Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Biggest disappointment has got to be Lehigh.....once a #18/19 team and now they can't seem to hold any RB to less than 125 yards, any team to less than 50 points, and any QB to less than 300 passing yards.....yikes! I'm afraid there is much more pain to come before this snowball stops rolling downhill.
Douglas said…
I would tend to agree for us LU fans who read this page it is pretty disappointing but we all knew defense would be an issue coming in but not this bad.. The running game was also mediocre without DB who I guess made up for some average line play the first couple of games.. Problem is, when you go down 2 TD's early in games, it is tough to try and get a running game going esp with the weapons.. Defenses who know a team has no decent passing game put 7-8 in the box to stuff running. Against Lehigh, it's all 5-6 DB's because the run game is poor they don't have to worry too much.. The instincts of this team is to try and get it to the two big WR's.. The other obvious thing is while Mayes is a nice pocket passer, not having the threat that was there the last couple of years of Shaf taking off lets LB'ers play deeper..

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. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

 We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season.  The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League.  In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play.  Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ .  I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care.  Every face was glum.  They didn't even seem sad.  More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Fifteen Guys Who Might be Lehigh's Next Football Coach (and Five More)

If you've been following my Twitter account, you might have caught some "possibilities" as Lehigh's next head football coach like Lou Holtz, Brett Favre and Bo Pelini .  The chance that any of those three guys actually are offered and accept the Lehigh head coaching position are somewhere between zero and zero.  (The full list of my Twitter "possibilities" are all on this thread on the Lehigh Sports Forum .) However the actual Lehigh head football coaching search is well underway, with real names and real possibilities. I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons. UPDATE: I have found five more names of possible head coaches that I am adding to this list below. Who are the twenty people?  Here they are, in alphabetical order.