Fort Hays State Football moved up three spots in the latest D2Football.com Poll, released on Tuesday (Sept. 26). The Tigers are No. 13 in the weekly supplemental poll.

Fort Hays State is currently No. 14 in the AFCA Division II Poll, recognized as the official national poll of NCAA Division II, but is now nearly identical in rank in both polls this week. Each week the Tigers have been ranked this season, they have been higher in the rankings in the D2Football.com poll.

The MIAA has four teams in the D2Football.com Top 25 as compared to just two in the AFCA Poll. Northwest Missouri State is No. 1 in both polls, while in the D2Football.com poll Central Missouri ranks No. 23 and Emporia State ranks No. 24.

FHSU plays at Lindenwood this Saturday (Sept. 30) at 1 pm.

NEW YORK (AP) – Through three weeks, viewership for national telecasts of NFL games is down 11 percent this season compared to 2016, the Nielsen company said on Tuesday.

Nielsen said the games averaged 17.63 million viewers for the first three weeks of last season, and have dipped to 15.65 million this year. The Nielsen figures don’t include many of the Sunday afternoon games that are shown to a regional audience, but not a national one.

The NFL ratings are in focus because of President Donald Trump’s suggestion that viewers are turned off by a protest against police brutality that began with quarterback Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the national anthem. The protests spread rapidly this past weekend following the president’s criticism of people involved.

Next week’s ratings will be even more closely watched, since conservative groups and Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity have called for people angered by the protests to boycott this weekend’s games.

Meanwhile, Round One of the new ideological battle on cable television news went to Hannity, who has moved to a time slot directly competing with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Nielsen said Hannity had 3.27 million viewers on Monday, compared to 2.66 million for Maddow. CNN, which showed a special health care debate at the same hour, had 1.45 million viewers.

The end of summer has to be sad for NBC, which has dominated in network ratings due to the success of “America’s Got Talent.” The show’s finale last week was seen by 15.6 million viewers, its biggest audience for a season-ender since 2010.

CBS usually dominates the ratings from September to May, but NBC has won 12 of the last 14 weeks due to the leadership of “America’s Got Talent.”

For the week, NBC averaged 7.8 million viewers in prime time. CBS had 6.2 million, ABC had 4.2 million, Fox had 2.7 million, Univision had 1.6 million, Telemundo had 1.4 million, ION Television had 1.3 million and the CW had 910,000.

ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.48 million viewers in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.08 million, MSNBC had 1.62 million, USA had 1.5 million and HGTV had 1.24 million.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.3 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 8.2 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.6 million.

For the week of Sept. 18-24, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: Oakland at Washington, NBC, 17.48 million; “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 15.64 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 14.83 million; “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 14.7 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 13.78 million; NFL Football: Detroit at N.Y. Giants, ESPN, 12.29 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 10.72 million; “Football Night in America, Part 3,” NBC, 10.62 million; “Star Trek: Discovery,” CBS, 9.49 million; NFL Football: L.A. Chargers at San Francisco, NFLN, 7.46 million.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) – Federal charges brought in New York against assistant college basketball coaches for bribes and kickbacks could change the landscape of the sport. The initial charges could be just the tip of the iceberg. More programs and coaches could be entangled as the FBI digs deeper, and schools where the arrested coaches previously worked could face scrutiny.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – Tommy Pham and Randal Grichuk each homered and drove in two runs and the St. Louis Cardinals kept the Chicago Cubs from clinching the NL Central with an 8-7 victory. Matt Carpenter and Jedd Gyorko also hit home runs for St. Louis, which remains 2 1/2 games behind the second Wild Card spot. Zach Duke got the win with 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief. Juan Nicasio earned his fifth save.

UNDATED (AP) – Expect a lot of points when Texas Tech is home for its Big 12 opener against 15th-ranked Oklahoma State. The Red Raiders and Cowboys are the Big 12’s top two passing teams. Oklahoma State is trying to rebound from a home loss to TCU in its first league game last week. The Red Raiders are trying to improve to 4-0 for the first time since 2013, which was former quarterback Kliff Kingsbury’s first season as their head coach.

AUBURN, Ala. (AP) – The Auburn Tigers put it all together for one dominant performance against a struggling Southeastern Conference team. Now, the 13th-ranked Tigers are trying to build on that 51-14 win at Missouri when the offense finally exploded and the defense played pretty much like it had all season.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Jason Vargas tied for the major league lead with his 18th victory, lifting the Kansas City Royals over the struggling Detroit Tigers 2-1. The Royals were eliminated from postseason play with Minnesota’s victory over Cleveland. Vargas went six innings to match Cleveland’s Corey Kluber and the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw for most wins in the majors. He gave up a run and five hits, inducing groundball double plays in the second, fourth and fifth innings.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – The Kansas City Chiefs have placed kicker Cairo Santos on injured reserve and claimed rookie kicker Harrison Butker off the Carolina Panthers’ practice squad. The Chiefs did not say whether Santos would be designated to return his season. He would need to remain on IR for at least six weeks, then have two weeks to return to the roster.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – Iowa linebacker Josey Jewell has been at his best as a senior. Jewell, a preseason first-team All-American and the Big Ten’s leader in tackles this fall, had 16 tackles, two pass breakups, a fumble recovery and an interception in a last-second loss to Penn State last weekend. He and the rest of the Hawkeyes play at Michigan State this Saturday.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Dave Rimington is returning to Nebraska to serve as interim athletic director. Rimington became the most decorated offensive lineman in college football history in the early 1980s. University leaders say Rimington will run the athletic department during the search for a permanent successor to Shawn Eichorst, who was fired last week. Since 1995, Rimington has been president of the Boomer Esiason Foundation, which raises money for cystic fibrosis research.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Jason Vargas tied for the major league lead with his 18th victory, lifting the Kansas City Royals over the struggling Detroit Tigers 2-1 on Tuesday night.

Vargas (18-10) went six innings to match Cleveland’s Corey Kluber and the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw for most wins in the majors. He gave up a run and five hits, inducing groundball double plays in the second, fourth and fifth innings.

In his first two starts against Detroit, Vargas was 0-2 while allowing 13 runs, including four home runs, in 4 2/3 innings. Vargas had Tommy John surgery in 2015 and only made three starts last year, but he’s now the first Royals pitcher to win 18 games since Kevin Appier in 1993.

The Tigers have lost eight straight and dropped to 4-21 in September. Anibal Sanchez (3-6) allowed two runs in six innings.

Mike Minor got his third save.