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Show RMAC football teams earn pollsters' respect Southern Colorado opens its season this week. Mesa, Southern Utah, and New Mexico Highlands swing into action Sept. 11; and Western State starts the year Sept. 18. The Thunderbirds' first game is at the Walkup Skydome against Northern Nor-thern Arizona University of the Big Sky Conference. CEDAR CITY Football, teams from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference have apparently ap-parently earned more respect than usual from the 16-member rating committee of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Five RMAC teams, led by Mesa College of Grand Junction, Colo., and Southern Utah State College, received votes in theNAIA's Division I preseason pre-season football rating. s Mesa and SUSC have been selected by the media covering the conference to finish one-two one-two in the league. The RMAC coaches picked the same two teams to finish atop the conference, con-ference, but reversed the order. The coaches figure that SUSC will finsih first and Mesa second. Mesa gets the edge in the NAIA's first national ratings. The Mavericks were voted to a 17th place ranking; Southern Utah is ranked 18th in the first poll. Last year the Thunderbirds were ranked 19th in the final ratings of the year, and Mesa was not ranked. Both teams finished with 7-3 overall records and 6-2 marks in RMAC games. Three other teams in the conference received votes in the first ranking of 1982, but none received enough to crack the top 20. The other three teams rated include New Mexico Highlands University (last year's RMAC champion), University of Southern Colorado, and Western State College. |