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

• This one was one hell of a performance by Maine under the circumstances. Playing on Friday night (why do the schedule one game on Friday?) and traveling over 2500 miles to Ogden, Utah, Maine put forth a defensive masterpiece doing exactly what you need to do to beat a team like Weber St, force them to pass to win. When you account sack yardage, Weber St ran for -1 yds and forced the Wildcats to chuck it up 52 times. And when you get that to happen, you get QB Jake Constantine to throw four interceptions (all in the second half). The "Black Hole" defense lived up to its name Friday night
• While the Maine defensive performance was impressive, Weber St was no slouch on that side of the ball either. Maine was held under 300 yards of total offense and until late in the first half was held in check. The difference in the game was the big plays given up by Weber St on 3rd down. Maine converted two big 3rd downs on their first touchdown drive, had the 67 yard TD on the open drive of the second half (on 3rd down), and a huge holding penalty on a 3rd down on the last Maine touchdown drive. Gotta get off the field when it counts
• One of the more interesting plays in the game was the 4th and 12 heave late in the 3rd quarter that was initially called an interception but later overturned to a touchdown. I've been looking at the reply a few times and you know I'm really not sure how you overturn the call on the field. Yes, it does look like the Weber St WR had possession but not long enough in my mind to say its a touchdown...just looks like that ball is still moving enough. Really wish the ref would have given an explanation on what he saw cause I'm not sure about that one. It was a crazy 3rd quarter for the replay booth as there were another 3 or 4 reviews during the quarter
• Quick note...its really awesome to see the Black Bear band make the trip with the team for the playoff game. It is never easy for road teams to have any type of crowd support for long trips like this and for the band to be there, it had to be a boost to the players. And hopefully, they were as crazy as all bands are...I know Western's was always crazy during gameday 

No. 1 North Dakota State 35 - No. 8 Colgate 0

• It was evident around the middle of the second possession that Colgate was gonna have some serious trouble moving the ball versus the Bison. This game reminded me of last year's playoff game when San Diego went to Fargo and had the same issues. A team that had a solid formula but the talent level is too great to make up. Colgate barely managed 150+ yards and went 1 for 12 on third down and just too often looked outclassed
• Make no mistake, Colgate is a good defense, but NDSU is a really good offense and it carved up the Raiders all day long. No better evidence of this was from the opening possession as the Bison needed four plays to travel the 96 yards for the opening score. Yes, it was held at bay at times but when it needed to step up and make big plays the Bison offense did so time and time again.
• If there is one negative for the Bison it was the injury to its leading rusher Lance Dunn. It will be interesting to see how it affects him going forward next week. Not to say that the Bison don't have weapons in case he can't go versus the Jackrabbits but make no mistake, he is an NFL prospect and would be missed if he couldn't go in the semis

No. 5 South Dakota State 27 - No. 4 Kennesaw State 17

• It was a wet game that decided by how well SDSU played in the redzone. Going a perfect 5 for 5 and getting all 27 points in the redzone the Jackrabbits took full advantage of the field position. No Jackrabbit drive went over 70 yards and only two lasted more than 6 plays. A while the offense did manage 308 yards it was never fully in tune. Yes it being a downpour did play a large part in that
• The injury to Kennesaw QB Chandler Burks was a killer. Couldn't tell if it was a shoulder or a wrist injury but he went out early in the 2nd quarter and didn't return. I wonder if the injury occurred in the first quarter when he was tackled on the fumble that led to the Jackrabbit field goal that opened the scoring. While backup Daniel David did perform well and have a pair of touchdowns, overall the Owl offense wasn't clicking on full cylinders. Finishing drives being the big issue as while the Owls had seven drives of 6+ plays but only came away with 17 total points
• When you aren't' used to a triple option team you need one person to step up and take control defensively. Yes the Owl racked up over 300 yards rushing but Jackrabbit LB Christian Rozeboom came up huge to the turn of 14 tackles (10 solo) which was double anyone else on the team. And if that wasn't enough, three of those were tackles for loss and forced a fumble. Rozeboom (what a football name) now is second of the SDSU all-time list with 353 career tackles.

No. 3 Eastern Washington 34 - No. 6 UC Davis 29

• There were some really curious calls in the game, especially in the first half by both coaches. A few times you just looked, scratched your head and just wondered "what were you thinking?" Of all of the head-scratchers, the one at the end of the half by UC Davis was the stranges. Instead of getting points, the Aggies tried to get cute and run a "Philly special" clone and it was picked and got nada. About 10-14 points left on the field because of bad calls
• Turnovers once again played a role as UC Davis had four of them to Eastern's one. Three of those Aggie turnovers happened in the first half, included the one to end the half. But the one that hurt the most, the fumble at the end of the game that sealed the win for the Eagles. I'm not sure what happened but the jump the EWU DL got was crazy and forced an end to what was a really good game