My FCS Top 25 Vote, Week 2, 2015

If you'd like, you can check out my FCS Top 25 vote below.

It's not often that I promote a team that lost to an FBS squad, never mind promoting a team to No. 1 after such a loss. But that's exactly what I did after Jacksonville State came a couple of bold plays away from upsetting Auburn, a team who legitimately is seen as one that could be in the FBS College Football Playoff at the end of the regular season.

It was very compelling TV, even I find myself second-guessing head coach John Graas' decision to take a knee and play for overtime instead of taking a shot to win. It didn't make sense from my perspective to play for OT in that spot, but... it still was impressive, even in defeat. The Gamecocks barely eked out Coastal Carolina for the new No. 1 spot to me.

1: Jacksonville State Gamecocks
2: Coastal Carolina Chanticleers
3: Villanova Wildcats
4: Illinois State Redbirds
5: Sam Houston State Bearkats
6: Montana Grizzlies
7: South Dakota State Jackrabbits
8: North Dakota State Bison
9: James Madison Dukes
10: New Hampshire Wildcats
11: Northern Iowa Panthers
12: Eastern Washington Eagles
13: Fordham Rams
14: William & Mary Tribe
15: Liberty Flames
16: Southeastern Louisiana Lions
17: Montana State Bobcats
18: Indiana State Sycamores
19: Samford Bulldogs
20: Chattanooga Mocs
21: Harvard Crimson
22: Portland State Vikings
23: Cal Poly Mustangs
24: Dartmouth Big Green
25: Duquesne Dukes

Picking 6-9. Montana, North Dakota State, South Dakota State and James Madison are all good teams - I've seen them all play at least a little thus far. But how do you rank them against each other? The Bison and Grizzlies have two tough losses. South Dakota State is legit - I brought them up big-time this week - but how do they stack up against them? And James Madison looked pretty impressive up close - but are they, to steal a term, elite? I ended up going Griz/Jacks/Bison/Dukes, but it's not easy. It's going to be interesting to see where all of these teams end up. I'm already thinking playoffs for all four.
Cal Poly at No. 23? The Mustangs are a real problem for my poll. I want to have them much higher than 23 - after all, they already have a fantastic win vs. Montana - but I'm having a hard time demoting schools with FBS losses this early. I fully anticipate them (and Portland State, for that matter) moving up in a big way with a few more wins, but until we see some more truly bad losses, they're stuck in this part of my poll.
Duquesne at 25. Yes, there was another Dukes team that did fairly well this weekend, dominating Bucknell on the road 26-7 in a game that wasn't close. The best team in the NEC deserves a Top 25 nod, I think, and Duquesne currently is that team. It will be interesting to see how they do vs. Albany of the CAA in a couple of weeks - a win there, along with an undefeated record, and other folks around the country might be giving them a long look for Top 25 consideration.

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results. In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago . Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth. Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled. Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season. The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League....

UMass 21, Lafayette 14, halftime

Are you watching this game? UMass had this game under control until about 3 minutes in the second quarter, and then got an interception, converted for a TD. Then the Leopards forced a fumble off the return, and then converted THAT for a TD, making this a game. It's on CN8. You really should be watching this.

Examining A Figure Skating Rivalry: Tonya and Nancy

It must be very hard for a millennial to understand the fuss around the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating scandal in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics. If you're of a certain age, though - whether you're a figure skating fan or not, and I am decidedly no fan of figure skating - the Shakespearean story of Harding and Kerrigan still engages, and still grabs peoples' attention, twenty years later. Why, though? Why, twenty years later, in a sport I care little, does the story still grab me? Why did I spend time out of my life watching dueling NBC and ESPN documentaries on the subject, and Google multiple stories about Jeff Gilooly , idiot "bodyguards", and the whole sordid affair? I think it's because the story, even twenty years later, is like opium. The addictive story, even now, has everything. Everything. The woman that fought for everything, perhaps crossing over to the dark side to get her chance at Olypic Gold, vs. the woman who...

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