Week 10 in the FCS
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s--k
Goodbye to Romance College Football
Three teams got their first wins of the season yesterday! Fordham, Utah Tech and VMI!
Central Arkansas, wow. Not saying you could see them losing, but they have not been playing well and Utah Tech had been playing better lately.
Furman is another wow. As bad as VMI has been all season, I think they maybe played 1 or 2 competitive games all year, that is bad.
Had to figure that Fordham, typcially a team up near the top of the Patriot and was among the top 2 preseason contenders to win the league this year, had to figure they would not go winless this year and Colgate provided a good opportunity for their first win. Fordham was favored
Wofford snaps a 10 year losing streak to Samford. I can't know this for sure, but really, this must be the worst year in Samford football history, right? Lose to a Dll team transitioning in their first ever FCS game in week 1, get offensively embarrassed at The Citadel and then lose to a Wofford team you have owned for a decade. Odum returned at QB for Wofford. It mattered, a lot.
Pretty sure Brown has trailed in the 4Q in 5 of their 6 games. They came back to win 2, but weren't able to close the gap vs Penn who bagged their first Ivy win of the season.
Robert Morris wins 6-0. Rob Morris has had a few of these games now, where it's like, ok good defensive performance, but where is your offense? 82y TD pass was the only score here.
Lehigh puts one on Georgetown! Mountain Hawks alive in the Patriot League! Bucknell beats a fading Lafayette, Bison are a live in the Patriot League! I assume both must win out and they each will play Holy Cross in the next two weeks.
Norfolk at Morgan - ok, this game. If you ML'd Norfolk I feel badly for you. Norfolk led 24-3 at one point. Early 4Q Norfolk is attempting to go up 27-22 on a 34y FG. Not only is it blk'd, but it is returned 77y to give Morgan their first lead of the game 28-24! Norfolk goes back down and retakes a 31-28 lead mid 4Q. Morgan appeared to have a 52y punt return TD, but they ran into the Punter! Fast forward, Morgan runs a 2 minute drive and gets a 47y FG to force OT. Morgan scores first, so now they have their biggest lead of the game, by 7, which is right around the number (6.5-7.5) so pretty important score. Norfolk gets sacked and now faces 3rd-19 from the 34. It doesn't look good, but they get a 23y diving catch to stay alive and then go on to score. They decide to go for 2 at the bottom of OT1 and it fails, Morgan wins.
I don't know what this thing is, going for 2 before you have to go for 2 in OT to try and win games. I would play it out as long as you can. I've seen it fail, 3 times now in the last 2 weeks?
Bryant was another one. Stony Brook had a 24-10 2H lead, but Bryant comes back to tie. SB scores first, Bryant scores and chooses to go for 2 and fails. Last week, YSU scores first in top of OT1, then UND scores and goes for 2 and fails. Earlier in the season, Yale did this vs Dartmouth, goes for 2 in the bottom of OT1 and fails. I know it has worked, not sure this year it has, but here is 3 that I remember. Was Abilene - Texas Tech another one? Bottom of OT1 go for 2 and fail? That makes 4. 0-4 FCS schools in that scenario. Hey if it works, you ended the game and win. This is something with analytics, going for 2 is a 45-55% probability maybe? Well the way things shake out, maybe a team converts say 11 of their last 20 pt attempts. But maybe within those numbers there was a stretch where they fail 3 times in a row. And some of these playcalls they come up with in design and execution leave a lot to be desired. I had no personal ML wagers in any game effected by a failed 2 in OT this year, I just see a number of teams trying this approach and failing.
Dayton has just fell off a cliff the last 2 weeks.
Delaware State has been shutout in 2 of the last 3
SFU goes from being shutout the last 2 weeks, to doing the shutting out vs Stonehill
Villanova, what a troubled mysterious team this is
Was anyone sitting on a 59.5 pt total in Monmouth - Rhode Island? Pitchy-pitchy-woo-woo URI gets a 7y fum ret TD with :00 to take the game from 31-28 to 37-28. Monmouth never trailed in the game until URI scored a go-ahed TD with 1:17 left.
St Thomas loses at Morehead!
No offense to anyone who had North Dakota, but that was a feel good win for Indiana State. Indiana State looked like a strong team vs UND. UND is small! Nice win for the Sycamores, UND needs to get back to the Alerus Center
Cornell woodsheds Princeton! Big Red led 49-14 at one point! Wow!
Harvard gets up 10-0 then totally loses their offene and Dartmouth turns it up to lead 20-10! Crimson get back into cutting the lead to 3, but then Dartmouth gets a 72y TD to go back up 10 end 3Q! Harvard D shut down the Dartmouth O next two possession and the Crimson O would go 14p 94y and 10p 73y for TDs including the go-ahead score with just :27 left! Dartmouth got in position for a throw into the EZ which was incomplete. Everyone in the Ivy has 1 loss now with many critical games ahead.
