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Everyone knows about Eastern Washington, Northern Iowa and Richmond this past weekend. As so often happens seemingly every year, the best of the best in FCS surprise everyone but themselves in the first week of the college football season, taking down members of the “Power Five” conferences that didn’t see it coming – Washington State,.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see Eastern Washington’s star wideout Cooper Kupp as one of the best receivers at the FCS level, or dominating Sam Houston State defensive end P.J. Hall as a great pass rusher. It seems, in fact, that all anyone talks about in the FCS preseason is the painfully obvious..
Your Team is AWESOME. No, wait, YOUR team is AWESOME. It’s the best weekend of the year, where everyone’s team is awesome. Everyone’s undefeated*. Everyone has potential to be undefeated*, conference champions, and heck, even maybe national champions. (*) Except for Charleston Southern, who lost in overtime to the No. 1 team in the country.
Don’t tell the folks at Charleston Southern that they can’t win this Saturday. Sure, everyone knows about the pressure the Buccaneers will face in the Fargodome, starting off the season against the defending five-time national champions. Everyone knows North Dakota state is good – legendary good. They know the eyes of the entire national college.
North Dakota State, it’s time we had a talk. We get it. At the FCS level, you’ve been a terrific success story. You’ve won Missouri Valley football championships. You’ve upset a lot of FBS teams, the biggest one of all being a presesason contender for the Big 12, Kansas State, with an iconic game-winning drive.
The Big 12 has made some news this college football offseason as they have been publicly mulling expansion. They’ve been thinking about expanding by 2 teams, putting them at 12 overall, or 4 teams, putting them at 14. Reportedly eighteen schools, including some head-scratching candidates such as Air Force and Arkansas State, have pitched the Big.
There are few things more exciting in the kickoff of the college football season than a Jacksonville State putting The Fear Of The Big Guy Above into Auburn, or Portland State delivering probably the most humiliating upset on FCS over FBS history over North Texas. There’s an extra jolt of adrenaline when a sixty-three scholarship.
Penn Quakers Head Coach: Ray Priore, 2nd season (7-3) Biggest Strength in 2016: Could there have been an unlikelier Ivy League championship candidate than Penn’s first season under head coach Ray Priore? After losing back-to-back games vs. Dartmouth and Fordham and giving up more than 40 points in each game, the 1-3 Quakers then proceeded.
FCS fans love the playoffs. So do I. Fans love the idea of organizing a bracket of the 24 best teams, having them play each other, until a true national champion is crowned, proven through the only reliable way to truly determine a champion – head-to-head competition. So do I. But quickly FCS fans realize.
Harvard Crimson Head Coach: Tim Murphy, 22nd season (156-63-0) Biggest Strength in 2016: You could pencil in Harvard’s biggest strength every single year as “despite losing N talented, all-Ivy League players, their depth is so great that they’ll simply plug in the next round of talented, all-Ivy players, and they’ll finish over .500 and compete.
Colgate Raiders Head Coach: Dan Hunt, 3rd season (14-12) Biggest Strength in 2016: Most teams break out in Year 3 of a new head coach, but Dan Hunt’s Raiders decided to break out after a 2-4 start and fired off seven straight wins, knocking out a Patriot League title contender (Lehigh) and three nationally-ranked teams.
Fordham Rams Head Coach: Andrew Breiner, 1st season (0-0) Biggest Strength in 2016: When the “Battering Ram” offense of Joe Moorhead was firing on all cylinders last season, Fordham’s multiple no-huddle offense was awfully difficult to stop. Eight times last season, Fordham scored more than 35 points in a game; eight times, they came out.
Duquesne Dukes Head Coach: Jerry Schmitt, 11th season (68-51) Biggest strength in 2016: The Dukes, always close but never the ultimate victors of the NEC, changed all that last season. They finally seized their chance after performing pretty much as expected in out-of-conference play, beating two sub-D-I opponents and Bucknell but falling to the eventual.
St. Francis (PA) Red Flash Head Coach: Chris Villareal, 6th season (24-41) Biggest strength in 2016: The theme of the 2015 Red Flash season had to be defense (almost) wins championships. With one of the top-rated defenses in FCS, St. Francis had a season to remember, securing their first winning season since 1992 and coming.
Yale Bulldogs Head Coach: Tony Reno, 4th season (21-19) Biggest strength in 2016: When the Bulldogs really buckled down and played clean football, they had stretches of dominance that showed the rest of the Ivy League that they can compete with the best. Behind by two scores to Colgate, the Eli scored two late touchdowns.
Here at CSJ, we are previewing the upcoming 2016 season, and we are counting up from 7 to 1 as to who we think how the Patriot League football season will shake itself out. Last season, Colgate overcame an 0-3 start and won seven of their next eight regular season games, including a shock 31-29 win.
Holy Cross Crusaders Head Coach: Tom Gilmore, 12th season (66-69) Biggest strength in 2016: Battlers until the end of the season, Holy Cross navigated a strange schedule to finish above .500, but more importantly winning four of their last five games. After losing a closer-than-it-looked 31-14 loss to Colgate in Week 3, Tom Gilmore’s team.
Sacred Heart Pioneers Head Coach: Mark Nofri, 4th season (25-11) Biggest strength in 2016: Good teams stop the run well, and the Pioneers’ front seven stopped the run better than any other team in the NEC, allowing ony 3.2 yards per carry during the season. Additionally, in their six wins, Sacred Heart held the opposition.
