Archive For The “FCS” Category
Let’s just put it this way: After looking at the mock brackets from around FCS Nation, mocking it out myself, trying to go over as many possible scenarios that I possibly can – I still have no idea.
That doesn’t mean, dear Reader, that I won’t try, and I won’t try to explain to you what I think could happen. But it’s not easy, and you’ll see why.
Put simply, I feel like this is the most wide-open playoff field ever, for two reasons.
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Lehigh’s bowl game comes next weekend, of course, as they take on Lafayette in the 152nd meeting of The Rivarly in Easton. After that bowl game, though, comes the FCS playoffs, and until the FCS Playoff Bracket is announced on Sunday at 11:00 AM after the Lafayette game, we don’t know where, or when, Lehigh will play their playoff game.
Don’t fret, football fans. LFN is here with a warm cup of chicken noodle soup, a nice grilled cheese sandwich with the crusts cut off, and a schedule, complete with links, involving the most important FCS games on the schedule that will impact Lehigh’s postseason schedule the most.
Sit back. Enjoy your soup. LFN’s here to help you for this Saturday.
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For us Patriot League diehards, we know what the FCS playoffs are all about. We know who’s in line for the autobid, we know who the No. 1 teams are, and we have a pretty good idea about who can get in, and why.
But you, dear Reader, might not be as dialed into the FCS playoff scene as the rest of us. You know that Lehigh will be practicing on Thanksgiving, and will be playing a football game after the 152nd meeting on the gridiron between Lehigh and Lafayette.
In the span of one blog post, let me tell you, new or old Lehigh fan, what you need to look for in regards to the FCS playoffs.
How will you watch Bucknell at Lehigh this afternoon? What a ridiculous question. Like me, you’re headed to the stadium for a 12:37 kickoff.
Wait – really? You’re not going to Murray Goodman today? Why not? Unscheduled dental emergency? Flying in from Buenos Aires? Need to find out how to catch the game online, by a video stream or online radio?
Never fear. LFN’s here.
You didn’t ask for them, but here’s my pick for this week’s FCS Top 25.
Photo Credit: New York Newsday
Stony Brook WR Ray Bolden catches a pass a sideline pass and takes it in for a touchdown against Richmond on Sept. 17, 2016. Photo Credit: Daniel De Mato
The decision was made. We were going up to my parent’s house over Labor Day weekend.
I knew it was the right decision, the correct decision. My dad, who had suffered a back injury, was rehabbing, requiring for the first time in his incredibly active life to require the use of a walker to get around.
He and my mother wouldn’t be driving down to Lehigh for any football games in the next couple of months, which effectively meant if I was going to spend any significant time with them, it was going to be this weekend – opening weekend. The weekend that I wait for with fevered anticipation for more than nine months.
But sometimes bubbles need to be burst.
For the last nine months, I’ve lived in bubbles: a bubble of Lehigh football, FCS expertise, and a focus on the football season. I had lived in a bubble where I thought my father was still invincible, even in retirement unable to stay in one place, always able to come down with mom to visit once a season and take in a game or two – in between musical engagements, my mother’s teaching commitments, and countless other trips and activities.
(Photo Credit: The Oregonian)Even though Lehigh isn’t taking on any FBS teams this season, it’s not too early to take a look at the 2016 college football schedule and look at some of the games that pit FCS teams vs. FBS teams and look for potential ups…
Recently, I wrote an entire article about how the way the NCAA allows schools to become FBS is broken.
It turns out I had no idea exactly how broken until I was guided towards the Idaho Vandals Football Consultant report, helpfully posted in full on the University of Idaho’s website.
In that report, one of the possible avenues that Idaho was mulling over was to join the WAC.
I was confused – the WAC had stopped sponsoring FBS football long ago, a couple of years after then-commissioner Karl Benson finished his uncanny impersonation of Baghdad Bob in regards to saving FBS football for that conference – only to leave his job to take over at the Sun Belt Conference.
But it turns out, after a fresh read of the NCAA rulebook, it is indeed true.
Like a bad horror movie, the zombified WAC football conference could indeed resurrect itself – and, in the process, shows how royally screwed up this system of FCS and FBS movement really is.
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People rightfully can paint me as an FCS football fan. I love Football Championship Subdivision, the section of Division I where Lehigh and the rest of the Patriot League competes. I find the quality of the games tremendous, and the emphasis on football and competition as the exact right balance.
From that fact, some might also think I’m performing cartwheels around my office now that the University of Idaho, after they were unceremoniously cast out of the Sun Belt as football-only members, have decided that their only choice to retain football is to join the rest of the Big Sky in sponsoring football at the FCS level, starting in 2018.
You’d be wrong about that.
What Idaho’s decision really should be telling us is that the process for switching subdivisions is a senseless, conference-driven exercise that forces schools into making tough decisions that they shouldn’t be forced to make.
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Lehigh 35, Georgetown 3 Postgame Thoughts: The Long Road Back To National Recognition
By LFN |
(Photo Credit: Chris Barry/The Brown and White File Photo)
In terms of national recognition, life in the Patriot League isn’t always easy.
Certainly Patriot League players and fans read the preseason magazines about FCS. And last I checked, the youth of America still watch ESPN, and they see some FCS darlings in the FCS Kickoff Classic, like North Dakota State.
They tune into the college football landscape, and they see Eastern Washington upsetting Washington State, Bo Pelini coaching Youngstown State, Albany upsetting Buffalo.
Yes, the national FCS scene has their darlings, and frequently it feels like the Patriot League and their opponents are mere afterthoughts in the world where Big Sky teams are putting up big scores, Sam Houston State is beating all comers, The Citadel is dominating in the South, and the Missouri Valley Football Conference sees almost half its members in the Top 25.
And despite having junior WR Troy Pelletier and junior WR Gatlin Casey sitting at No. 1 and No. 2 in the FCS in receiving,respectively, despite a five game winning streak, and despite their emergence as a top contender for the Patriot League title past the halfway point of the season, Lehigh sits just outside the national Top 25 polls.
Respect in the Patriot League is easy to lose, and hard to earn back – and this Lehigh team seems to know how fragile that is.
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