Skip to main content

My FCS Top 25, 9/20/2016

You didn't ask for them, but here's my pick for this week's FCS Top 25.

Photo Credit: New York Newsday

Stony Brook WR Ray Bolden catches a pass a sideline pass and takes it in for a touchdown against Richmond on Sept. 17, 2016. Photo Credit: Daniel De Mato



1. North Dakota State
2. Eastern Washington
3. Sam Houston State
4. William and Mary
5. Montana
6. Chattanooga
7. Jacksonville State
8. James Madison
9. Villanova
10. The Citadel
11. Western Illinois
12. Charleston Southern
13. North Carolina A&T
14. Illinois State
15. Colgate
16. Harvard
17. Richmond
18. Northern Iowa
19. Portland State
20. Albany
21. Eastern Illinois
22. Cal Poly
23. Fordham
24. Stony Brook
25. Tennessee State

Notes on my Top 25:

* With North Dakota State's upset of Iowa, a legitimate Big Ten championship contender, 23-21, there's little doubt as to who should be No. 1 on everyone's FCS ballot.  But I was asked, and this is a good question: why William and Mary my No. 4?

My reason is that the Tribe, I feel, are somewhat underrated by the rest of FCS Nation in general, with a surprisingly balanced defense led by DE Jerry Ugwoke, and a balanced offense, led by experienced but somewhat uneven QB Steve Culey.  While they don't flash gaudy stats in your face, overall, as a unit, they don't have a lot of weaknesses, as long as Culey doesn't turn over the ball.

They also have this young player that made some big noise this weekend:
The Tribe has pretty much met expectations so far, losing to NC State by a wide margin and handling local foes Hampton and Norfolk State by comfortable scores.  Assuming they get past Elon this weekend, they're going to face their first true elite FCS teams back-to-back, New Hampshire and James Madison.  Their season is likely to come down to those games, but I like the Tribe's chances.

* In terms of stunners, it's was hard to beat Stony Brook's blowout of Richmond, featuring an amazing all-around game from the Seawolves.  New York Newsday: "RB Stacey Bedell led the way on offense with 17 carries for 100 yards and four touchdowns, sophomore QB Joe Carbone completed 11 of 15 passes for 155 yards and one TD, and Stony Brook converted nine of 12 third-down plays. KR Sherman Alston Jr. returned the second-half kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown that restored a 28-14 lead after the Spiders pulled within a TD near the end of the second quarter."
How stunning was this result?  In Stony Brook's first two games, the Seawolves scored 13 points in two games.  Now, Stony Brook has made their way into my Top 25 with a very impressive win under their belts.

* Explain to me how, especially with Richmond losing, Eastern Washington is not the No. 2 team in the country on everyone's ballot?  The Eagles are 2-1, with a win over FBS Washington State to start the year, and a split against the class of the Missouri Valley, an overtime loss to No. 1 North Dakota State and a thrilling 34-30 win over Northern Iowa.

You want storylines in that Northern Iowa game?  Try how the Eagles won the game, with the backup QB filling in for injured starting QB Gage Gubrud:

2 wins, one win like that, the other against a Power 5 team, and an overtime loss to the No. 1 team in the country?  What am I missing here?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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....
40 comments
Read more

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.
20 comments
Read more

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...
1 comment
Read more