I am grateful to again have a vote in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 media poll for the 2023 season. I’ll publish my ballot every week and provide some reasoning for my order.
Notes at the bottom.
FCS Top 25
- South Dakota State
- North Dakota State
- Montana State
- Holy Cross
- Furman
- Idaho
- William & Mary
- Samford
- Sacramento State
- Incarnate Word
- SEMO
- Weber State
- North Carolina Central
- New Hampshire
- North Dakota
- UC Davis
- Montana
- Southeastern Louisiana University
- Youngstown State
- Florida A&M
- Northern Iowa
- Rhode Island
- Gardner-Webb
- Mercer
- Central Arkansas
I usually have a 500-1,000-word explanation of my poll here — breaking down my order, what changed from the previous week, why a team rose, why a team fell, how I feel about a big result, or what I like about a team’s resume.
But honestly, there isn’t much analysis to offer from Week 1 games. Only one result really moved the needle (below).
There were zero ranked FCS vs. FCS matchups. There were plenty of FCS vs. non-D1 games. There were some close FBS losses for unranked FCS teams. And some blowout FBS losses for ranked FCS teams. I’ve said often that the best gauge for an FCS squad is how they play against quality FCS opponents, not necessarily how they play against the FBS. We’ve seen several examples of teams nearly beating FBS opponents and end up not making the playoffs, sometimes even teams with FBS wins not make the postseason.
So my Top 25 is mostly similar to my preseason ballot besides FAMU and Central Arkansas entering my ranking. FAMU beat a Jackson State team I had ranked in impressive fashion. And the more I look at UCA’s roster, the more I like. I switched out EKU to make room for UCA (this is more about UCA than EKU).
I’ll get way more into the weeds in my future Top 25 ballot articles as things shift a lot more.
