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CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo.– Illinis State RB James Robinson rushed for a career high 297 yards on 41 carries to help defeat Southeast Missouri State 24-6 on Saturday in a first-round FCS playoff game. The 297 yards set a school and Missouri Valley Football Conference record for a playoff performance. Robinson moved past the 4,000-yard mark.
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa–With Northern Iowa’s offense struggling to make plays, the Panthers got a defensive touchdown and forced four turnovers to advance to the second round of the FCS playoffs with a 17-3 win over San Diego (9-3) in front of 3,743 in attendence at the UNI-Dome. DE Brawntae Wells returned an interception for a.
The FCS playoffs are finally here! Enjoy the picks of the staff of the College Sports Journal and find out who we think will win the FCS National Championship.
Austin Peay, the winners of the OVC for the first time since 1977, plays Furman in the first round of the FCS playoffs. It is the first playoff appearance in the history of Austin Peay. The winner of Saturday’s game will move on to face No. 4-seed Sacramento State in the second round of the playoffs next weekend.
Are the Wildcats just a streaky team? Can they continue their hot streak into the playoffs? A matchup with a strong Southeastern Louisiana Lions team will certainly test Villanova on both sides of the ball.
Perhaps no other matchup in this year’s opening round of the FCS playoffs pits two teams with such a varying discrepancy in terms of history and achievement in the sport of football. But, in the end, history will be made for one team as the sun sets on the day after North Dakota and Nicholls State meet for the first time in the history of the two schools.
FCS First Round Playoff Matchup: Kennesaw State (Big South) at Wofford (Southern) Where: Gibbs Stadium, Spartanburg, South Carolina Saturday, November 30th, 4:00 PM TV/Streaming: ESPN3 (subscription req’d) Kennesaw State Owls (10-2), Head Coach: Brian Bohannon Big South Conference Kennesaw, Georgia The 2019 season for the Owls hasn’t really been that far off their more recent.
FCS First Round Playoff Matchup: San Diego (Pioneer) at Northern Iowa (Missouri Valley) Where: UNI-Dome, Cedar Falls, Iowa When: Saturday, November 30th, 2:00 PM EST TV/Streaming: ESPN3 (subscription req’d) San Diego Toreros (9-2), Head Coach: Dale Lindsey Pioneer Football League San Diego, California The PFL Champion Toreros enter their fourth straight trip to the FCS.
Who: Illinois State at SEMO When: Saturday, November 30th Time: 2 pm Location: Cape Girardeau, Missouri How to Watch: ESPN 3 Playoff time is the true holiday for FCS and football fans across the country. There are familiar matchups and first-time meetings to spice up the bracket with old and new opponents. These two teams.
Picked to finish twelfth in the twelve team CAA, no one expected to see Albany’s name pop up in the playoff bracket. But the Great Danes had an excellent season finishing alone in second in the conference behind James Madison.
Though they tripped up against 4-8 Lafayette, behind a strong, young defense the Crusaders pulled off an early upset of New Hampshire early and used their defense to outlast their opponents. If this game is to remain close, Holy Cross will need to make this game a slow-down, field-position battle.
This week the Group of Five is down to four and this week, the top two ranked G5 teams meet in the regular season finale for each. Cincinnati plays at Memphis with each having sights at the American Athletic Conference title and a Cotton Bowl bid as the top G5 squad in the final rankings.
Montana State took care of business and earned themselves a seed with a shocking victory over Montana. A 48-14 dissection of Montana is the last thing the majority of fans expected the Brawl of the Wild to be this year. With that historic win, the Bobcats helped the Big Sky earn a record of four.
Two-time defending national champion North Dakota State (12-0) tops the bracket as the number one seed after winning the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The Bison are making their 10th consecutive and 15th overall appearance in the championship.
The dark days are over! Robert Morris caps off an incredible season finishing 7-5 with their most recent victory coming over Sacred Heart 16-14.
Dayton and Drake finished tied for second place in the league standing with identical 6-2 records, while Davidson placed fourth after compiling a 5-3 record.
One team made a strong bid for a top seed and another did all it could to nail down a playoff berth of its own as Monmouth and Kennesaw State posted huge wins to close the 2019 Big South Conference season.