How bad is Campbell? You have an Elon team that, kickoff return TDs aside, Elon's O hasn't produced more than 21 pts in any game since week 2 and they hang 50 on the Camels.
Ok, here it is, Towson at Richmond. Richmond scores opening poss, misses xpt, ok. First Towson play, QB fumbles, Richmond starts next poss in RZ. Has to kick FG 9-0. Towson gets into the game, it's 9-7, 16-10. Then right before HT, first play of a series that starts with just :29 on the clock at their own 11, just down the ball please, they fumble once again allowing Richmond to start a possession in the RZ. Towson D holds to a FG. 19-10 HT. Disaster averted. 19-17, 22-17. First play of the 4Q now, Towson is driving, 1st down R46, deep pass is INT'd at the R10, guy runs it 90y back for TD! 29-17, 29-24, 32-24. +8.5 3 minutes to do. Don;t fuck it up. They fuck it up. Towson QB is sacked THREE straight plays on a drive that started at their own 25, now it is 4th-30 from their own 5 with just over 2min left. They go for it and the pass is incomplete. Towson has no timeouts, but Richmond takes possession at the T05 just north of 2min so there is a timeout meaning that the Spiders can not take knees. 1st down, Towson stopes them. 2nd down Towson stops them. Now at the T02, 3rd down Towson stops them. It is 4th down, :10 left - Richmond brings out the FG unit to kick a FG from the T01 - 35-24 :07 left. That game was a bitch! 2 fumbles leading to 2 Richmond FGs + the final series for the last FG that Richmond basically had 0 offense on and a 90y pick-six. Watching the final FG of that was the icing on the cake (more like a kick to the nuts)
How about West Georgia, not every day you see 88 pts on the board. Who in the hell would want to play for Lincoln. Imagine being the creampuff team that bad FCS schools call to beat up on.
Chattanooga - Western Carolina both started backup QBs. Plenty of offense still. UTC led early, WCU was better late.
There was some good fortune to be had if you were on Southern Utah. SUU started really slow and ACU built a lead that seems like covering 4.5 would be hard. The line climbed to 6/7 before KO. SUU starting getting back into it, but they couldn't get stops or onside kicks. What they did get was pretty much a miracle. It was 28-17 getting late in the 4Q, ACU was driving after recovering an onside kick, ACU is at the S10, McIvor throws a ball behind is receiver, the DB tips it up, to himself and races 94y down to the 1! SUU TD and 2pt and it is just a 3 pt game. ACU has to punt, but SUU's dream comback ends with a fumble at their own 25, ACU kills clock and wins.
Another interesting UAC game - Eastern Kentucky upsets Tarleton. Heard Tarleton fans weren't happy their team was not in the playoff top 10 ranking despite being #7 in the other poll. Well, you ain't going to be happy where you get ranked now after EKU beats you! How does this happen? Tarleton has one of, maybe the best pure RB in the FCS in Kayvon Britten. And he is running great vs EKU, finished the night 25att-154y. But what does Tarleton keep doing over and over, throwing deep. They loved throwing deep all night. Some throws were on the money and dropped. Some throws were off the mark and some of the throws DBs made good plays on the receiver or ball. Gabalis finished 17-41 with 3 INTs including the game losing INT which the EKU DB briefly fumbled but recovered. I had no action on the full game here, so not bitter in any way. I just do not understand continually throwing mid and deep passes all night long that your receivers are not coming down with. That is how this happened, it allowed EKU to stay in the game and they took their first lead with under 3min left.
Maybe touch on the Montana schools. I might be a little less confident on my Montana State champion future today than I was before EWU. Thank god again for opening lines right. Credit EWU, that team has played so tough in the Big Sky after their early season issues. Without Visperas, EWU scores 28 on Cat D - after the Montana State D really hasn't been tested and then they give up 28 to a let's call it good EWU O, but still - back up QB. I expected better. And the 61y TD pass on 3rd down with 3min left to get back up by 14, that was of course beautiful, but to think that is what they needed to cover? Not the best look.
Montana Grizlies, sure 42-7 looks pretty good winning at Cal Poly right? Don't let that score fool you. So last week Montana seemed to struggle to get to 24 at Northern Colorado. Here 14-0 HT. 2 TDs, vs Cal Poly. This is a Montana team that was scoring 40-50 weekly before their bye week, now they can't score on UNC and CP? The score changed thanks to a Bergen 84y punt ret TD and an INT set up the Griz O in the RZ, it was 28-0 after that and a cruise from there.
