As fewer and fewer games are on the schedule for FCS schools, the race for conference automatic and at-large bids is heating up.
Such is the case for conferences like the OVC, SoCon and Southland.
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The OVC is as wide open as it's ever been with Jacksonville State, who has dominated the conference for years, already having two conference losses. UT Martin has emerged at 4-0 in the standings while SEMO, Eastern Kentucky and Austin Peay each have one OVC loss.
The SoCon got a whole lot nuttier with Furman, who was ranked in the Top 10 nationally, suffered its first FCS loss to The Citadel. That leaves Chattanooga as the only undefeated team in the standings, but Wofford has all of a sudden won four games in a row after starting 0-2.
And how about the Southland? It was a wild race last year and it's shaping up to be the same story this year.
Figuring out who's going to be in the playoff field is a challenge, especially if the season ended today. Incarnate Word and Sam Houston State are 4-1 in the conference standings. It'd be hard to leave out Central Arkansas, who is 3-1 in Southland play and is 4-1 against FCS foes with an FBS win. But if you include UCA, you have to include Nicholls who is also 3-1 in the standings and pounded the Bears 34-14. But just recently, SHSU defeated Nicholls 17-0 a week after the Bearkats lost to Lamar, who just recently lost to UIW. But then SHSU holds a 45-6 head-to-head win on UIW.
Make sense?
Probably not, but Brian and Sam discussed these conference races further on this week's episode of B-Mac and Herd's FCS Podcast, which is also available on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher and Spreaker.
Starts at 43:00
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