We are now in October, conference games are underway en masse, and FCS Selection Sunday gets closer and closer to us every day. We present to you the instant FCS Week Five reaction.
First, let’s recognize the 5-0 club now that we’re in October.
Montana, Delaware, and Holy Cross — take a bow and welcome to the club. The robe, cigars, and brandy are ready for this elite FCS club. So when was the last time these three programs hit 5-0 in a full season?: Montana in its national runner-up season of 2009, Delaware in 2010 in its national runner-up season that year, and Holy Cross has to go all the way back to its Patriot League winning season of 1989. (NOTE: Delaware did begin 5-0 in its abbreviate season the COVID-19 spring 2021 season.
Obviously, some of the top-ranked teams in the country are undefeated against the FCS so far but just lost to FBS opponents. Making that 4-0 category are NDSU, SDSU, Montana St., Chattanooga, SEMO, Jackson State, Mercer, Elon, Samford, and Fordham.
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COULD A NON-POWER THREE CONFERENCE TEAM BE A SEED?:
To answer the headline’s question above, yes.
To me? The best potential teams to break that FCS Power Three stranglehold would come out of the SoCon or maybe even a Holy Cross out of the Patriot League. If Holy Cross goes undefeated this year, it might be deep into the seeding discussion depending on what the rest of the country is doing. Remember that Colgate did that in 2018 and nabbed the No. 8 spot and a first-round bye and proceeded to knock off James Madison in the second round.
The SoCon appears to be distancing itself from that annual “parity” talk, which is just another way of saying that it chops itself up. That kind of parity for a non-FCS Power Three conference limits the number of at-large berths and can even leave seven-win teams at home during the playoffs depending on their resume.
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But if three SoCon teams win eight or more games and there is a well-defined frontrunner? There may be a SoCon team in the seeding discussion for only the second time since 2017 when Wofford was No. 7 (ETSU was a seed last year).
Right now? Chattanooga, Mercer, and Samford are all 4-0 versus FCS competition with only Power Five losses (that won’t count against them) keeping them from 5-0 overall. If these three teams can establish a clear pecking order where one wins clearly in the SoCon, one loses only to the SoCon champ, and the other loses only to the top two? There may be a way for a SoCon champ to be a seed and have two at-larges, also.
That would be my prediction.
When it comes to the powerhouse conferences, so far so good. Last week I had only MVFC, Big Sky, and one CAA team (Delaware) comprising the eight seeds. That will continue to morph as the Big Three continue to chew each other up. Missouri State’s loss to North Dakota on the road was an example (I had Missouri State in that top eight last week). There will be some room for new blood in the seeding predictions this week.
That’s really some of the biggest news coming out of this weekend.
THE HBCUs and IVYs:
Jackson State was idle this weekend, so we didn’t get Primetime’s Tigers to check out. But what looks like the MEAC’s top team — North Carolina Central — really took its lumps against what is beginning to look like one of the stronger teams in the Big South Conference, Campbell. Earlier this year, N.C. Central looked very impressive in its win over a consistently strong CAA team, New Hampshire. But Campbell took it to the MEAC leaders by 30 on Saturday.
The Ivy League now has two 3-0 teams left — Princeton and Penn. The rest of the league already has at least one loss apiece. Princeton hasn’t played the toughest schedule yet, and neither has Penn, but they’ve gotten off to fine starts. Both will have their hands full with Harvard (2-1) after falling in a close one to 5-0 Holy Cross on Saturday. As you all know, the Ivys don’t participate in the postseason, but their top teams would probably be at least quarterfinalists if they did.
BMAC’S BONUS TALKING POINTS AFTER THIS WEEKEND:
1) When it comes to shocking losses, to me was the massive Austin Peay loss to Central Arkansas (by 29 points). APSU had been doing some nice things all year, with a quality win against Eastern Kentucky by double digits and with the way it battled against FBS Western Kentucky in the season opener. This game wasn’t characteristic of what had been happening this year for the Governors. Now, keep in mind that UCA fell to both Missouri State and SEMO, but this weekend’s win was a head-turner.
2) Who is rising quickly? I’m going to have to go with North Dakota, Idaho, Monmouth, and SoCon teams like Samford and Mercer. This was a good weekend for these programs, and they’ve all had a couple of good ones already this year.
3) We’re going to repeat what we said last week: The Patriot League is as good as it has been since 2015, and really maybe earlier. Holy Cross has beaten some good competition this year. It beat an FBS (Buffalo) for the second straight year (UConn last year). It hammered a solid Yale program, winning by 24, and this weekend it handled a strong Harvard team on the road.
Then Fordham, the offensive juggernaut that the Rams are, rallied after giving up 21 points in the first quarter to hammer Georgetown (as it should). This comes after beating a good Monmouth team in Week Two and beating another CAA in Albany and nearly knocking off FBS Ohio U. (lost by 7 late). For the record — Fordham travels to Holy Cross on Oct. 29 in a game that clearly will impact the FCS playoff picture. PS — Fordham has scored 48 points in every game to start 4-1 and 4-0 against the FCS.
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