Austin Peay rolled all over Eastern Illinois to win the Ohio Valley Conference championship for just the second time in school history and the first time since 1977 with a 35-7 win over the Panthers on Saturday.
Six players including Caleb Evans from ULM, Malcolm Perry from Navy, Victor Tucker from Charlotte, Dustin Crum from Kent State, Ivan Pace Jr. from Miami (OH), and Jose Borregales from FIU have been selected as the College Sports Journal All-Stars for the week ending Nov. 25th, 2019 from the NCAA Division I FBS Group of.
The regular season is over but four Missouri Valley Football Conference teams will be playing in the FCS postseason tournament. Two MVFC teams were seeded with North Dakota State getting the #1 seed and South Dakota State getting the #7 seed. Northern Iowa and Illinois State also received bids. Those four teams were expected to.
The Bobcats may have been 30-point underdogs against one of the elite teams in the Group of Five, but TSU trailed just 14-13 midway through the third quarter. At that point, Appalachian finally unleashed tailback Darrynton Evans, who rushed for 154 yards on 21 carries and three second-half touchdowns to finally lift the Mountaineers (10-1 overall, 6-1 in the SBC) to their comfortable 35-13 win.
Below are the Top 25 High-Major rankings based on the Sagarin rankings for the week ending Nov. 23rd, 2019. Gonzaga remains undefeated and still sit atop this week’s rankings. The High-Major conferences include AAC, A-10, Conference USA, Mountain West, West Coast, and Missouri Valley conferences. Sagarin rankings provide the only rankings that actually ranks all Division.
Below are the Top 25 Mid-Major rankings based on the Sagarin rankings for the week ending Nov. 23rd, 2019. East Tennessee State takes over the top spot this week after most recent victories over Delaware State and Southern Utah. The Buccaneers also lost this week but was a close 12 point loss at the Power.
Here are the Top 25 FBS Group of Five (G5) rankings based on the Sagarin rankings for the week ending Nov. 23rd, 2019. Memphis retains the top spot following its easy win at South Florida this week. CSJ will show weekly rankings from the Sagarin rankings throughout the season and will have a final ranking.
Using the Sagarin ratings from this week alone to project the FCS playoffs, along with the automatic bid for the conferences that receive a bid, the following would be the playoff teams. These teams are seeded 1 through 24 for the 24 teams that make the FCS playoffs. The seven Division I win criteria was.
Here are the final Top 25 FCS rankings of the regular season based on the Sagarin rankings for the week ending Nov. 23rd, 2019. North Dakota State continues to hold down the top spot as the Bison had this position since the preseason. CSJ will show the final FCS Sagarin rankings following the national championship.
Four of the five Group of Five teams ranked teams won in Week 13. Memphis, who is leading the rankings following last week’s College Football Playoff Top 25, won easily at South Florida 49-10 and likely will stay atop the rankings this week. Cincinnati is next in the rankings won again in another close contest.
The FCS Playoff Committee has a pretty unenviable job this time around in trying to determine the playoff seeds. With a crazy day of upsets of Montana, South Dakota State, Illinois State and others, teams who looked like certain seeds suddenly look like they are going to be practicing on Thanksgiving Day instead.
It is rare that the MVP of the Lehigh/Lafayette game is a kicker, but that’s exactly what happened this afternoon at Murray Goodman Stadium as the Leopards beat their bitter Mountain Hawk rivals for the first time in five years in a 17-16 win.
This week, the College Football Playoff Top 25 released its third rankings. The following is the full Top 25. The Group of Five has five teams in the initial release with Memphis ranked as the top G5 team–bumping Cincinnati from that spot from a week ago. Below are the full Top 25 rankings with the.
Perhaps no bigger matchup looms than when Drake travels to play Davidson. Both teams are tied for second place, along with Dayton, with 5-2 league records. A win by any of those teams will assure them of no worse than a share of second place.
Everything has been decided in the Southern Conference with one week to go in the season. Wofford was able to clinch the conference title with its win over Furman coupled by a large blown fourth quarter lead by The Citadel against Chattanooga. Furman should also easily find its way into the field.
This is a big week across the FCS as it is rivalry, make it or break it for playoffs, a chance to end on a high note for the regular season, or all of the above. The famous Brawl of the Wild holds an all of the above label as Montana State needs a win.
