College Sports Journal Sagarin FCS Top 25– Preseason 2024
Below are the Top 25 FCS preseason rankings based on the Sagarin rankings for the 2024 season. CSJ will show weekly rankings from the Sagarin rankings throughout the season and will have a final ranking after the national championship game in January.
Last season’s champion of South Dakota State is the preseason #1 team with MVFC mate North Dakota State at the #2 spot. The Big Sky’s Montana starts at #3, while its rival Montana State starts in the fourth position. A third MVFC team in South Dakota rounds out the Top 5.
Please note that FBS transitioning teams of Delaware and Missouri State will be a part of the 2024 rankings. Also note that these two while playing in their current conferences of the Coastal Athletic Association for Delaware and the Missouri Valley Football Conference for Missouri State, those two teams will have the indication of I-AA=>I-A conference affiliation in these rankings. Those two teams will not be eligible for the FCS playoffs and will also be categorized individually in the conference rankings.
Other FCS conference alignment changes for 2024 are as follows as the division will have 129 teams in 2024 overall (including Delaware, Missouri State, West Georgia and Mercyhurst as recent transitioning teams):
-Sacred Heart and Merrimack are independent teams this year after leaving the NEC for all sports for the MAAC, which does not sponsor football currently.
-Bryant left the Big South–OVC Football Association for the CAA. Robert Morris and DII move-up Mercyhurst are joining the NEC. RMU left the Big South-Ohio Valley, while Mercyhurst moves up from the DII Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.
-Western Illinois leaves the MVFC and moves to the Big South-Ohio Valley alliance.
-West Georgia is another DII move-up as they move from the DII Gulf South Conference to the United Athletic Conference for football and the Atlantic Sun for other sports.
-Stephen F. Austin will return to the Southland Conference as a full-time member and departs the WAC and the United Athletic Conference.
Also note: Stonehill, Mercyhurst, Lindenwood, St. Thomas, Texas A&M Commerce, and West Georgia are all playoff ineligible for 2024 as each is still in the process of transitioning to Division I.
Sagarin rankings provide the one of the only rankings that actually ranks all Division I schools but our rankings will show just the FCS side of things and have been used for several years with his own computer ranking system to distinguish strength of schedule and strength of team when comparing teams.
You can see the full Division I Sagarin rankings at Jeff’s site itself.
In the rankings, you will see the the FCS rankings first and the overall Division I ranking to the right of the the FCS ranking.
The numbers show the ranking in the FCS Top 25 as well as the overall Division I ranking.
The Top 10 and Top 30 are the overall Division I Sagarin rankings.
Click on the rankings to see a larger view.
Predictions_with_Totals_and_Moneylines
Just click on “Predictions_with_Totals_and_Moneylines” and it will take you to the daily predictions at Jeff’s site file where you’ll also see the additional set of predictions which are the basic predictions that are adjusted to take into account each team’s tendencies of performance at home and away along with the extra picks column of STRONG RECENT.
The following are the individual FCS conference rankings and the overall rankings within overall ranking in Division I.
Click on the rankings to see a larger view.
Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
Reach him at this email or click below:
