Just a little sports chatter

Well here it finally is...we've waited long enough, 20 days to be exact, for us to finally see how the 2018 FCS season ends. To see if the dynasty continues or do we see a "blue blood" rise back to the top and take the crown. Yea, I would be lying if I had kinda forgotten a little bit about this game. When you have 39 other games (well 40 when you include the Celebration Bowl...yea I need to talk about the HBUs) take place between the semi-finals and now, it's easy to put a game like this on the back burner. Yes, I will be bitching about that fact...I decided to talk about it after the game instead of before. But here is what we will do to refresh the memory...talk a little about how each got here, some keys to the game, and finally, I'll actually make a pick. The Matchup - No. 3 seed Eastern Washington (12-2) vs. No. 1 seed North Dakota State (14-0) Kickoff - noon ET Saturday at Toyota Stadium (20,500) in Frisco, Texas Coverage - ESPN2 Series - North Dakot

Well...now we wait. Jan 5th is the national championship and we get to put a big ol' pause on the season for reasons that bug the shit out of me (gonna do a write up about that this week). As for the game, it has the potential to be interesting. Eastern Washington is no push over...but then again we've said that about James Madison, Illinois St, Sam Houston St (twice), Jacksonville St, and Towson. And year after year when the Bison come calling to the national championship game, they are the ones raising the trophy. As the game comes closer there will be more talk about this but it boils down to Continued Dynasty or Surprising Upset? As for the games this past weekend? Well, needless to say, they were not very exciting. What was hoped to be two good games versus four sound ballclubs turned into two blowouts of different varieties.  One one side we got the second-half adjustments blowout and on the other, we got the first half blitz. Both sides very deserving of their victorie

Needless to say, the matchups this week are really good. You don't get to the point as a team just by sheer luck, you gotta have some talent behind you and all four of these teams have talent. Both games are a toss-up and you almost wish they were played on a neutral site but even then I have no doubt that we are gonna have two really good games between teams that are pretty evenly matched. I went 3-1 last week last week though I should have pulled the trigger on Maine, but don't hold it against me. Looking around at a few of the other FCS publications I've seen all four teams picked at a decent spread and all four have arguments for being in the national championship. I do think we will see an unexpected matchup in the national championship a couple weeks from now. No. 7 Maine (10-3) at No. 3 Eastern Washington (11-2) Kickoff - 2 p.m. ET    Coverage - ESPN2 Series - First meeting Matchups like this are awesome...it puts two teams that might play each other once a

Well here we are...the final four in this year's FCS playoffs are set. And when you look at the four teams, its not a bad collection of programs. We have the "juggernaut" in NDSU, the "steady contender" in E. Washington, the "little brother" in SDSU, and we have the "surprise that shouldn't be one when you see them play" in Maine. We have the top three conferences represented, which isn't a huge surprise. We are also guaranteed that for the eighth straight year an MVFC team will be in the championship game and we also know that for the 11th straight year, the national champion will come from one of these three conferences. The last school to win a national championship that wasn't from the MVFC, Big Sky, or CAA? Appalachian State, the last of that three-peat in 2007. And naturally the beat Deleware, a CAA school in the national championship. Here is a look back at the quarterfinals:  No. 7 Maine 23 - No. 2 Weber State 18

Not gonna lie I probably should have done this for the entire playoffs but I had been on the fence about doing something like this. We will see how this goes and if I actually get this out before the first game which is in about 3 hours. Maybe if I get the first one out I'll post then update as I go along. But anyways onto the predictions. NO scores or anything like that just what I'm looking out for and who is gonna come out on top. There are some very interesting matchups for the Quarterfinals as only one is really considered a mismatch, and that is only because its NDSU in the FargoDome. Outside of that these are very evenly matched teams who in one case mirror one other so closely. As talked about in the last post, home teams so far in the playoffs are 15-1 and most of the games haven't been close. I will say this, I have at least one road team winning this weekend Onto the picks: No. 7 seed Maine (9-3) at No. 2 seed Weber State (10-2) Kickoff - 8 p.m. ET    Co

So what to make of the playoffs so far... We have had some interesting games, impressive performances along the first sixteen games. The weather has played a role in a couple and we got our good snow game in Brookings during the SDSU/Duquesne tilt. Also, while the first round had an impressive showing attendance wise...the second round was a different story. Numbers outside of the FargoDome were pretty down. Yes, the weather did play a significant role in a few games (more on those later) but the venues and matchups for the second round games played a larger factor. Larger crowd numbers would have happened if James Madison and Jacksonville St would have hosted over Colgate and Maine. Though it wasn't like either crowd was silent and they did earn it. The quarterfinals should bring larger numbers overall as there are more rival matchups and better traveling fan bases But at the end of the day, for all of the craziness the regular season has brought us, the final eight teams are