As our oldest son is now in residence at an FCS university (in Pocatello, Idaho, thank you very much!), plus we have a college degree with a rival school from the same conference (in Sacramento, CA), and family ties with a THIRD school in the same conference (in Missoula, Montana), we have a particular fondness for the Division 1-AA "championship subdivision " level of sports, football in particular, and of course that affection radiates from the northwestern sector of the United States, Big Sky country, home of multiple national champions Montana and Eastern Washington, former home of Boise State University (which has since moved on to conquer larger kettles of fish), and the University of Idaho (well, you can't win them all...).
So, without delving into conference and overall records as we did with the FBS last week - simply because we frankly don't know enough about many of the programs except what we read in the box scores - we're game for doing a little more forecasting this week in the twelve FCS conferences: eight who compete for a national championship in a 24-team playoff (hence the name "FCS"); two conferences of erudite Eastern schools who simply have BETTER things to do on a Saturday afternoon in December than watching sweaty men hurl spheroids down a chalk-lined parkway field; and two conferences of historically black colleges (not MY name - they refer to THEMSELVES as "HBCs"!) who choose to playoff against each other instead.
So, in only a vague sense of order of ranking, strongest down...here we go!
MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE: 1. North Dakota St . 2. Illinois St. 3. Northern Iowa, South Dakota St, and Youngstown St. 6. Indiana St. 7. Southern Illinois and Western Illinois. 9. Missouri St. 10. South Dakota.
BIG SKY CONFERENCE: 1. Eastern Washington. 2. Montana St. 3. Montana. 4. Idaho St. 5. Cal Poly SLO and Northern Arizona. 7. Sacramento St. 8. Southern Utah and Weber St. 10-13. Portland St, North Dakota, UC Davis, and Northern Colorado.
COLONIAL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION: 1. New Hampshire / Villanova. 3. James Madison. 4. Richmond. 5. William and Mary. 6. Stony Brook. 7. Albany. 8. Maine. 9. Delaware. 10. Towson. 11. Elon. 12. Rhode Island.
SOUTHLAND CONFERENCE: 1. Sam Houston St. 2. Stephen F Austin. 3. SE Louisiana. 4. Central Arkansas. 5-8. McNeese St, Northwestern St, Abilene Christian, and Lamar. 9. Incarnate Word. 10. Nicholls St. 11. Houston Baptist.
BIG SOUTH CONFERENCE: 1. Coastal Carolina. 2. Liberty. 3. Charleston Southern. 4. Presbyterian. 5. Monmouth. 6. Gardner-Webb. 7. Kennesaw St (in its first year playing football!).
OHIO VALLEY CONFERENCE: 1. Jacksonville St, 2. Eastern Illinois and Eastern Kentucky. 4. UT-Martin. 5. SE Missouri St. 6. Tennessee St and Tennessee Tech. 8. Murray St. 9. Austin Peay.
SOUTHERN CONFERENCE: 1. Chattanooga. 2. Wofford. 3. Samford. 4. Western Carolina 5. The Citadel. 6. Furman. 7. Mercer. 8. VMI. 9. East Tennessee St. (in its first year playing football!)
NORTHEASTERN CONFERENCE: 1. St. Francis-PA / Bryant (winner gets the playoff bid). 3-5. Wagner, Sacred Heart, and Duquesne. 6. Central Connecticut. 7. Robert Morris.
PIONEER FOOTBALL LEAGUE: 1. Jacksonville. 2. San Diego. 3. Dayton. 4. Drake. 5-8. Marist, Campbell, Morehead St and Stetson. 9. Valparaiso. 10. Butler. 11. Davidson.
The 24 underlined teams are projected to receive bids to the FCS national championship tournament, which has eight teams passing through to the second round with byes. Those eight top-seeded teams are anyone's guess, but here's ours: North Dakota St, Illinois St, Northern Iowa, Eastern Washington, Montana, Sam Houston St, Coastal Carolina, and the winner of the New Hampshire/Villanova clash. The three bottom conferences will get their champions in only, and here's hoping that for the first time in its three year history, the Pioneer League champ will be able to participate without infraction penalties preventing it!
There are also four other conferences in Division 1-AA: two comprised of elite prep universities in the northeast which choose not to spend December playing football during finals, and two comprised of "Historically Black Colleges" (HBCs), which have their own arrangement with NBC and ESPN for the Grambling/Southern game and the new "Celebration Bowl" title game matching the two league champs. Here are projections for these four leagues:
IVY LEAGUE: 1. Harvard (again!). 2. Dartmouth. 3. Yale. 4-6. Brown, Princeton, and Penn. 7. Cornell. 8. Columbia.
