Welcome to the HERO Sports FCS Mailbag. In partnership with FCS Football Fans Nation, we will ask for questions with a post on their Facebook page every Sunday and our FCS crew of Brian McLaughlin, Chase Kiddy and Sam Herder will give in-depth answers with these Thursday articles. They will also choose the best question and discuss it on the FCS Podcast that comes out Wednesday mornings.
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Lawrence Smith: Is Maine going to come out of nowhere and win the CAA?
Chase: It’s looking more and more possible. Maine still has the game at Towson and it still has to play Elon in the regular season finale. But those guys are a very real contender to win the CAA right now, yes.
We all knew there was a team on the schedule that had a favorable path to winning the CAA because it didn’t have to play JMU, but I think a lot of us thought that team would be Delaware, not the Black Bears.
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Matthew Fraase: Is NDSU a Top 2 seed lock at this point if they go 4-1 over the next 5 games?
Chase: With all the losses everyone else has suffered, I think so. It’s hard for me to imagine NDSU not hosting until Frisco, though historically, college football has shown it doesn’t just matter who you lose to — it matters when you lose, too.
Sam: I’d say yes. Not only because of past trends with NDSU getting a Top 2 seed with one loss but because of what’s happened to other teams this year. KSU and EWU have a non-counter win. NDSU has the head-to-head win against SDSU. NDSU has better wins as of right now compared to JMU. UC Davis can make it interesting if it keeps winning and so can Illinois State if the Redbirds pull off the upset in Fargo this weekend and beat SDSU next weekend. But as long as the Bison finish 10-1, I think you’re looking at a Top 2 seed.
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Josh Pfau: Is the Big Sky actually deeper than the CAA and MVFC (if you include UND – top 6+), or just no truly great teams?
Chase: Depth is such a big word, so this can be really hard to quantify without agreeing on a precise definition. Are we talking purely about how many good teams? Are we talking about layered depth, with great teams at the top and good teams through the middle? Are we accounting for the number of good teams relative to the size of the conference? Blah blah blah. Boring academic stuff.
Anyway, I think I prefer the CAA’s depth, just because the teams are more balanced and the bottom isn’t so vast and terrible. On the heels of Elon’s win over JMU, it genuinely seemed like the CAA might have two top-5 teams. It also has two more teams with FBS upsets (Villanova and Maine) and still others that are either currently in first place (Towson) or have a very realistic chance at earning a share of the championship (Rhode Island, Stony Brook, Delaware).
I don’t know that any other conference can really replicate that this year, but that’s still not really a slight on the Big Sky — I think the top 4-5 teams in that conference are really strong, and there are some upset-capable squads through the middle, too. Definitely an impressive year for the Big Sky.
Sam: The CAA and Big Sky are deeper than the MVFC when it comes to playoff-caliber teams. I’d still take the Valley’s and CAA’s Top 3 teams over the Big Sky’s Top 3 teams, though. I think in the CAA and Big Sky, you have a bunch of teams that are all on the same playing field, which makes every week chaotic. There seem to be several tiers in the Valley, where the teams that are supposed to win have been winning for the most part.
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Rob Jones: The Fox Sports commentators in the JMU/Villanova game mentioned that in their view DiNucci is more versatile and an overall better QB than Schor. As one who has watched lots of JMU games the last 4 years, I am highly skeptical of that assessment. What do you guys think?
Chase: Ben has been a nice addition to the program, but he hasn’t quite reached #SchorStatus just yet. What Bryan did for JMU’s offense, as well as when he did it, is tough to overstate.
Sam: Ben brings the same kind of attributes that Schor did with his ability to make plays/throw on the run/etc. JMU should feel very comfortable with him as their guy. What remains to be seen is when it’s crunch time, can Schor’s late-game magic be replicated? That’s where a QB’s legacy is made.
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Adam Peterson: What is the 1 or many things Illinois State needs to stop NDSU in order to win or stay competitive?
Chase: Crowd the box and make Easton Stick win the game himself. I haven’t been all that impressed by Stick (60-for-107, 56.1%, 974 passing yards) so far this season, so I think the path to beating NDSU this season — if there even is one — is crowding the box, offering some exotic coverages and forcing the Bison to beat you with their passing game.
This comes with the obvious caveat that we know how good Easton is capable of being, so there’s a chance Illinois State leaves a bunch of 1-on-1s and gets completely torched. But the challenge of playing a team as good as North Dakota State is that they have about 25 different ways to beat you, so you’re going to have to leave something open.
Sam: Offensively, ISU obviously needs to get the ground game going with Robinson. But maybe even more important is keeping Davis clean in the pocket or hope he can scramble and make plays on the run. It’s his first time in the Dome, so no doubt the Bison are going to bring a blitz on about every passing situation. Defensively, you have to stop the run for all four quarters.
