Just a little sports chatter

So I guess we have finally had our moving day. I mean it had to come at some point right? Though the way things had been going, moving day might not have been til sometime around week 11...but alas, we have some form of clarity in the FCS world. Its still not much when you look at the conference races in the Southland, Big Sky, and the CAA (my word the possibilities) but the number of teams we thought had playoff hopes lowered considerably after this week. CAA Bundle Speaking of the CAA, after this past weeks action, four teams (Deleware, James Madison, Towson, Maine) sit at the top of the conference with 4-1 records. Elon, who had the week off, sits at 3-1. And not to leave them out of the mix, Stony Brook sits at 4-2 and Rhode Island still is in the hunt at 3-2. And to top all the craziness, they all have 5 or more wins overall, all have solid playoff resumes, and all of them play at least two of the other teams before the season ends So, the moral of the story is, if you can f...

You know just when you think there may be some stabilization in the FCS landscape, you get this past Saturday's action. More upsets, more wide open races, and less certainty. There will be some really good teams sitting at home come playoff time and the growing possibility of a 6-5 team making the playoffs grows. Or an even worse possibility, a seven-win team with a sub-Division I win on the resume may slip in. And it's over, it's all over 36 games...that's nearly five years without a conference loss, second-longest such streak in FCS history and that all ended for Jacksonville State with the 37-14 loss on the road at Southeast Missouri State. What makes this all the more strange, this wasn't some fourth quarter flood of points, SEMO was in control pretty much from the word go and got big plays from all three phases. Long term, the Gamecocks are in a bit of haze, a matchup with conference leader Murray State is up next. And while a win will right the ship and ...

We have reached the halfway pole and boy oh boy was it a fun time getting there. Between the upsets, the thinning of the herd, the continued dominance and more it sure was one fun ass weekend in the FCS. Midterms - Passing Grades A number of top 25 teams had some tricky matchups in week 7 and there were some mixed results among them. You have to say the one team that passed with flying colors...North Dakota St. Any night game at WIU is a hard matchup because the environment is dull at best (students care more about the night's adventures than any football game), add the first outdoor game and the temperatures and one would understand the slow start. But the response after WIU went up 7-3 shows why they are in the masterclass of the FCS...31 straight points and a very dominating performance shows that NDSU should cruise to the home-field throughout the FCS playoffs Elsewhere, you have to give high marks to Colgate as well...after the 31-0 beatdown of Cornell, the Raiders ...

Six weeks down and the latest was definitely a fun one as we had upsets, grand performances, and we now have some surprising leaders in some conferences as we near the halfway pole of the season. Add in some intrigue and large groupings at the top of some of these conferences and there might be more than one surprising auto bid this year in the playoffs. So here are my thoughts on that and other topics from week 6 Surprise, Surprise! We're in 1st So who among you were thinking that after week 6 we would have a four-way tie at the top of the CAA and none of those teams would be James Madison? I'll talk about the Elon upset in a bit, but right now Elon, Rhode Island, Towson, and Maine all sit at 2-0 in the CAA. And the best part, they all play each other at some point. Add in a very ticked off James Madison and a sneaky good Stony Brook, this could be the best conference race Another surprise team at the lead in the conference is in the MEAC and Florida A&M. At 3-0 and ...

So one of the things I will try to improve upon is writing about things, news-wise, I see and think its something to make more than a common "think out loud" thought. And the news out of Long Island/Brooklyn was pretty damn interesting. So like a lot of schools, there is one main school with branches in different locations and yesterday Long Island-Brooklyn and Long Island-Post decided to come together and become one brand. So, what the hell does this have to do with college football? Well, LIU-Post has a pretty good D-II football program and with the merger, it now will make the jump to FCS and join the Northeast Conference. Which is pretty interesting and will get to why in a second. But, that wasn't the only school to make the jump, as Merrimack College a couple weeks prior is making the Division I leap and also joining the NEC as well First things first, in my NEC post, I did call for a school to combine campuses and become a full-blown FCS program, it just wasn...

So we are now through week 5 of the FCS season and it was a bit all over the places in terms of storylines but the one that stands out the most is the fact that we will be having a lot of new playoff teams this year as the final nails in some coffins were hammered in. Overall week 5 felt like a clearing of the muck and the waters of the rest of the year became more clear (well somewhat) Oh, one note before I begin...we all know football is a violent game and at times can look downright nasty and barbaric but what happened at the Tennessee St/Vanderbilt game reminds you that it's still a brotherhood and you never want to see anyone seriously hurt. Hopefully TSU linebacker Christian Abercrombie can continue to get healthy as he collapsed on the sideline after complaining about headaches after a hit during the game on Saturday and was rushed to the hospital where he had surgery and is currently in critical condition. Needless to say, thoughts n prayers go to him and his family as he...