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.
As a JMU fan and alum, it was tough to sit inside a cold Toyota Stadium this past Saturday and watch my team lose. What was even tougher was knowing that JMU lost because North Dakota State simply executed better.
The FCS National Championship game will be played this weekend in Frisco, Texas and will be televised nationally on ABC. Prior to the game, the College Sports Journal crew – Chuck Burton, Ray Maloney, Ben Schleiger, Kent Schmidt and Jamie Williams – sat down for a Championship game round table to discuss the game.
It’s the next-to-last weekend of FCS football action, and it’s going to be a jam-packed Saturday with three games to showcase the best of FCS football. The unofficial HBCU National Championship is on the line, while the FCS Playoff Final Four see who advances to Frisco.
James Madison used a suffocating defense and just enough offense to defeat Northern Iowa 17-0 in the Quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs.
FARGO, N.D.—North Dakota State did not score a touchdown, but three field goals proved to be enough to secure its ninth straight Division I FCS semi-final appearance in a 9-3 victory over fellow Missouri Valley Football Member Illinois State in front o 14,132 in attendance inside the Fargodome. This game was the first time North […]
We’re down to the final eight teams in the FCS Playoffs, as an unprecedented six of those teams face off on Friday evening in an intriguing tripleheader that includes three Big Sky teams. All three games played after sundown could be deeply affected by the weather.
The Panthers play exceptional defense. They allowed only 220 yards against South Dakota State and 213 against San Diego. They will need a similar performance to stay in the game against James Madison.
With the second round of the FCS Playoffs now complete, we give you links to all our recaps and our writers’ impression of the games.
BROOKINGS, S.D. — Behind a dominating defensive effort, Northern Iowa rallied for a 13-10 victory over #7 seeded South Dakota State in front of 4,102 fans at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium. Northern Iowa (10-4) kicker Matthew Cook converted the go-ahead 18-yard field goal with 2:10 left and the UNI defense did what it did the […]
FARGO, N.D. — Top seeded North Dakota State set a new FCS record with its 34th consecutive victory, pulling away from Nicholls in the second half for a 37-13 win in the second round of the NCAA Division I FCS Playoffs in front of 15,690 at the Fargodome. North Dakota State (13-0) broke a tie […]
Illinois State RB James Robinson followed up his 297 yard effort last week against Southeast Missouri State with a 210 yard rushing game against Central Arkansas, including two touchdowns as the Redbirds defeated Central Arkansas 24-14 in the second round of the FCS Playoffs.
This weekend eight seeded teams join the FCS Playoff party, including North Dakota State, who has made December dome football a North Dakota tradition, and four teams from the Big Sky, who saw an unprecedented four teams seeded in the playoffs. As a result, seven of the eight games are being played west of the Mississippi River.
FCS Second Round Playoff Matchup: Illinois State at Central Arkansas Where: Estes Stadium, Conway, Arkansas When: Saturday, December 7th, 3:00 PM TV/Streaming: ESPN3 (subscription req’d) Illinois State Redbirds (9-4), Head Coach: Brock Spack Missouri Valley Normal, Illinois In order for Illinois State to come away with a victory in its first-round playoff game […]
The oddsmakers don’t give them much of a chance – on a popular gambling site, Nicholls was a 28 point underdog.
With the first round of the FCS Playoffs now complete, we give you links to all our recaps and our writers’ impression of the games. Monmouth 44, Holy Cross 27 FCS 1st Round Playoffs: Monmouth Overwhelms Holy Cross 44-27 For Hawks First-Ever Playoff Victory Chuck: Monmouth proved they have a balanced offense that can give […]
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.
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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.
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.
I’ve been doing this FCS Playoff field predictions a very long time now, and it’s been a very strange year. It’s not customary for so many autobids to be in doubt this late in the season. But this week, a lot of results came in that clarified five of the autobids.
Two weeks to go, and how many autobids have been clinched? How about… none?
There are three more football weekends to go before FCS Playoff Selection Sunday, where FCS Nation hopes ESPN pronounces all the schools’ names correctly and don’t forget to specify who is home, and who is away in the first round.
Remember when I had Villanova as a seed? Good times. Harken back to when I had Delaware in my field? Yes, way back when – last week. Do you recall the time that I had more than two Southland teams in my bracket? It’s so long ago, why, when it happened, North Dakota State and […]
Welcome, America, to the FCSP’TID Cover Photo Curse.
Eastern Washington, UC Davis, Jacksonville State, and, last week, Montana State graced this space as rising teams that were all but guaranteed spots in the FCS playoffs after a particularly impressive win, or a gut-check performance.
Call it “Conference Carnage Week”.
