With a few notable exceptions, last week’s FCS slate seemed lacking in exciting results. This weekend didn’t suffer from the same affliction.
Six teams from my top 25 ballot last week lost, with three of them being to other teams on my ballot. Translation? There were some pretty good matchups this weekend – and it’s only going to get crazier as we head into the October “meat of the schedule”.
By the time we hit one month from now, we’re going to know a lot more about this level, but we’ll probably have a lot of critical questions too, won’t we?
Here are some of the FCS highlights of the week five schedule.
THE HEADLINE:
I’ve written this many times before and said it on radio shows: Being somebody from Florida, where there’s a plethora of football talent that would feed many programs, it continues to astound me that the Dakotas have four programs that are clearly in the upper echelon of FCS football.
I realize there’s the “only show in town” dealio going on there, and that the community will stick up for its team. But the Dakotas are hardly the only part of the country that has that dynamic. But this year? All four FCS teams in the Dakotas are good. This weekend? Two-time defending FCS champion SDSU was off, but NDSU and South Dakota beat ranked MVFC teams, and North Dakota hung 70+ on Murray State.
Honestly? I think it’s a testament to the people who live there. They embrace these programs and show up. Do I think they’d be consistent Top 25 teams in the FBS? No, honestly, I don’t. People will argue that NDSU and SDSU might fit in consistently but try out-recruiting Big Ten and Big 12 teams when you’re in the Dakotas (that’s one reason they’re still in the FCS). But can Dakota schools knock one of them off in a “payoff game”? Hell yeah (with the exception of the Michigan and Ohio State types).
What the Dakota programs do (and the Montana duo too, obviously) is seriously impressive. They attract good coaches and attract enough out-of-state talent to go along with the homegrown grit that the Dakotas produce. It’s obviously a good formula – and once against we saw that this weekend.
BIGGEST SURPRISES
**I think one of the biggest shocks of the first two weeks of the Ivy League has been Brown and Cornell being 1-0 in the league and Harvard and Yale being 0-1. Brown is 2-0 overall, the only Ivy League team to survive the first two weeks without a loss.
Brown’s two wins have been against Harvard and Georgetown – who has beaten a very good Columbia team already. Keep in mind, the Bears do have a stud QB in Jake Willcox, but I doubt anybody had Brown atop the league. We’ll see if it holds. It was the Bears’ first win in a while over Harvard – ending a 12-game losing streak against the Crimson.
**The Big Sky sure held up as a conference that will be nuts this year. But what’s new? UC Davis put an exclamation point on the day, holding off a very good Idaho team well into Sunday morning hours (at least on the Eastern side of the country). Star do-everything guy Lan Larison smothered Idaho’s onside kick to secure a 2-point win.
And Northern Arizona won arguably its biggest game since knocking off FBS Arizona a few years back, manhandling a typically strong Sacramento State team by 18 points. Montana survived the red turf in Cheney when it escaped with a 3-point win on the road.
**It has been a while since Bucknell got a win like this. Lehigh was playing really well this year, but the Bison (not the Dakota version) won in overtime.
**Monmouth hit the 60+ mark in scoring against Fordham this weekend, just one week after the first FBS victory in school history down in Miami against Florida International. The Hawks continue to impress.
**The FCS 5-0 Club is exclusive and only has two members now – Montana State and Mercer. That’s an impressive place to be right now, particularly for the Bears.
POLL EFFECT:
Honestly? I can only speak for my ballot. I had UC Davis at No. 8 before Saturday, and Idaho at No. 4. Obviously, the Aggies won. Idaho is the only team that fell Saturday that was in my top 10 last week, and I’m not going to drop the Vandals out of my top 10 this week because of a failed 2-point conversion.
When you venture outside of the top 10? It gets hairier. That No. 11 to No. 25 vote space? Well, that’ll be the focus of my poll vote piece coming out later Sunday or early Monday and pinned to the top of my Twitter account (@BrianMacWriter).
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This was a fun weekend, but the FCS upper echelon hasn’t gone anywhere. By the way … to the voters out there … if you drop Idaho too far, you’re doing a disservice to the poll. The Vandals lost by two to a very good UC Davis team, has beaten an FBS in Wyoming, beat a Top 25 team (in my opinion) in Abilene Christian, blew out a 2023 FCS playoff team in UAlbany, and fell by 10 to a really good P4 in Oregon. If you drop Idaho out of the top 10? You should be suspended from being a voter.
Just saying. Sorry for the rant.
Truth is, this was an awesome weekend, and this won’t end.
