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COVID-19 has caused several programs to opt out of the 2021 spring football season. Still, there are several teams who are continuing on with the season. One of those programs is Southern who defeated Alabama State 24-21 to open its season on Friday and was voted No. 1 in the BOXTOROW Coaches and Media Polls.
As expected there was a bunch of movement this week. The biggest shock is the one everyone has been talking about: North Dakota State not only lost, but lost big. It still remains to be seen how the Bison will wind up this Spring, but last week was their worst game in almost a decade.
Like many other football fans across the nation of FCS, we watched North Dakota State’s 39 game winning streak come to an end in Carbondale, Illinois, but it wasn’t the only event this weekend that had us shaking our heads.
This week will feature three Big Sky contests again missing the full slate once again due to COVID protocols. Nevertheless, there are some significant measuring stick games this weekend. NAU vs. EWU should provide clarity on two above average teams looking to play spoiler or beyond. UC Davis vs. Idaho may shed some light on.
In a week of chaos and controversy around the FCS we saw the Big Sky feature one of the top headlines. Undoubtedly, the top headline was the end of the North Dakota State winning streak, but a close second was the “missed” field goal during the Eastern Washington/ Idaho game. For those who missed it,.
This week we welcome the SWAC, Big Sky, and Big South to the wonderful world of spring FCS football, to go with the Missouri Valley, SoCon and OVC, who started their spring conference slates last week, and Tarleton State, who spent their time crushing FBS New Mexico State 43-17.
After a short first week of the season with just three of the possible five games played, Week 2 of MVFC play hopes to play the full five games this week. The two games canceled last week (Illinois State at Missouri State and Western Illinois at South Dakota) were postponed to the final weekend of.
The five teams competing will be Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, Kennesaw State, Monmouth and Robert Morris.
McNeese State and Nicholls are the only two Southland schools that have already played spring football games, winning both. This weekend the Southland Conference opens with important conference games.
Two games involving MEAC and SWAC teams remain on the schedule for this week.
The Southern Conference is playing an eight game conference only schedule this spring, meaning there are games every week with little room for error. Last week the two teams that everyone expects to battle it out for the conference title, Wofford and Furman, cruised to victory.
Only one of four games scheduled to kick off the 2021 spring season in the Ohio Valley Conference was actually played out last weekend, thanks to storms that hit a big part of the Mid-South. With any luck things will return to a semblance of normalcy as four games are slated to be played Sunday.
Five players including RB Quay Holmes from East Tennessee State, RB Pierre Strong Jr. from South Dakota State, QB Cameron Burston from Tarleton State, Devon Krzanowski from North Dakota, and Hayden Olsen from Tennessee Tech have been selected as the College Sports Journal All-Stars for the week ending Dec. 14, 2020 from the NCAA Division I FBS Group of Five schools.
Here is this week’s College Sports Journal Top 25 as voted on by the staff.
This weekend saw the best-ever spring weekend of FCS football in history, with a near-full slate of thrilling Missouri Valley conference action, a back-and-forth affair in the OVC, the start of SoCon play, and even a good old-fashioned FCS over FBS upset. It’s like a typical FCS football weekend. Except it’s February 22nd.
The CSJ Staff are proud to present this weekend guide to the games being played this weekend.
The CSJ writing staff answer the questions many of us have about the beginning of this unprecedented FCS season.
Three players were selected as CSJ’s Preseason Players of the Year on Offense, Defense, and Special Teams. These awards went to Villanova QB Daniel Smith on Offense, Citadel LB Willie Eubanks III on Defense, and Monmouth WR/KR Lonnie Moore IV on Special Teams.
The Ohio Valley Conference, which will use a seven game-game round robin schedule for the eight schools taking part in the spring season, is expected to begin play the weekend of Feb. 21 as the spring season is scheduled to get underway.
The top 25 below has been compiled by vote from each member of the College Sports Journal FCS staff. Buckle up ladies and gentlemen, its going to be a weird spring season.
The conference title looks like it should come down to Furman and Wofford. But there are two teams who have enough talent to challenge the favorites for the league title – Chattanooga and The Citadel.
With a canceled 2020 FCS football fall season due to COVID-19 reasons, the sub-division will be playing instead in an unprecedented spring schedule.
With the MEAC cancelling their season late, the winner of the SWAC would seem to be the de facto spring FCS HBCU Champions in the spring, especially considering how loaded and talented it is.
