Covering All College Sports Since 2012
North Dakota State faced down their first real test of the season and survived. UC Davis give the Bison all they could handle, but in the end, NDSU’s defense saved the day. In what turned out to be the game of the weekend, Villanova showed that their 3-0 start wasn’t a fluke with a 52-45 OT win over Towson. Most teams will be into conference play from here on, so look for the crème to really rise to the top.
The non-conference portion of the schedule is mostly over for the Big Sky with a few exceptions such as UNI vs, Weber this week, Idaho State travels to BYU in November, and a few North Dakota games. So far, the Big Sky is not off to as hot a start as many believed they would.
Without question the top FCS game of the week was the battle of FCS powerhouses in the Fargodome.Returning home after 47-22 victory the week before against Delaware, the heavily-favored Bison had a very tough battle against visiting UC Davis, ultimately winning 27-16 after scoring a late touchdown to finally put the game in the win column for North Dakota State.
The Missouri Valley Football Conference did well in Week 4 in going 6-3 against its non-conference schedule in Week 4. That included going 5-0 against the Big Sky Conference in the MVFC-Big Sky challenge. The league guaranteed a winning mark against the other strong western US conference as it now sits at 6-3 with one.
Another interesting week awaits us in the NEC, featuring a battle between a NEC title contender and a Pioneer Football League contender.
Week 4 is upon us and the last of the intriguing non-conference play will be wrapping up for the majority this week. The Big Sky – Missouri Valley games will see several games this week of varying degrees of competitiveness to be observed. Missouri Valley fans will likely be harassing Big Sky fans after this week as the matchups are lopsided even when seemingly close. Despite the spreads, this week will feature two marquee matchups, even if the Big Sky is favored in neither.
Last week was a mixed one for the Patriot League. Georgetown overwhelmed a Division III team 69-0, while Fordham topped Bryant by double digits. The rest of the league was not so lucky, however, losing to two CAA schools (William and Mary, Villanova), a NEC school (Sacred Heart) and a Big Sky school (UC Davis). This week, the entire Patriot League faces daunting challenges against tough competition – three CAA teams and an Ivy League title favorite.
The Ohio Valley picked up the signature FCS win this year when they stormed back with 21 fourth quarter points to beat Eastern Washington. The Gamecocks were led by Zerrick Cooper and Marlon Bridges. Eastern Kentucky had a chance to put a solid win on its resume, but wound up losing to Indiana State. Most of the rest of the league played and lost to FCS competition.
Conference play is still a couple of weeks away, but the teams of the Big South take on some interesting challenges out-of-conference this week, including an FBS game, a trip to an iconic FCS football stadium, and a game against a Missouri Valley opponent.
Finally the wait is over – the Ivy League awakens from their annual football slumber and rejoins the college football universe almost a full month after the rest of college football has started their season. Top 25-caliber powerhouses Princeton, Dartmouth and Yale finally will be able to prove where they stand in the national picture.
Week three brought a mixed bag of results in the Southland. Houston Baptist shocked the FCS world with their exciting 53-52 upset of MVFC member South Dakota. Sam Houston State was unable to avenge their 2018 loss to North Dakota, again falling to the Fighting Hawks. In conference, Central Arkansas and Abilene Christian lived up to the pregame hype with the Bears prevailing late 31-30.
The Southern Conference continues to look like a strong league in 2019. But, the one team everyone expected to be the top team in the league, Wofford, has looked anything but strong through two games. The biggest win in week three for the conference was picked up by The Citadel who defeated FBS Georgia Tech in overtime.
Towson showed they aren’t going away in the CAA and FCS race. The Tigers easily beat Maine by 22 points last week. In the only other CAA matchup, Elon picked up its first conference win, cruising by Richmond. In a couple more weeks, conference play will be in full swing. But for this week there are only two conference matchups while James Madison plays an interesting out of conference contest at Chattanooga.
Week 3 saw another good showing for the Missouri Valley Football Conference as a whole (See the recap here). The league went 6-3 as a whole in non-conference action. This week will be the last where the full conference has out-of-conference games with another nine games this week (Youngstown State is the lone conference team.
Marquee: Jacksonville State def. Eastern Washington 49-45 A tidal wave of shock was sent across the FCS landscape as Jacksonville State pulled off a momentous upset. After the first quarter it seemed as if the fate of the game was going to be easily determined with a 28-7 EWU lead. Things would even out much.
Week three was highlighted by a couple of much maligned teams pulling off exciting upsets – Houston Baptist 53-52 over South Dakota and VMI 31-24 over East Tennessee State in overtime. The marquee matchup of the week certainly lived up to its billing. Jacksonville State stormed back with 21 fourth quarter points to beat Eastern.
Last week, we shook the dust off our first laughable attempt at picking an FCS Playoff field, and this week, we make another laughable attempt at picking an FCS Playoff field, but with a few more data points so that it’s, well, a tiny bit less hilarious. This week, we saw North Dakota State extend.