High-profile conference games ended upending conference championship races, and further cementing others on top of the standings.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 MVFC Conference has been the top confernce in all of FCS for nearly the last decade. All 10 MVFC teams are in action this week in non-conference games. Four games are against FBS opponents highlight the slate this week, along with two MVFC-Big Sky Challenge match-ups. The other four games have the SIU-SE Missouri State annual rivalry
Its hard to replace a Walter Payton Award winner like Samford has to do with Devlin Hodges. Hodges finished his career at Samford by breaking Steve McNairs 24 year old passing record. A large part of that success was wide receiver Kelvin McKnight.
In the college basketball landscape we all know about Duke, North Carolina, Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky. Some combination of those teams litter the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 every March. But there are always a couple of mid major teams that go on runs and play in the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
The Eagles key to winning this game is to win the turnover margin. The Eagles also lead the FCS in defensive touchdowns with six (and nearly had a seventh in the playoff win over Maine when CB Josh Lewis returned an interception as close as you can get without scoring to the one-yard line).
UNI 16, Lamar 13 Video Highlights Courtesy NCAA.com CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – K Austin Errthum booted three field goals, including a 35-yard field goal with 13:09 left in the game that lifted Northern Iowa to a 16-13 Division I FCS first-round playoff win over Lamar. “Everybody’s got the same shot going down the stretch right […]
The 2018 FCS Playoff Bracket was announced on ESPNU on November 18th at 12:30 EST, and the NCAA issued their release about the 2018 FCS Playoff Bracket here. There were some interesting matchups, some shocking omissions, and a lot of interesting twists and turns. CSJ’s Jamie Williams, Kent Schmidt and Chuck Burton followed the picks […]
All the regular season games have been played, and let’s get right to it. Once again, a quick recap of the rules for the ability to qualify for the FCS Playoffs: The field for the FCS Playoffs is determined at the conclusion of the FCS regular season, which is the Sunday before Thanksgiving. There are […]
New Hampshire Can’t Go To The FCS Playoffs, But Can They Prevent JMU From Going, Too? It was supposed to be a coronation, an easy glide for James Madison through the rest of the CAA towards another conference title and possibly the No. 1 overall seed, if everything fell exactly right. But after New Hampshire’s […]
Illinois State at Northern Iowa When: Saturday, November 3rd, 2:00PM EDT Where: UNI-Dome, Cedar Falls, IA TV/Streaming: Fox Sports Chicago, Panther Sports Network, ESPN+ (subscription req’d) Illinois State Redbirds As the calendar turns to November, Redbirds hit the road for the first of two contests away from Hancock Stadium when they travel to Cedar Falls, Iowa, […]
Only an Act of God Stands In The the Way of Colgate’s Patriot League Title With Colgate’s 38-0 smothering of Georgetown, the undefeated Raiders have not only gone 4-0 in Patriot League play – they’ve gone five straight games without giving up a touchdown, and have only allowed 3 points during that time frame. The […]
Can Anybody Stand in the way of North Dakota State? What was billed as the Clash of the Titans in the Missouri Valley ended up a laugher, as the Bison dialed up three touchdowns by RB Lance Dunn and were never seriously challenged by the Redbirds in a 28-14 romp. Paired with UNI’s 24-9 upset […]
Here is my upset-laden take on the top 5 FCS football games of the week with video highlights from Week 3. Towson upended one of the early powers in the CAA, Villanova, by scoring 35 straight points against a team that only yielded 26 points in their first two games combined; Western Illinois knocked off […]
After two weeks, many teams are starting to show the FCS nation who they are. Some teams are racing up the ranking, while some are plummeting down after starting 0-2. There was only one FCS over FBS win this weekend. Maine went down the Western Kentucky and defeated the Hilltoppers despite falling behind 21-0 early […]
Here is my take on the top 5 games of the week with video highlights from Week 2. Eastern Washington survived a test on the road against Northern Arizona, Maine blocked a field goal on the very last play to preserve FCS’s sixth upset over an FBS team in 2018, and South Dakota State defended […]
Early in the season, teams move up and down in the polls as teams show that they are what we thought they would be; better than anticipated; or way over ranked versus their actual performance. We had a lot of movement from the preseason in the FCS after week one. There were 5 FCS teams that upset […]
FARGO, N.D. — It might have been a few weeks past Halloween on Friday night at the Fargo Dome, but for the third time in four years, the orange-clad Sam Houston State Bearkats turned into pumpkins in the Football Championship Subdivision semifinals. Of course, second-seeded North Dakota State (13-1) might have had something to do […]
With a week to go, here’s the latest projected bracket from College Sports Journal. This year, we are picking a bracket based on staff picks, Sagarin Ratings, the FCS Coaches’ Poll, and some special sauce to determine who we think will be in the playoff field, who is seeded, who is in, who is out. […]
