Week 3 Reaction – Day After Thoughts

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Great day of college football last night, for those that follow me on Twitter, I apologize for all the tweets but that was a great day and night to watch some FCS football, we nearly had a couple more teams join the FCS upset parade, Sam Houston State led Baylor 20-10 at the break, before 3 second half turnovers and a goal line stand and lost 48-23, but Cal Poly did come thru beating Wyoming 24-22, giving the Big Sky a 4th FBS win, a fact we’ll delve into a little later on the blog. By the way, that’s 3 FCS losses for the Mountain West Conference (Colorado State to NDSU; UNLV to Northern Arizona and now Wyoming); for a league that’s losing Boise State next year to the Big East, that’s certaintly not as appealing as it was even 2 years ago when Utah was unbeaten in the league. Anyway on to the impressions from the weekend:

  • Shakir Bell is very good. The detractors will say his performance was against a non-scholarship school; but 349 rushing yards and two touchdowns is an incredible game. That’s a Missouri Valley record, it’s the 8th best total in FCS history and serves notice the Sycamores will be a factor in the league race one way or the other.
  • Zach Zenner is very good. It’s been a couple years for the Jacks to replace Kyle Minnett, but they’ve found their guy in Zenner, who is 2nd in the FCS behind Bell in rushing. (EDIT: Zenner actually leads FCS w/658 yards, Bell has 610) Zenner racked  up 197 yards and 2 touchdowns, this comes after he had 278 yards and a touchdown last week against Southeastern Louisiana. The Jacks go to Terre Haute in one of the 2 must-see games in conference-opening play weekend, those two guys alone will make that a great game, too close to call right now who wins it.
  • Matt Brown is very good. The Illinois State quarterback, in his 4th year at the helm had a great game, 473 yards and 5 touchdowns as the Redbirds survived a scare from Eastern Illinois 54-51 in overtime. That was a perfect trap game for ISU, coming off the big FBS win over Eastern Michigan, but they got the W, now the test begins, two straight roadies, at Western Illinois, then South Dakota.
  • The Valley put together a 5-3 record Saturday, Northern Iowa played Iowa tough for 2.5 quarters before the Hawkeyes pulled away, UNI is 1-2, but in the eyes of the committee, they’re actually 0-1, the 2 FBS losses we’re told DO NOT hurt you, but what does is playing a D-2 team, so that win doesn’t count. So now as the conference play begins, the Panthers have to think realistically they need to go at the least 6-2 or 7-1 to make the FCS playoffs. A 6-2 record brings their total record to 7-4, but with only 6 D-1 wins. If two of those D1 wins are over Youngstown and NDSU, UNI will go dancing. Western Illinois lost to an improving Iowa State team, the league is now 3-8 against the FBS, one game left against the big boys, that’s this week when South Dakota goes to Northwestern.
  • Game of the Year #1: It comes this week in Youngstown with the Penguins hosting Northern Iowa. Remember UNI scored the go-ahead touchdown on YSU after 7 tries inside the 8 yard line, Penguins will for sure have some hard feelings about how that game ended, and have a chance to show they’re for real in the Valley conference race. It may seem like a stretch but the next 2 weeks could go a long way to telling who’s going to be in the conference race, if UNI loses at Youngstown, but beats NDSU, they’re right back in it, if YSU loses to UNI, but beats NDSU, then they’re still alive. Going to make the next 3 weeks must watch football, to quote my buddy Bart Scott, “Can’t Wait!”
  • Finally this is a debatable topic perfect for the blog and something Jeff and I will continue this week, we said last week that the Missouri Valley had taken the mantle from the CAA as “The SEC of FCS” We may have to change that stance this week after Cal Poly’s win, that makes 4 Big Sky FBS wins this year(joining Northern Arizona, Eastern Washington and Sacramento State) to the Valley’s 3 (NDSU, Illinois State, Youngstown) Question is who’s got the best league going? Now the Big Sky has 3 more teams than the Valley, but I guess look at it from this perspective, the bottom half teams, who is better? Who would win more; Western Illinois, South Dakota, Missouri State facing Northern Arizona, Weber State, Idaho State and Northern Colorado? Let’s have some good debate!

10 thoughts on “Week 3 Reaction – Day After Thoughts”

  1. The MVFC vs Big Sky debate should be a quick one.

    1. You can’t look at the bottom half of the teams only. You also have to look at the top half. The valleys top 5 teams are far superior week in and week out than the Big Sky. the weekly polls (far from scientific) show as of last week 5 MVFC in the top 25 vs only 3 from the Big Sky.
    2. You also can’t look at just the wins against FBS schools. It’s not as if any of these wins (of either conference) were against really strong FBS teams. If UNI were to schedule lower tier FBS schools instead of Wisconsin and Iowa they likely would have a FBS win as well.

  2. MVFC is better in that it is more physical. The Big Sky might have more talent, but the bottom line is MVFC has the defending champs. I will vote MVFC. Lets schedule heads up games against the Big Sky from top to bottom and see what happens.

  3. After SDSU’s perfomance against UC Davis this last weekend I would put them in the bottom of the MVFC as well. That was an embarrassment to the entire league.

  4. I would have to say the Big Sky is better, and really these things changes year to year, so it’s different every year. I think you could look historically at things and have a discussion, but if you’re talking this year i’d say Big Sky after 3 weeks. I think the MVFC is a little top heavy while the Big Sky is more balanced. You also will probably have 4 Big Sky Teams make the playoffs this year with up to 5 in the coming years. With the unbalanced schedule it makes it easier. Example being Cal Poly not playing the Montana schools this year. Makes them almost a lock for 8-9 wins. Then you’ll have Eastern, UM, MSU, as probables with a shot of someone else depending on what happens.

    With all that said it’s week 3 so I think you need to let it all play out.

  5. i will take the mvc so far this season. i take ndsu and ysu over ewu and msu. i would consider uni as well over msu. other than cal poly and montana, i think isur and b are better than the other middle of the pack teams. the bottom of the big sky is better and their conference is better than its been the last few seasons. mvc has 5 teams ranked. big sky 4. still gotta take mvc.

  6. It’s probably a toss up. The YSU win over Pitt is now the best looking FCS victory thus far this season.

    These are both really great leagues.

  7. While I do not necessarily agree that the Big Sky is better than the MVC, I would also have to say that the MVC is not necessarily better than the Big Sky. This is coming from a NDSU season ticket holder.This question is similar to preseason polls in a way. Not enough data to make an accurate statement. With that being said, congrats to the Big Sky for giving the FCS a little bit more respect!

    Question: What is the record for number of wins over BCS teams from FCS conference in one season?

  9. MVFC is tough, but we won’t know who is best until the playoffs are over and we see how teams from each conference do. Until then, it’s all rhetorical.

  10. If you look at the USA Today Sagarin Conference ratings:

    NCAA Division I (FBS and FCS Combined) – Sept 16, 2012

    13 Missouri Valley (Highest Rated FCS Conference)
    16 Big Sky

    Both (14) Colonial and (15) Southern finished higher than the Big Sky.