I don't know if there is anything else I want to talk about. Post anything you got or I'll see you next week!
Central Arkansas, wow. Not saying you could see them losing, but they have not been playing well and Utah Tech had been playing better lately.
Furman is another wow. As bad as VMI has been all season, I think they maybe played 1 or 2 competitive games all year, that is bad.
Had to figure that Fordham, typcially a team up near the top of the Patriot and was among the top 2 preseason contenders to win the league this year, had to figure they would not go winless this year and Colgate provided a good opportunity for their first win. Fordham was favored
Wofford snaps a 10 year losing streak to Samford. I can't know this for sure, but really, this must be the worst year in Samford football history, right? Lose to a Dll team transitioning in their first ever FCS game in week 1, get offensively embarrassed at The Citadel and then lose to a Wofford team you have owned for a decade. Odum returned at QB for Wofford. It mattered, a lot.
Pretty sure Brown has trailed in the 4Q in 5 of their 6 games. They came back to win 2, but weren't able to close the gap vs Penn who bagged their first Ivy win of the season.
Robert Morris wins 6-0. Rob Morris has had a few of these games now, where it's like, ok good defensive performance, but where is your offense? 82y TD pass was the only score here.
Lehigh puts one on Georgetown! Mountain Hawks alive in the Patriot League! Bucknell beats a fading Lafayette, Bison are a live in the Patriot League! I assume both must win out and they each will play Holy Cross in the next two weeks.
Norfolk at Morgan - ok, this game. If you ML'd Norfolk I feel badly for you. Norfolk led 24-3 at one point. Early 4Q Norfolk is attempting to go up 27-22 on a 34y FG. Not only is it blk'd, but it is returned 77y to give Morgan their first lead of the game 28-24! Norfolk goes back down and retakes a 31-28 lead mid 4Q. Morgan appeared to have a 52y punt return TD, but they ran into the Punter! Fast forward, Morgan runs a 2 minute drive and gets a 47y FG to force OT. Morgan scores first, so now they have their biggest lead of the game, by 7, which is right around the number (6.5-7.5) so pretty important score. Norfolk gets sacked and now faces 3rd-19 from the 34. It doesn't look good, but they get a 23y diving catch to stay alive and then go on to score. They decide to go for 2 at the bottom of OT1 and it fails, Morgan wins.
I don't know what this thing is, going for 2 before you have to go for 2 in OT to try and win games. I would play it out as long as you can. I've seen it fail, 3 times now in the last 2 weeks?
Bryant was another one. Stony Brook had a 24-10 2H lead, but Bryant comes back to tie. SB scores first, Bryant scores and chooses to go for 2 and fails. Last week, YSU scores first in top of OT1, then UND scores and goes for 2 and fails. Earlier in the season, Yale did this vs Dartmouth, goes for 2 in the bottom of OT1 and fails. I know it has worked, not sure this year it has, but here is 3 that I remember. Was Abilene - Texas Tech another one? Bottom of OT1 go for 2 and fail? That makes 4. 0-4 FCS schools in that scenario. Hey if it works, you ended the game and win. This is something with analytics, going for 2 is a 45-55% probability maybe? Well the way things shake out, maybe a team converts say 11 of their last 20 pt attempts. But maybe within those numbers there was a stretch where they fail 3 times in a row. And some of these playcalls they come up with in design and execution leave a lot to be desired. I had no personal ML wagers in any game effected by a failed 2 in OT this year, I just see a number of teams trying this approach and failing.
Dayton has just fell off a cliff the last 2 weeks.
Delaware State has been shutout in 2 of the last 3
SFU goes from being shutout the last 2 weeks, to doing the shutting out vs Stonehill
Villanova, what a troubled mysterious team this is
Was anyone sitting on a 59.5 pt total in Monmouth - Rhode Island? Pitchy-pitchy-woo-woo URI gets a 7y fum ret TD with :00 to take the game from 31-28 to 37-28. Monmouth never trailed in the game until URI scored a go-ahed TD with 1:17 left.
St Thomas loses at Morehead!
No offense to anyone who had North Dakota, but that was a feel good win for Indiana State. Indiana State looked like a strong team vs UND. UND is small! Nice win for the Sycamores, UND needs to get back to the Alerus Center
Cornell woodsheds Princeton! Big Red led 49-14 at one point! Wow!
Harvard gets up 10-0 then totally loses their offene and Dartmouth turns it up to lead 20-10! Crimson get back into cutting the lead to 3, but then Dartmouth gets a 72y TD to go back up 10 end 3Q! Harvard D shut down the Dartmouth O next two possession and the Crimson O would go 14p 94y and 10p 73y for TDs including the go-ahead score with just :27 left! Dartmouth got in position for a throw into the EZ which was incomplete. Everyone in the Ivy has 1 loss now with many critical games ahead.