It was supposed to be the triumphant return of FCS football competition, this time in the spring. The MEAC tried very hard, ingeniously, to celebrate an anniversary football season, even pushing it to the spring of 2021. But in the end, it couldn’t be saved.
Tarleton State and McNeese State will play the first game of the spring FCS season that was moved due to COVID-related concerns last fall.
The 2021 spring college football season is right around the corner and media members from across the country have selected the 2021 BOXTOROW HBCU Preseason Spring Football All-America Team.
The Big Sky plans for a six-game conference-only schedule with two open weeks (March 20th & April 17th). In the time leading up to that, there has been a lot of changes in staff and players, with plenty of time for more chaos.
With three playoff teams in 2019, including 2018 champion and 2019 co-champ Nicholls, the Sam Houston State Bearkats seek a return to form following seven straight NCAA trips from 2011-17 that began with two title game appearances.
Today, the Patriot League was the final FCS football conference to unveil their spring competition schedule to the public, as a part of their release announcing the schedules of twenty-two different sports being contested in the spring.
North Dakota State has been tabbed as the Missouri Valley Football Conference 2021 Spring preseason favorite in a poll conducted by league coaches.
This Spring, the CAA teams will play six conference games and can schedule up to two non conference games. There will only be 11 of the 12 teams taking the field as Towson has opted out of the Spring season.
The National Football Foundation (NFF) highlighted today the more than 310 schools and 35 conferences playing college football this spring at the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), Division II, Division III and NAIA levels. FBS independent New Mexico State will also play games this spring.
Nicholls is the favorite for the Southland Conference spring football season based on a preseason vote, the league announced Wednesday.
VMI quarterback Reece Udinski has been named the Southern Conference Preseason Offensive Player of the Year and The Citadel linebacker Willie Eubanks III has been tabbed the Defensive Player of the Year
Austin Peay senior wide receiver DeAngelo Wilson and senior nickelback Kordell Jackson were named the 2020 OVC Preseason Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year in a vote of by the league’s head football coaches and communications directors.
The Southwestern Athletic Conference has announced its Spring 2021 Preseason All-SWAC Football team highlighted by Preseason Offensive Player of the Year Felix Harper and Preseason Defensive Player of the Year Keonte Hampton.
The Southwestern Athletic Conference announced its preseason football poll during the Cricket Wireless SWAC Football Virtual Media Day on Thursday
At the campuses at Lehigh and Lafayette, and the communities that surround them, there is a void in the third week in November, that most are trying to fill with virtual Rivalry activities and hope for a spring football season, making it not a cancelling of The Rivalry, but merely a delay to contest the game when it’s safer to have a more normal gameday experience.
For months, fans, players, and Lehigh football head coach Tom Gilmore knew that this game wasn’t going to happen on this day. But Gilmore is trying to make the best of a difficult situation.
I have five burning questions on the issue that might help to give clarity on what a spring season for the Patriot League might look like.
This game between Austin Peay and Central Arkansas was supposed to kick off another exciting season of FCS football. These are two teams who won their conferences in 2019.
On August 29th, 2020, the Guardian Credit Union FCS Kickoff will be kicking off in Montgomery, Alabama, despite the risks of doing so.
How do we organize these programs in a way that is enticing for them, without breaking the proverbial bank while also creating a potentially better G5 product overall as well?
Playing a radically shortened season of six “regular-season” games would allow for most teams to only have a season that is marginally longer than what they would do for spring practices. And from those games, it is possible to come up with an FCS Championship.
On Wednesday, August 5th 2020, we were finally given the answer we have all been waiting for from the NCAA with regards to the continuation of the 2020 fall sports season.
Writers across the nation struggle with the fact that all their work may be all for naught. Athletes worry their off-season efforts and senior years may be futile. And fans have fleeting hope whether some football or none will be played in the fall. This pandemic has emotions heightened, tempers flaring, and heartache growing, yet.
It has been a wacky 2020, hasn’t it? The year started out like most years. The Group of Five played four bowl games in this calendar year, as did the FCS national title game. All played with fans in the stands and played without any idea of what was to come. Cincinnati easily won the.
Despite the bungling and mismanagement of the NCAA, President Mark Emmert and the Board of Governors, they still have one final chance to get on the right side of history and submit to reality.
It seems like nationally, college football people really don’t seem to have any idea about the talent, passion, and tradition that goes on at FCS schools, or what makes them the ideal out-of-conference opponents.