The Missouri Valley this week had another good week with its nine out-of-conference games. There were nine games with Northern Iowa being off this past week. Overall, the league went 6-3 against its competition. The top game this week as top ranked North Dakota State visiting the CAA’s Delaware, who were also ranked in the.
It was a week of high-profile Top 25 clashes in FCS this week, as the marquee games of the week pitted Delaware vs. North Dakota State and Eastern Washington vs. Jacksonville State. One was a Bison display of dominance, the other a thriller that could be the game of the year. Adding to the fun of this week’s games was a shootout in Vermillion, South Dakota and another big FBS upset in Georgia.
UC Davis QB Jake Maier had a tremendous evening in the Aggies’ home opener in UC Davis Health Stadium, going 38-for-49 passing for 389 yards in a 41-13 win over Lehigh Saturday Evening in front of 9.908 fans. Maier threw for four touchdown passes, all coming off of long drives of more than 50 yards. .
Things pretty much played out as expected when the teams of the NEC stepped up in class, losing some games against tough competition. It was the losses to D-II squads that were an issue, with Wagner and Robert Morris losing some bad games against sub-D-I competition. This week, the NEC has another mixed back of play-up and play-down competition.
Last week, Holy Cross stunned many with their 13-10 upset of New Hampshire, the Patriot League’s first win over a CAA school this season. This week Colgate hopes to make it a second when they face William and Mary on the road. NEC, Big Sky, and even a D-III opponent graces the Patriot League schedule this week.
The non-conference gauntlet continues in Week 3 with PAC 12 and Mountain West FBS matches, long distance FCS games, and one D-II game. Weber State has the best chance to make a “Fear the FCS” moment, but all of the FBS games this week have the potential to be ugly. Looking ahead at the FCS games is a different story, as Big Sky teams have the talent to win big. NAU versus Western New Mexico will be an obvious win barring a strong Lumberjack performance.
Only one Ohio Valley team picked up a win last week – Jacksonville State – while everyone else lost. Of course six of the teams played FBS opponents, so those results are not too surprising. In FCS action, both Austin Peay and Southeast Missouri State lost well hyped out of conference games last week. Week three brings even more competitive non-conference games, including the game that probably got the most hype of any non-conference game over the summer.
The Southland did not have many FCS vs FCS games last week. However, two of its teams – Northwestern State and Stephen F. Austin – lost to Division II opponents. The one team we continue to be impressed by is Central Arkansas. The Bears used another comeback to defeat Austin Peay.
The Missouri Valley Football Conference did well in Week 2 as the league as a whole. The biggest win in the league was Southern Illinois’ 45-20 win at UMass. Te MVFC now has had at least one FBS win in each of the last 10 seasons. The MVFC recorded a 1-7 mark vs. the FBS.
The Southern Conference continued its slow start to 2019 with only one team picking up a win against an FCS opponent. The one bright spot, Furman, gave Georgia State all it could handle, but just couldn’t finish the job in the end.
Week two brought a mixed bag of results. The highlight of the weekend was the triple OT thriller in Meade Stadium that saw Delaware outlast the host Rhode Island Rams. That game set the stage for what should be an excellent season of conference matchups.
The Lehigh Mountain Hawks (0-2) make a trip to Davis, California to take on the UC Davis Aggies (1-1). It’s a game that promises to be an interesting clash of East Coast vs. West Coast in UC Davis Health Stadium – a Big Sky vs. Patriot League matchup, which is a rarity during the regular season.
There truly is a never-ending search for content, a fact I was reminded of when I was politely and earnestly asked this week about coming up with an FCS playoff projection for the 2019 season.
Marquee: Montana State def. SEMO 38-17 The Redhawks gave their best effort, but the Bobcats prevailed dominant. A close halftime score did not define the game as Montana State went on a 28-7 run to win. Casey Bauman performed adequately, while the running game established itself as a deciding factor. Bauman passed for 136 yards.
Week two was a little more tame than week one from a top 25 standpoint. At the bottom of the FCS, six teams lost to sub D1 opponents while only one FCS team was able to beat and FBS team – Southern Illinois easily defeated Massachusetts. Over the first two weeks there have been 100 games against non-FCS teams. This week there are 30, so the FCS picture will start to sharpen. Conference play will swing into full gear over the next two weeks as well.
Most years, it’s FCS teams stunning FBS teams, but this week, it was non-scholarship FCS and sub-Division-I teams stunning FCS squads instead. In their home opener, non-scholarship Dayton (1-0) stunned Indiana State (0-2) 42-35. Flyer QB Jack Cook accounted for four touchdowns, two rushing and two passing, while RB Sean Prophit scored on a 13-yard.
The Missouri Valley Football Conference as a whole had a much better week than in Week 1 during this past Week 2. The league as a whole went 6-3 with one of the highlight wins being Southern Illinois’ win at FBS Massachusetts. Two of the losses were to FBS teams with Western Illinois falling at.
As sprinters, Darrynton Evans and Jalen Virgil would make a fine start to building a successful track relay team.
And at Kidd Brewer Stadium on Saturday afternoon, Appalachian State needed all of that speed and more to hold off upset-minded Charlotte, 56-41 in a non-conference football game.
The Villanova Wildcats (2-0) surged to a 17-3 halftime lead over Lehigh, and ultimately cruised to a 38-10 win on Saturday evening on the Main Line.
It was a game where the Mountain Hawks (0-2) would make way too many mistakes to pull off the upset on the road of a nationally-ranked FCS football team on the road.
Wagner, who came within a blown defensive penalty from having a chance to beat FBS UConn, isn’t the only NEC team chomping at the bit to start Week 2 of the football season. Duquesne, Central Connecticut State, Robert Morris and Sacred Heart also have their home openers this week.
Davidson’s narrow win against Georgetown last week was a really nice win for the Pioneer, who went 2-4 in their games last week. This week boasts another interesting grouping of games against the top teams of FCS and sub-D-I opponents.
0-2 Colgate, who lost two extremely challenging games to Villanova and FBS Air Force to start the season, earn a well-deserved bye week, while the rest of the Patriot League enters action looking to achieve their first victories of the season. As a conference, the Patriot League is a combined 0-8 to start the year.
The Southland Conference picked up two of the biggest early wins and one of the most talked about close losses to an FBS team in week one. Central Arkansas scored 21 fourth quarter points to upset Western Kentucky. Southeastern Louisiana took Jacksonville behind the woodshed in the biggest upset of the week. Unfortunately the Lions will not get to build on that momentum due to Hurricane Dorian causing the cancellation of their game with Bethune-Cookman. Houston Baptist surprised everyone by taking a fourth quarter lead against UTEP. The bottom rung Southland team came up just short, but Bailey Zappe put himself on the map as a quarterback to watch.
The OVC as a whole had a nice opening weekend, going 7-2. But the biggest surprise loss was felt by a team many thought would challenge for Frisco, Jacksonville State. The question on everyone’s mind is: was it just a bad game and JSU will bounce back, or is it a sign of things to come? Either way, the rest of the OVC surely took notice of the open door and will be looking to kick their way through.
30. 33. 38. 35. 26. 35. 31. No, that’s not a high school locker combination, or a quarterback audible. Those are the point totals Villanova were able to exact on Lehigh during their last seven meetings on the gridiron, all Wildcat victories. The Mountain Hawks have played the Wildcats seven times in the last eleven.
The Southern Conference did not get off to a great start in 2019, picking up only two out of conference wins. The poor weekend was punctuated by early favorite Wofford getting easily handled by South Carolina State, a team most picked to finish in the middle of the MEAC. Was it a blip in the radar? Or is the Southern Conference headed for a down year?
On paper, the Missouri Valley Football Conference did not get off to a great start, with only one win in Week 1 (although another was in Week 0). But the conference’s teams’ play was very good, as I explained in the my MVFC recap for Week 1. In Week 2, nine of the ten squads see action with six of the nine games featuring out-of-conference FCS opponents and the other three against FBS foes with one being a Power Five match-up.
The Big Sky schedule in general switches from an uphill FBS heavy schedule to a now D2 and interesting FCS matches week. With the schedule almost evenly in thirds of D2 (or lower), FCS, and FBS games will show variety of strengths and weaknesses of the Big Sky teams. Considering the hodgepodge of games available the game of the week is centered on SEMO vs. Montana State. Both are last year playoff teams and have a strong depth of players. This could be hard hitting and high-intensity game that gets decided in the fourth quarter.
A Dalton Sneed-led Montana team went on the offensive and never looked back. It took a Coyote field goal in the second quarter for the Grizzlies to jump back from hibernation. That South Dakota field goal would be the only led Austin Simmons and company would enjoy all game long.
The CAA had a solid showing on opening weekend with all its teams combining to go 7-1 against FCS opponents. The lone loss was suffered by Elon to nationally-ranked North Carolina A&T, 24-21, on a 52 yard field goal as time expired. Against an FBS school, James Madison gave West Virginia all they could handle before ultimately falling to the Mountaineers. On to week two where the CAA faces four more FBS teams and a couple of strong non-conference games.
Last season was one for the ages in the Ivy League, with Princeton going 10-0. It was the fourth outright Ivy League title in Princeton history, and the first since 1995. It was also the program’s second 7-0 Ivy season since league play officially began in 1956, and the 13th 7-0 season in Ivy League history, and the first since 2014. 9-1 Dartmouth was a heartbreaking second place to the Tigers, their only loss a 14-9 instant classic at Princeton. This season, will it come down to another battle of unbeatens?
Week one is in the books in the FCS. There was only one FCS upset over an FBS team, but another 11 teams came within one score of an upset. Many of the top teams played FBS competition, so where was not a lot of movement with those teams in the polls. Bad losses by Jacksonville State and Wofford have plummeted both of those teams.
Week One saw quite a few Power 5 FBS teams celebrate wins against powerful FCS teams as if they had won a bowl game. Only one FCS program, Central Arkansas, managed to knock off an FBS opponent: for the second straight year, Western Kentucky was defeated by an FCS program
