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Post by nycrusader2010 on Aug 30, 2021 17:43:26 GMT -5
Please don't pin me to a 6-1 record for these specific games based on my recap of 2019 standings for a different set of teams.. I will check these games and give you a forecast. I’m not, All in good fun. It’s just when I see people conclude with words like “pummel” or “destroy”, that sounds like an awful lot of certainty and conviction. A couple more games that should be on the radar this weekend: Central Arkansas (Top 15 FCS) v Arkansas State (bottom quartile FBS) Not quite there but pay attention: both competitive FCS programs in good conferences Portland State v Hawaii UT Martin v Western Kentucky That makes it an even 10 FCS v FBS game to watch where the FCS team has a reasonable to very good chance to win. Any other FCS wins in Week 1 will be big upsets! The reason you very rarely see true FCS over FBS blowouts is for 2 reasons (mainly # 1 though): 1) Bad FBS teams aren't going to schedule teams they project will be in the Top 10-15 of FBS. Remember the point of these games is to do your best to guarantee yourself a win. 2) These games are always at the home of the FBS team. Believe me, if teams like UMASS, UConn, UTEP and New Mexico State scheduled the likes of Montana, North Dakota State and James Madison, you'd see some beatdowns. A couple years ago UMASS hosted a mediocre Southern Illinois team that finished in bottom half of the Missouri Valley and lost by 3 scores or so.
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Post by midwestsader05 on Aug 30, 2021 18:18:18 GMT -5
The bottom 10 teams in FBS would not sniff the jockstrap of the FCS Top 25. So you're a little off base there. Objectively, I would guess UCONN would rank somewhere between 40 and 50 in FCS. In E Hartford, probably still slight favorites against us -- possible line in the range of -3.5 to -5.5. Assuming the Bulldogs are similar to where they've been at since 2014 or so, Yale will likely be favored over UConn. You also make it sound like the game was closer score dictated, which was not the case at all. The Huskies got absolutely boat-raced. If those open field tackles had been made on the long pass plays, Fresno still scores 3 or 4 plays later on those drives. 65 yards of total offense also = totally overmatched. With regards to #1, remember UCONN is an independent. They have to take what they can get schedule-wise. Certainly a tough trip to start the year for sure. Not sure why this game couldn't have been aired by CBS Sports at 8pm PT to avoid the dangerous heat -- not like there was much competition in that time slot. NYcrusader (and SOV) I have to disagree with your subjective view regarding the Top 15 FCS programs vs the bottom 15 FBS programs. NYcrusader, to say the FBS schools “would not sniff the jockstrap” of the FCS Top 25 is really excessive. My personal opinion is that if you had an objective contest where say, the top and bottom of each division had a “challenge”, the results would be really close to equal (8-7 either way) The only games where we get to test this in Week 1 are Eastern Washington (Top 15 FCS) v UNLV (near bottom 15 in FBS) and to a lesser extent South Dakota (near Top 25 in FCS) v Kansas (probably bottom 15 FBS.) By your logic, EW should be favored by 14 or 21? My opinion is coming from someone who’s watched too much FCS football over the past 20 years (the guy who stays up late to fall asleep to the Southern Utah v San Jose St game) and group of 5 FBS football my entire life. (my dad played in the WAC in the early 1970’s so we would stay up watching games like Hawaii at BYU) My reasoning mostly has to do with the 30+ full athletic scholarship advantage in FBS. Can you imagine what Chesney and Co could do with an extra 30 full scholarships? Most people underestimate the depth and drop-off in talent between 1st and 2nd string in FCS as a result of this dispersion in $$. We have maybe 5-8 guys that could start for bottom 30 FCS programs but that’s it. Brian Foley was an FCS All-American and is working hard to at best crack the 2-deep at Duke (an FBS ~60-70 Program..?) What would it say if one of HC’s best O-lineman in the past decade (and a Top 5-10 FCS lineman if he returned to HC for his 5th year) is 3rd string in the bottom of the ACC? So my question to you, if HC loses to UCONN (and UCONN is in the 40’s in FCS) is HC likely to be a sub 50 program in FCS this year? I’M VERY OPEN TO BE PROVEN WRONG but I suspect if we pull out a victory, it’s more indicative that UCONN would be in the 20’s in FCS and HC has a chance to finish a top 15-20 program at the end of the season. The only other top 15 FCS programs we will face this year are definitely Monmouth and maybe Yale or Fordham (who knows with Harvard) I will be sure to ask the players I’m connected with about the comparisons in talent but I can almost guarantee you they will say UCONN is closer to Monmouth than they are to whoever finishes 2nd or 3rd in the PL.