The four quarters thing is key. I’ve seen so many teams in person at the Fargodome pumped up in the first half because they’re holding NDSU to 3-4 yards a carry and it’s a 7-point game. Then the fourth quarter hits and it’s 7-8 yards a carry and all of a sudden a 17-point game. ISU’s defense needs to hold up for 60 minutes.
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Victor E. Quintana Jr.: SHSU is clearly a completely different team with Ty Brock running the offense. Is the emergence of Brock and the overall improved play enough to power the Kats to another playoff berth (assuming the Kats can go undefeated through a softer portion of the schedule) or are the 2 early losses to UND and Nicholls simply too much to overcome?
Chase: I don’t think the early losses are inherently too hard to overcome, but the problem for Sam Houston is the same as it often is — the SLC schedule doesn’t offer a ton of opportunities for show-me-something wins. An honest question that I think SHSU fans should ask themselves: if our best win is a 3-point home win over rebuilding Central Arkansas, do we deserve to be in the field? I say no, but honestly, I’m not sure the playoff committee has the balls to leave the Bearkats out.
Brian: Victor, I think you’re on to something here my man. Flashback to 2017 and Ty Brock was my No. 5 FCS signee in my Feb. 2017 signing day rankings. The kid was coveted by a lot of teams in the Southland Conference and I think he’s showing us why now for the Bearkats. He’s very good and he’s going to be around for a while.
With Nicholls falling the other day, I guess there could be a spot for Sam Houston if the ‘Kats don’t slip up. They just can’t afford another loss in their situation, and that’s the key. But Brock certainly seems to be more a part of the potential success than any kind of struggles.
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Preston Adams: Who should be favored to win the MEAC? Howard and A&T have one loss, FAMU is undefeated and beat A&T on a last second field goal, and Bethune Cookman has one loss to Howard.
Chase: At this point, it’s definitely Florida A&M.
Brian: Preston, at this point I’m going to have to go with Florida A&M. In the preseason I wrote in FAMU’s preview that Willie Simmons “coming home to the Tallahassee area” would turn this program around, but I had zero idea it would happen this quickly. Couple that with NC A&T being in a rut right now after such an impressive start, and I think the writing is on the wall with the Rattlers. They’re the clear favorite in the league and have the record to prove it.
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Matt Styles: Who has surprised you the most so far this season, and who do you think surprises everyone in the second half of the season?
Chase: For me, it’s how dreadful New Hampshire has been, even when you factor in the Trevor Knight injury. That was a team we all universally expected to be somewhere from very good to great, and it just hasn’t been anywhere close. Some of the teams that have stepped into the power vacuum in the CAA — Maine and Elon — have also exceeded my expectations.
I still thought Elon was a year away from being a top-10 team, and I thought Maine would be one of the three worst teams in the conference this season. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sam: Idaho State and UC Davis have definitely surprised me. I knew they both had a good chance to be better, but I never predicted they’d be at the top of the Big Sky. YSU has surprised me in the opposite fashion with its struggles.
As far as the second half of the season, watch out for UNI and UND, two teams who I think a lot of people are hesitant on at this point in the season.
Brian: I’ll throw a couple of programs out there for you — Maine’s been incredible, East Tennessee State continues to find a way to win, Missouri State is having a great year so far in the MVFC and North Dakota has re-staked its claim among the FCS’ best.
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Jamie Williams: Will the Colgate/ Furman cancellation hurt either team in either playoff seeding or actually making the field (in Furman’s case).
Chase: I think Furman would probably have missed the playoffs anyway, and I can’t imagine Colgate getting a seed out of the Patriot League, so I’d lean toward no.
Brian: That’s a great question. If Colgate had won this game, it could definitely have helped the resume because the Raiders likely would be 10-0 vs FCS competition with 3 wins vs. CAA/SoCon teams. Of course, Colgate also has an opportunity to impress by playing Army at the end of the year, and should the Raiders somehow pull that off, Colgate will be seeded barring some unforeseen slipup in the Patriot down the stretch. In Furman’s case?
Well, the Paladins certainly made a statement last weekend with that convincing win over Wofford, eh? Wow. So if Furman goes on a tear like it did last year? And a potential win over Colgate would have been the difference between say … six wins vs. seven wins? Yep, that could hurt too.
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Erik Walker: How can a person justify putting JMU ahead of SDSU and Kennesaw when both teams had decisive victories? What is wrong with the ranking system to penalize two teams that played well against their opponents?
Chase: It matters who you play, and Kennesaw just hasn’t played a tough schedule. I, along with 99% of the known world, am more impressed by a 7-point win on the road against a Valley/CAA school than I am with a 50-point win over a bad Big South team or a Division II school.