How bad is Campbell? You have an Elon team that, kickoff return TDs aside, Elon's O hasn't produced more than 21 pts in any game since week 2 and they hang 50 on the Camels.
Ok, here it is, Towson at Richmond. Richmond scores opening poss, misses xpt, ok. First Towson play, QB fumbles, Richmond starts next poss in RZ. Has to kick FG 9-0. Towson gets into the game, it's 9-7, 16-10. Then right before HT, first play of a series that starts with just :29 on the clock at their own 11, just down the ball please, they fumble once again allowing Richmond to start a possession in the RZ. Towson D holds to a FG. 19-10 HT. Disaster averted. 19-17, 22-17. First play of the 4Q now, Towson is driving, 1st down R46, deep pass is INT'd at the R10, guy runs it 90y back for TD! 29-17, 29-24, 32-24. +8.5 3 minutes to do. Don;t fuck it up. They fuck it up. Towson QB is sacked THREE straight plays on a drive that started at their own 25, now it is 4th-30 from their own 5 with just over 2min left. They go for it and the pass is incomplete. Towson has no timeouts, but Richmond takes possession at the T05 just north of 2min so there is a timeout meaning that the Spiders can not take knees. 1st down, Towson stopes them. 2nd down Towson stops them. Now at the T02, 3rd down Towson stops them. It is 4th down, :10 left - Richmond brings out the FG unit to kick a FG from the T01 - 35-24 :07 left. That game was a bitch! 2 fumbles leading to 2 Richmond FGs + the final series for the last FG that Richmond basically had 0 offense on and a 90y pick-six. Watching the final FG of that was the icing on the cake (more like a kick to the nuts)
How about West Georgia, not every day you see 88 pts on the board. Who in the hell would want to play for Lincoln. Imagine being the creampuff team that bad FCS schools call to beat up on.
Chattanooga - Western Carolina both started backup QBs. Plenty of offense still. UTC led early, WCU was better late.
There was some good fortune to be had if you were on Southern Utah. SUU started really slow and ACU built a lead that seems like covering 4.5 would be hard. The line climbed to 6/7 before KO. SUU starting getting back into it, but they couldn't get stops or onside kicks. What they did get was pretty much a miracle. It was 28-17 getting late in the 4Q, ACU was driving after recovering an onside kick, ACU is at the S10, McIvor throws a ball behind is receiver, the DB tips it up, to himself and races 94y down to the 1! SUU TD and 2pt and it is just a 3 pt game. ACU has to punt, but SUU's dream comback ends with a fumble at their own 25, ACU kills clock and wins.
Another interesting UAC game - Eastern Kentucky upsets Tarleton. Heard Tarleton fans weren't happy their team was not in the playoff top 10 ranking despite being #7 in the other poll. Well, you ain't going to be happy where you get ranked now after EKU beats you! How does this happen? Tarleton has one of, maybe the best pure RB in the FCS in Kayvon Britten. And he is running great vs EKU, finished the night 25att-154y. But what does Tarleton keep doing over and over, throwing deep. They loved throwing deep all night. Some throws were on the money and dropped. Some throws were off the mark and some of the throws DBs made good plays on the receiver or ball. Gabalis finished 17-41 with 3 INTs including the game losing INT which the EKU DB briefly fumbled but recovered. I had no action on the full game here, so not bitter in any way. I just do not understand continually throwing mid and deep passes all night long that your receivers are not coming down with. That is how this happened, it allowed EKU to stay in the game and they took their first lead with under 3min left.
Maybe touch on the Montana schools. I might be a little less confident on my Montana State champion future today than I was before EWU. Thank god again for opening lines right. Credit EWU, that team has played so tough in the Big Sky after their early season issues. Without Visperas, EWU scores 28 on Cat D - after the Montana State D really hasn't been tested and then they give up 28 to a let's call it good EWU O, but still - back up QB. I expected better. And the 61y TD pass on 3rd down with 3min left to get back up by 14, that was of course beautiful, but to think that is what they needed to cover? Not the best look.
Montana Grizlies, sure 42-7 looks pretty good winning at Cal Poly right? Don't let that score fool you. So last week Montana seemed to struggle to get to 24 at Northern Colorado. Here 14-0 HT. 2 TDs, vs Cal Poly. This is a Montana team that was scoring 40-50 weekly before their bye week, now they can't score on UNC and CP? The score changed thanks to a Bergen 84y punt ret TD and an INT set up the Griz O in the RZ, it was 28-0 after that and a cruise from there.
I don't know if there is anything else I want to talk about. Post anything you got or I'll see you next week!
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