LFN's FCS Top 25, 9/19/2017

I don't officially vote in any of the FCS Top 25 polls, but I do share who I think deserves to be in the Top 25, and let's just get all the drama out of the way now - James Madison is my clear-cut No. 1.

I know, right? Shocking.

This week saw two Top 10 teams of mine last week go down - and Virginia, the games weren't close. One might not have been too much of a surprise, as it came against a nationally-ranked team at their place. But the other stunned a lot of people, including myself, and frankly, I hate missing the call of a Patriot League team upsetting a CAA team.

If you are looking for a nice, concise recap of the top games last week with Twitter video highlights - all in one, convenient post - you can look at CSJ's FCS Week 3 Recap and get the information. My favorite was the highlights of North Carolina A&T and their two decisive interceptions - one for a touchdown - by CB Mac McCain. (Because they were extremely hard to find, and they are awesome, too.)

Here's what I ended up with in my Top 25:

1. James Madison
2. North Dakota State
3. South Dakota State
4. Jacksonville State
5. Villanova
6. Richmond
7. Sam Houston State
8. Wofford
9. Youngstown State
10. Eastern Washington
11. Western Illinois
12. South Dakota
13. Tennessee State
14. Central Arkansas
15. The Citadel
16. North Carolina A&T
17. New Hampshire
18. North Dakota
19. Stony Brook
20. Weber State
21. Samford
22. Southern Utah
23. Illinois State
24. Holy Cross
25. Colgate

Biggest Omission: Keen observers of this space might have discovered that I had been not including the 7th placed team in the Missouri Valley conference in my Top 25 in the early going, but after South Dakota's stunning domination over North Dakota, I simply couldn't justify leaving them out anymore. Instead, I guess, why not Albany as my biggest omission? They're 2-1, their only loss coming to an FBS school (Old Dominion), and they're in the range of the Top 25 in several places.

Biggest Up-And-Comer: Holy Cross. It's frustrating because I forecasted a close game... but didn't think they would be able to weather a late New Hampshire storm. Obviously I couldn't have been more wrong, as QB Pete Pujals and his Crusaders carved up New Hampshire on offense and was basically unstoppable in the 3rd quarter, scoring 21 points and were aided by a fumble recovery as well. The Crusaders, suddenly, elevated themselves to be viewed as the class of the Patriot League at this point in the season.

Biggest Win: North Carolina A&T should be making believers out of everyone after starting out 3-0 and dusting off an FBS team in Charlotte. Yes, the 49ers are not a good football team, true, but the Aggies are adjusting to the post-Tarik Cohen era just fine, thanks. They'll be a MEAC title contender for sure.

Biggest Loss: There are a lot of contenders for the crown this week, but I'll give it to Chattanooga, who went 0-2 vs. the OVC this week, their O line giving up 5 sacks after their disappointing 21-7 loss to UT Martin. It was even less close than the final score might have indicated, too, as the Mocs fell behind 21-0 and couldn't come back from being down 3 scores.

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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