Think of it this way: if the NCAA allowed Kennesaw State to play 14 high school teams from the greater Atlanta area, and KSU entered the playoffs at 14-0, would they deserve one of the top seeds? Of course not.
We really like KSU, and we think they could be a final four kind of team, but it’s tough to justify putting them as a top-4 seed against that schedule when several other schools have much more impressive wins.
Sam: Everyone does rankings a different way. There’s no perfect way to do a poll or ranking. For me, I don’t follow the whole “Team A lost and Team B won, so let’s swap them and Team A can’t move back ahead of Team B if Team B keeps winning” model that so many pollsters do.
At the end of the day, it’s all about who I think is the better team. And I still think JMU is a better team than KSU on a neutral field. Until something happens this season that definitively shows me the Owls are better than the Dukes, I’ll have JMU higher in my poll.
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Tommy Edwin Leonard: Does EWU need Gage, or was Weber defense that good? EWU’s defense was lights out for 3/4 of the game…
Chase: Weber’s defense can do that. If I’m Eastern, I watch the tape, figure out where we can improve, then turn the page to Idaho. Even good teams lose games, and when you lose to Weber, it usually involves the offense looking bad. Sometimes, that’s all it is.
Sam: Weber’s defense is that good, but it’s still a concern when EWU’s explosive offense can’t score one touchdown. I figured the Eagles would still be a pretty good team without Gubrud because the playmakers are still there. But that game showed me if EWU wants to compete for a national title, Gage is going to have to be behind center. Barriere is still pretty good and has a bright future and with him, the Eagles can win a couple playoff games. But if you can’t beat Weber on the road, how will you beat NDSU or JMU deep in the postseason?
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Tyler Cheek: As a general rule, should we consider Ivy league teams for top 25 polls? Do you see top 25 polls as independent from the playoff picture or inextricable?
Chase: I look at top 25 polls as just that: a poll for the 25 best teams in FCS Football. We include HBCU teams, when appropriate, and Ivy Leaguers should be included as well. No reasonable football fan could watch Dartmouth and Princeton play this year and come to the conclusion they can’t compete with some of these other top 25 teams.
Brian: Definitely think Top 25 polls are quite a bit different than the playoff picture. And yeah, why not point out that Dartmouth and Princeton are pretty good this year, you know? Same with the HBCUs … but please, please, please do your homework voters, and can we have it make some sense?
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Bruce Edmiston: At what point in the season will Hero Sports poll mirror the more credible Coaches poll?
Chase: I like to tell jokes too! You should come to open mic night with me tonight in Staunton, Virginia. I have a Jimmy Garoppolo joke that’s going to kill.
Sam: You lost me at credible coaches poll. My guess is you don’t like our playoff predictions/BennettRank computer rankings/my personal poll because we don’t have JSU high enough. It’s funny, though. I’ve interacted with a lot of JSU fans on Twitter who said their team hasn’t proven anything to be considered a Top 8 team and the 9-12 range is accurate.
I have the Gamecocks at No. 11. Kinda goes to show the difference in Twitter and Facebook in 2018. After losing right away as the No. 3 seed multiple times in recent years, most (but evidently not all) JSU fans seem to realize in order for their team to be taken seriously again, it doesn’t matter the margin of wins in the OVC.
What matters is getting ranked wins in the nonconference and actually doing something in the playoffs.
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Jacob Martinez: With Samford having fallen out (Though they are coming back), Kennesaw State hasn’t had a win against a high-quality team yet, and won’t face a ranked opponent until the last game of the season (Jacksonville State) unless Campbell slides into the mix. Sure KSU is beating the crap out of weaker teams, but how much of a wildcard would they be going into the playoffs given that they would only have one top 10 win? (assuming KSU beats JSU) How much would it hurt them to lose to JSU?
Brian: Jacob, great question. It would hurt Kennesaw a boatload to lose to Jacksonville State. The Owls were better than Georgia State but fell by a couple points. FBS team or not, KSU was better and really needed that win for credibility.
I agree with you that after 140 points scored the past two weeks, it would appear Samford is pissed off about its September and is storming back. I wouldn’t want to be one of the four teams left on the Dogs’ schedule — and I’d predict KSU’s win over Samford is going to look better and better as we go along. As for how much of a wildcard could they be?
Well, I don’t think they’re an unknown quantity seeing as though they were a quarterfinalist last year. I think they’re a quarterfinalist caliber program once again, maybe even a semifinalist.
But schedule strength may hurt where they factor into the playoff seeding, and a JSU loss, in the end, would not be good — it would undoubtedly force KSU to play in the first round, I’d think.
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