PATRIOT LEAGUE: 1. Fordham. 2. Lafayette. 3. Colgate. 4. Bucknell. 5. Holy Cross. 6. Lehigh. 7. Georgetown.
SWAC EAST: 1 Alcorn St. 2. Alabama St. 3. Alabama A&M. 4. Mississippi Valley St. 5. Jackson St.
SWAC WEST: 1. Southern. 2. Grambling St. 3. Prairie View A&M. 4-5. Texas Southern and Arkansas Pine Bluff. (Alcorn St over Southern for the title.)
MEAC: 1. North Carolina A&T / South Carolina St. 3. Morgan St. 4. NC Central. 5. Bethune-Cookman. 6-8. Hampton, Howard, and Norfolk St. 9. Florida A&M, home of the biggest band scandal since Stanford! 10. Delaware St. 11. Our favorite team in the world, good ol' Savannah St, who takes on Florida St and Oklahoma for the paycheck and the 88-0 routs.
Showing posts with label Sacramento St. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sacramento St. Show all posts
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Sunday, November 16, 2014
As for the FCS games of interest yesterday,
...let's start with our usual topic of intrigue, really bad teams. Of course, if you're in the Ivy League, you're allowed to be good, bad, or indifferent about football - you're too busy getting ready to run our country in the coming years.
But in Cornell @ Columbia, two winless teams squared off. Sagarin had this projected as a 3-point Cornell win, and the Big Red did win, 30-27. But the how and why are hysterical: each team scored four touchdowns, but Cornell blocked the extra point on Columbia's last TD and ran it back for their own two point conversion, making it 27-23 at the time and setting the stage for their own game-winning drive in the fourth quarter.
As for the three other bottom-feeders we follow (three?), Rhode Island actually put up a fight at Stony Brook, losing 14-35. But good ol' Savannah St managed zero points, negative 8 yards rushing, and just 165 yards of total offense in the entire game in losing to North Carolina A&T 34-0. In the true tradition of a body-bag school, Savannah goes to BYU next week, where the early Sagarin ratings list them as potentially a 54-point underdog. And history says they'll lie down and take their beating appropriately.
Who's the third bottom-feeder? In two of those ratings that we linked you to earlier this week, we noticed that there's a team below both URI and Savannah St: Davidson, Stephen Curry's alma mater, apparently doesn't play football as well as they do hoops. They have a record of 1-10 this year, having lost nine straight against FCS opponents and one more to Catawba, who we think is D2. Their one victory was to "College of Faith-Charleston", for whom we cannot even find a listing at any level of NCAA or NAIA, 56-0.
Anyway, playing Marist yesterday, Davidson was down 38-0 with a minute to go in the third, having produced a total of two first downs and 58 yards of offense. As Marist started their mass substitutions, Davidson finally produced a twelve-play, TWO yard drive (that required getting to a 3rd down on the Marist 16 and then ending fourth down at midfield!), which was finally followed by a 13-play drive in the fourth against the last-stringers that scored a late TD to make the score 38-7. It'd be fun to watch them play Savannah St...
In higher-quality news, North Dakota St started a new winning streak, beating Missouri St 45-10, while their vanquisher Northern Iowa also won, beating Southern Illinois 40-21. And out in the Big Sky conference, we were happy to see alma mater Sacramento St win 48-41 at home against Portland St! Montana St held off Idaho St at home 44-39, and Montana beat Southern Utah 35-17.
But in Cornell @ Columbia, two winless teams squared off. Sagarin had this projected as a 3-point Cornell win, and the Big Red did win, 30-27. But the how and why are hysterical: each team scored four touchdowns, but Cornell blocked the extra point on Columbia's last TD and ran it back for their own two point conversion, making it 27-23 at the time and setting the stage for their own game-winning drive in the fourth quarter.
As for the three other bottom-feeders we follow (three?), Rhode Island actually put up a fight at Stony Brook, losing 14-35. But good ol' Savannah St managed zero points, negative 8 yards rushing, and just 165 yards of total offense in the entire game in losing to North Carolina A&T 34-0. In the true tradition of a body-bag school, Savannah goes to BYU next week, where the early Sagarin ratings list them as potentially a 54-point underdog. And history says they'll lie down and take their beating appropriately.
Who's the third bottom-feeder? In two of those ratings that we linked you to earlier this week, we noticed that there's a team below both URI and Savannah St: Davidson, Stephen Curry's alma mater, apparently doesn't play football as well as they do hoops. They have a record of 1-10 this year, having lost nine straight against FCS opponents and one more to Catawba, who we think is D2. Their one victory was to "College of Faith-Charleston", for whom we cannot even find a listing at any level of NCAA or NAIA, 56-0.
