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If there's a dominant team in Division I-AA football, it has yet to emerge. For three straight weeks, the top-ranked team has gone down to defeat.

Montana (2-1), coming off a decisive 41-29 loss at unranked Sam Houston State, fell from first to seventh in the I-AA poll released on Monday by the Sports Network.

Southern Illinois (2-1), the team Montana replaced, regained the top spot after a 59-9 drubbing of William Penn, an NAIA school from Iowa. Rounding out the top five were Furman (3-0), Georgia Southern (2-1), defending national champ Delaware (2-1) and Stephen F. Austin (3-0).

Montana was thoroughly whipped in its first road game, falling behind surprising Sam Houston 41-10 early in the fourth quarter before scoring two touchdowns to make the final margin more respectable.

The Griz, who host unranked Northern Colorado on Saturday, were among eight members of the Top 25 who lost last weekend. They included No. 3 Wofford, No. 5 Villanova, No. 7 Northern Iowa, No. 9 Massachusetts and No. 10 New Hampshire.

Montana State remained ranked, dropping from 14th to 21st after losing to Cal Poly. The only other ranked Big Sky team is No. 23 Northern Arizona, which was idle.

Looking at the week's notable developments:

n Is Georgia Southern poised to return to the top? The Eagles played well in a season-opening loss to Georgia, and they piled up 508 yards of offense in last weekend's 58-14 Southern Conference victory over Wofford, a I-AA semifinalist last season. Quarterback Chaz Williams completed 6 of 8 passes to complement a ground game that rolled for 313 yards. Fullback Brandon Andrews, replacing injured starter Jermaine Austin, had 113 yards on just 10 carries as Georgia Southern avenged two straight losses to the Terriers.

n The week's most shocking score came from Starkville, Miss., where the Maine Black Bears notched a 9-7 victory over Division I-A Mississippi State of the kingpin Southeastern Conference. Maine gave up an early TD, then forced three turnovers deep in its own territory to blank MSU the rest of the way. Ron Whitcomb's 17-yard pass to Kevin McMahan provided the winning score with 2:55 remaining for Maine, which lost at Montana 27-20 in its season opener, then blanked Northern Colorado 38-0.

n New Hampshire opened with back-to-back road upsets over No. 1 Delaware and I-A Rutgers, then crashed in its home opener, losing to William & Mary 9-7. Freshman QB Ricky Santos, the hero of the Rutgers victory, was just 12 of 21 passing for 103 yards.

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