the OKers into the final spot on the poll.  Arizona, who was idle, dropped out of the rankings  and North Texas’s two victories in Tulsa on 8/10 weren’t enough to crack the numbers.

Most of the women’s teams took breaks during the TAC to either play in Toronto or support their players.  In the only games played, on July 27th, NYC picked up a 32-point home win over D.C., while Seattle edged a combined Burnaby/Whistler side by a point.  Neither result affected how the pollsters felt, and Minnesota enters the last 6 weeks ahead of the National Championships as the consensus pick for best team in the country.