Anyway, playing Marist yesterday, Davidson was down 38-0 with a minute to go in the third, having produced a total of two first downs and 58 yards of offense. As Marist started their mass substitutions, Davidson finally produced a twelve-play, TWO yard drive (that required getting to a 3rd down on the Marist 16 and then ending fourth down at midfield!), which was finally followed by a 13-play drive in the fourth against the last-stringers that scored a late TD to make the score 38-7. It'd be fun to watch them play Savannah St...
In higher-quality news, North Dakota St started a new winning streak, beating Missouri St 45-10, while their vanquisher Northern Iowa also won, beating Southern Illinois 40-21. And out in the Big Sky conference, we were happy to see alma mater Sacramento St win 48-41 at home against Portland St! Montana St held off Idaho St at home 44-39, and Montana beat Southern Utah 35-17.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
This is why we watch the FCS!
Northern Colorado combines the rare "return-the-blocked-XP-for-a-score" with the equally rare "six-lateral-let's-emulate-ThePlay" in a failed attempt to beat GPS's alma mater Sacramento State last weekend...sorry, guys! Gotta make it INTO the end zone!
Blocked extra point return..
(Edit:This link also happens to have the Dayton kickoff return TD from the adjacent post as an added bonus! Didn't notice that at first viewing!)
Blocked extra point return..
(Edit:This link also happens to have the Dayton kickoff return TD from the adjacent post as an added bonus! Didn't notice that at first viewing!)
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
How did we do on last week's predictions? Let's find out...
Places We Looked Brilliant:
Arizona not only covered at Oregon... Louisville handled Syracuse with ease...Utah State not only covered, not only defeated BYU, but basically eliminated their chances of success this year by breaking Tayson Hill's leg...we looked prescient picking Air Force over Navy, and California winning a WILD game over Washington State, in which the Wazzu QB threw for a record 744 yards, and was undone by a missed 19-yard last second field goal!...We also projected FCS losses for UC Davis and (surprise, surprise!) Savannah State, and a tight game between Montana State and my alma mater Sacramento State, which turned into a really exciting, back-and-forth 59-56 Bobcat win.
Places We Looked Like Stevie Wonder Judging A Beauty Contest:
San Diego State failing to cover against Fresno State...neither did Texas A&M against Mississippi State, or LSU versus Auburn...Florida barely scraped by Tennessee after switching quarterbacks (probably for good), East Carolina couldn't annihilate SMU after all, who scored 24 points, tripling their season total!...TCU was much better against Oklahoma than expected, and so was Idaho (congrats, Vandals!).
And, Somewhere In The Grey Area Where We All Spend Most Of Life:
NCAA, Florida State 43, Wake Forest 3...Notre Dame/ Stanford had the same three point spread Vegas predicted, as did Oregon State/Colorado. After the Charlie Weis firing, Kansas did as expected and played inspired football...for a while, before West Virginia put them away 33-14. Michigan did indeed play Rutgers close before losing 26-24. Finally, the Boise State / Nevada game was back and forth, as expected, with the Broncos winning a wild game 52-47.
Arizona not only covered at Oregon... Louisville handled Syracuse with ease...Utah State not only covered, not only defeated BYU, but basically eliminated their chances of success this year by breaking Tayson Hill's leg...we looked prescient picking Air Force over Navy, and California winning a WILD game over Washington State, in which the Wazzu QB threw for a record 744 yards, and was undone by a missed 19-yard last second field goal!...We also projected FCS losses for UC Davis and (surprise, surprise!) Savannah State, and a tight game between Montana State and my alma mater Sacramento State, which turned into a really exciting, back-and-forth 59-56 Bobcat win.
Places We Looked Like Stevie Wonder Judging A Beauty Contest:
San Diego State failing to cover against Fresno State...neither did Texas A&M against Mississippi State, or LSU versus Auburn...Florida barely scraped by Tennessee after switching quarterbacks (probably for good), East Carolina couldn't annihilate SMU after all, who scored 24 points, tripling their season total!...TCU was much better against Oklahoma than expected, and so was Idaho (congrats, Vandals!).
And, Somewhere In The Grey Area Where We All Spend Most Of Life:
NCAA, Florida State 43, Wake Forest 3...Notre Dame/ Stanford had the same three point spread Vegas predicted, as did Oregon State/Colorado. After the Charlie Weis firing, Kansas did as expected and played inspired football...for a while, before West Virginia put them away 33-14. Michigan did indeed play Rutgers close before losing 26-24. Finally, the Boise State / Nevada game was back and forth, as expected, with the Broncos winning a wild game 52-47.
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