Princeton Tigers Head Coach: Bob Surace, 8th season (25-35) Biggest strength in 2016: The biggest strength of the Tigers last year was basically the way they competed in the first four games of the season, pummeling Lehigh, Lafayette, Columbia and Colgate by a combined score of 146-58. Granted, they faced the Patriot League champion Raiders.
Lehigh Mountain Hawks Head Coach: Andy Coen, 10th season (68-46) Biggest strength in 2016: Last season, the Mountain Hawk offense went from an above-average unit to the type of scary offensive force that Lehigh fans love and expect. Averaging over 30 points per game in their last five contests of last season, with an impressive.
Here at CSJ, we are previewing the upcoming 2016 season, and we are counting up from 8 to 1 as to who we think how the Ivy League will shake itself out. Last season saw a thrilling Ivy League football season with three teams, Harvard, Penn, and Dartmouth, enjoying a co-championship. Harvard beat Dartmouth in a 14-13.
Bryant Bulldogs Head Coach: Marty Fine, 12th season (75-55) Biggest strength in 2016: When the Bulldogs were at their best in 2016, it was the middle of the season, with Bryant’s junior QB and senior RB keeping opposing offenses guessing. In consecutive weeks at home, Marty Fine’s team knocked off Duquesne and St. Francis (PA),.
Dartmouth Big Green Head Coach: Buddy Teevens, 17th season (75-83-2, 109-160-2 overall) Biggest strength in 2016: It is difficult to narrow down one strength of the coIvy League champion 2015 Dartmouth Big Green. Was it their dynamic, incredible playmaking QB? Was it their smothering defense, who gave up more than two touchdowns in a game.
Bucknell Bison Head Coach: Joe Susan, 7th season (28-38, 38-38 overall) Biggest strength in 2016: Though the Bison disappointed in 2015, you can’t hang that on the backs of the defense, who was ranked 12th in the nation in scoring defense and 6th in red zone defense, holding high-flying offense like Colgate, Fordham and Lehigh.
Here at CSJ, we are previewing the upcoming 2016 season, and we are counting up from 7 to 1 as to who we think how NEC football will shake itself out. Last season saw Duquesne win their first-ever NEC title, and saw them rewarded with a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia in the FCS playoffs to face.
Central Connecticut State Blue Devils Head Coach: Pete Rossomando, 3rd season (7-16) Biggest strength in 2016: The stat sheet doesn’t necessarily reflect it, but the Blue Devils have a great young core of defenders on which they will build this season. Rising seniors CB Jevon Elmore (71 tackles, 16 pass breakups) and DE Asia Bolling.
Brown Bears Head Coach: Phil Estes, 19th season (108-71-0) Biggest strength in 2016: If you’re competing on a team with Phil Estes as your head coach, chances are your big strength is going to be on offense, and the Bears’ starting five offensive linemen seem to be Brown’s biggest strength in 2016. Two bookend tackles,.
Lafayette Leopards Head Coach: Frank Tavani, 16th season (82-98) Biggest strength in 2016: After suffering through an immense number of injuries in 2015, the end of season finally saw Frank Tavani’s offense sputter to life, thanks to the emergence of an effective running game. The emergence of RB DeSean Brown (877 all-purpose yards, 5 TDs).
Wagner Seahawks Head Coach: Jason Houghtailing, 2nd season (1-10) Biggest strength in 2016: In a tough 2015 campaign where Wagner struggled on both sides of the ball, Houghtailing’s squad finally got a glimpse of strong play from a player on whom the Seahawks will be relying on next season, RB Matthias McKinnon. Wagner’s multi-faceted running.
Columbia Lions Head Coach: Al Bagnoli, 2nd season at Columbia (2-8), 232-91 overall Biggest strength in 2016: After a 2014 season that ended with morale at an all-time low, the shock hire of Al Bagnoli after his retirement tour at Penn was a desperately needed jolt of enthusiasm. With the full knowledge that a ground-up.
Georgetown Hoyas Head Coach: Rob Sgarlata, 3rd season (7-15) Biggest strength in 2016: It is probably very cloying to call a team “better than their 4-7 record”, but you could definitely make that case about the 2015 Hoyas. In the Patriot League, Sgarlata’s squad came within a touchdown of Colgate, Fordham and Lehigh, while for.
Robert Morris Colonials Head Coach: John Banaszak, 2nd season (4-7) Biggest strength in 2016: Only allowing 21.6 points per game, the Colonials defense certainly kept them in games last season. Robert Morris also got an eye-popping 85 tackles for loss last season, showing that the defense was doing their job. That’s the foundation for this.
Cornell Big Red Head Coach: David Archer, 4th season (5-25) Biggest strength in 2016: Probably not what Cornell fans want to hear, but their best player might be P Chris Fraser (Potomac, MD), one of the best punters at the FCS level with a 44.8 yard per punt average and 16 punts of more than.
CBS Sports By Chuck Burton Publisher/Managing Editor College Sports Journal PHILADELPHIA, PA. — The 2013 Division I college football season started a little after 6:00 PM on Thursday, August 29th in Kent, Ohio. It was a matchup between an FCS team, Liberty, and an FBS team, Kent State. Kent State struggled with Liberty, with their.
Since the Ivy League chose to reclassify to I-AA back in the early 1980s, the Ancient Eight has chosen, for “traditional reasons”, to decline participation in the FCS playoffs. But let’s call the ban what it really is – discrimination.
While sports betting in Delaware would not involve the Blue Hens or Hornets, Markell is certainly making a big gamble – that the NCAA will not ban the Blue Hens from hosting postseason competition, including FCS playoff games, over the issue.
