The great thing about the FCS playoffs is it crowns a true national champion. Each team vies for a spot in the 24-team bracket and once there, anything can happen. That's the usual cliche in the postseason anyways. But if we're being real honest, the subdivision is top heavy. And this weekend in the quarterfinals proved it.
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You can break the FCS down into four tiers:
Tier 1 includes teams realistically in the hunt for a national title – teams like James Madison, North Dakota State, South Dakota State and you can throw Weber State in there right now with its quarterfinal performance against JMU.
Tier 2 has teams teetering in the quarterfinals or semifinals, but only threatening to make a run every once in awhile – teams like Sam Houston State, Wofford, Kennesaw State, Northern Iowa, Youngstown State, Jacksonville State and Eastern Washington.
Tier 3 are those teams you see in the playoffs or ranked 15-25 in the regular season. Solid programs, but not quite good enough to be at the top – includes teams like Central Arkansas, New Hampshire, Southern Utah, Samford, Furman and Western Illinois.
And Tier 4, well, they have a ways to go.
(JMU, NDSU, SDSU and SHSU make up the semifinals this weekend, so we're in for a treat.)
The thing is, though, the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2 teams in the FCS is huge. No. 2 seed NDSU showed that against No. 7 Wofford this weekend, winning 42-10. And No. 5 SDSU showed that against unseeded UNH, winning 56-14. These games weren't even close. The difference in level of play was eye-opening for it being the round of eight.
When the bracket was released, Wofford looked to be the Bison's stiffest competition. A physical defense and that "Southern speed" featured in the option offense that NDSU wasn't used to seeing was supposed to be a huge test. It wasn't. It turns out, the Terries don't see 6-foot-3 linebackers who can run sideline to sideline in the Southern Conference.
"I have to thank you guys (the media), because I think (our players) were tired of hearing how great Wofford's defense was, how they were the best they've had in a long time, how we were going to stop the triple option and how they've got great speed," NDSU head coach Chris Klieman said in the postgame press conference. "But we can run really well on defense. We can really run on defense. And that was shown today."
On the flip, it was the linebackers and defensive backs of Wofford who had their heads spin around more times than they got third down stops trying to figure out how to slow down NDSU's receivers, tight ends or running backs out of the backfield.
"That was kind of the talk," quarterback Easton Stick said when asked if the Bison offense took this game personally before going back to a more vanilla answer. "We feel like when we execute we can really play at a high level. We have a really good defense … and they gave us some short fields."
"When we execute, we're hard to keep up with," running back Bruce Anderson echoed. "So I feel some people lack respect on our name. But we have a point to prove every week and we just have to go out and execute."
The Bison outgained the Terriers 464 total yards to 177. It wasn't much prettier in Brookings. The Jackrabbits did whatever they wanted to against UNH and were up 21-0 after one quarter. They did this without their No. 1 offensive player in tight end Dallas Goedert, who left the game after his first catch with a lower leg injury and is questionable against JMU.
"We got our tails beat by a pretty good football team," Wildcats head coach Sean McDonnell said. "We got some work to do to get to the top echelon of FCS football."
Now, UNH was a team many didn't think should have made the playoffs. But the Wildcats knocked off No. 4 Central Arkansas, winner of the Southland Conference, a top five league in the FCS. UCA defeated SHSU 41-30 earlier in the season, which is exactly why not many people are giving the Bearkats a chance to beat the Bison Friday night.
SHSU fans feel like their team is in that top tier and get aggravated when the media excludes them. But until the Bearkats show they can have even a competitive game against a Tier 1 opponent, they won't get that respect, no matter what their statistics say in the regular season.
We'll find out this weekend where SHSU belongs. But as we learned in the quarterfinals, there's only a few teams in the current state of the FCS that are good enough to win a national title. The rest are trying to catch up, and they have a long ways to go.