This season, though, there isn’t the same feeling of continuity that permeated many of these other games. Part of that comes from the fact that, unusually for The Rivalry, both teams are packed with young underclassmen, many of them playing in their first Rivalry ever. Normally, The Rivalry is filled with narratives. This season, it feels like the master narrative is waiting to be written with two teams that, even at this late date, have unknowns.
It is hard to believe we are already in the last week of the regular season. The playoffs start next week and it looks right now that four MVFC teams are surely in the playoffs with North Dakota State winning its ninth straight tite. But South Dakota State, Illinois State, and Northern Iowa look secure.
KSU can ill afford a loss in the regular season finale against Gardner-Webb. If that happens, it could open the door to a realm of possible scenarios when the playoff field is announced Sunday. The Owls would finish the regular season with a 9-3 overall record, again, a mark that would normally get a team a postseason opportunity.
The CAA has its champion. James Madison handily defeated Richmond and claimed the outright CAA title. Joining the Dukes in the playoffs should be Villanova, Albany and Towson who each have seven division one wins on the season.
BOONE, NC – The college football season is winding down and almost all of the talk is concerning the College Football Playoffs and the four available spots that accompany it. Will it be defending national champion Clemson, LSU, Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia or somebody else? Just as important to the group of five conferences is.
So balanced has the conference been over the years that 12 times there has been at least two teams that have shared the conference title. This year could possibly make it 13 as Austin Peay and Southeast Missouri head into the final week of the regular season with identical 6-1 records in OVC play. Both are expected to be selected to play in the FCS playoff when the field is announced on Sunday.
It has taken until the last week of the regular season, but we finally have some clarity in the Southland Conference.
There were very few changes in the BOXTOROW Coaches and Media Polls as the teams that were expected to win did.
Using the Sagarin ratings from this week alone to project the FCS playoffs, along with the automatic bid for the conferences that receive a bid, the following would be the playoff teams. These teams are seeded 1 through 24 for the 24 teams that make the FCS playoffs. The following are the 10 automatic bid.
Just like that, we are down to the last week of the regular season. Selection Sunday comes to your airwaves thus Sunday November 24th at 11:30 AM on ESPNU. This past week, six of the ten automatic bids were sewn up. Those bids went to Monmouth (Big South), James Madison (CAA), North Dakota State (MVFC), Central Connecticut State (NEC), San Diego (Pioneer), Wofford (Southern). The Southland will be decided on Thursday night, while the Big Sky, Patriot and Ohio Valley will be decided on Saturday. The top 25 this week will look at each team from the prism of the playoffs.
The Toreros had little trouble in steamrolling their way to another Pioneer Football League championship with an impressive win over Morehead State on Saturday.
Montana pulled the upset so things could get messy in the Big Sky as to who is or is not a champion. The rare, but special three way tie is a very realistic possibility for the Big Sky. Montana needs to survive “Brawl of the Wild”, Weber surviving Idaho State, and Sacramento State surviving UC.
Going into this game, Lehigh’s defense had a serious challenge on their hands – to stop, or a least slow down, the leading rusher in FCS, Sacred Heart RB Julius Chestnut. For three quarters, they did just that, but in the fourth quarter Chestnut would score a pair of rushing touchdowns to lifted Sacred Heart to a 13-6 victory.
While many automatic bids for the FCS playoffs were determined over the weekend, the OVC chose to extend the suspense a tad bit longer.
The Big South is a misnomer. It’s footprint extends well past the confines of the southeastern United States. In fact, the celebratory foot-tapping is being heard all the way into New Jersey and the campus of Monmouth University.
It is hard to believe that 24th-ranked Appalachian State could play so badly early in its Sun Belt Conference football showdown Saturday night at historic Turner Field and still find time to engineer its 56-28 victory over the Panthers.
Six players including Brady White from Memphis, Brad Rozner from Rice, Jonathan Ward from Central Michigan, Kaleb Barker from Troy, Quincy Roche from Temple, and Sam Crosa, from Cincinnati have been selected as the College Sports Journal All-Stars for the week ending Nov. 18th, 2019 from the NCAA Division I FBS Group of Five schools..