I guess the only thing that would make me post next Sunday (hat in hand) is if HC just straight up beats UCONN in all facets of the game (our win over Army in 2002 was solely because we dominated the turnover and special teams battles (which led to a massive advantage in starting field position). We would have to beat UCONN in most team stats for me to drift to your way of thinking. Less than a week and we will know a lot more. Looking forward to it!NYcrusader, I agree with you that if the Top 5 FCS teams played the bottom five FBS teams, the FCS teams would run the table with some 3 score blowouts. If the Top 10 FCS teams played the bottom 10 FBS teams, FCS goes 7-3 or 8-2. I think it’s after that where we are more at odds. See my longer thread above where I ask you a couple direct questions. I’m curious your thoughts
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Aug 30, 2021 18:37:57 GMT -5
NYcrusader (and SOV) I have to disagree with your subjective view regarding the Top 15 FCS programs vs the bottom 15 FBS programs. NYcrusader, to say the FBS schools “would not sniff the jockstrap” of the FCS Top 25 is really excessive. My personal opinion is that if you had an objective contest where say, the top and bottom of each division had a “challenge”, the results would be really close to equal (8-7 either way) The only games where we get to test this in Week 1 are Eastern Washington (Top 15 FCS) v UNLV (near bottom 15 in FBS) and to a lesser extent South Dakota (near Top 25 in FCS) v Kansas (probably bottom 15 FBS.) By your logic, EW should be favored by 14 or 21? My opinion is coming from someone who’s watched too much FCS football over the past 20 years (the guy who stays up late to fall asleep to the Southern Utah v San Jose St game) and group of 5 FBS football my entire life. (my dad played in the WAC in the early 1970’s so we would stay up watching games like Hawaii at BYU) My reasoning mostly has to do with the 30+ full athletic scholarship advantage in FBS. Can you imagine what Chesney and Co could do with an extra 30 full scholarships? Most people underestimate the depth and drop-off in talent between 1st and 2nd string in FCS as a result of this dispersion in $$. We have maybe 5-8 guys that could start for bottom 30 FCS programs but that’s it. Brian Foley was an FCS All-American and is working hard to at best crack the 2-deep at Duke (an FBS ~60-70 Program..?) What would it say if one of HC’s best O-lineman in the past decade (and a Top 5-10 FCS lineman if he returned to HC for his 5th year) is 3rd string in the bottom of the ACC? So my question to you, if HC loses to UCONN (and UCONN is in the 40’s in FCS) is HC likely to be a sub 50 program in FCS this year? I’M VERY OPEN TO BE PROVEN WRONG but I suspect if we pull out a victory, it’s more indicative that UCONN would be in the 20’s in FCS and HC has a chance to finish a top 15-20 program at the end of the season. The only other top 15 FCS programs we will face this year are definitely Monmouth and maybe Yale or Fordham (who knows with Harvard) I will be sure to ask the players I’m connected with about the comparisons in talent but I can almost guarantee you they will say UCONN is closer to Monmouth than they are to whoever finishes 2nd or 3rd in the PL.
I guess the only thing that would make me post next Sunday (hat in hand) is if HC just straight up beats UCONN in all facets of the game (our win over Army in 2002 was solely because we dominated the turnover and special teams battles (which led to a massive advantage in starting field position). We would have to beat UCONN in most team stats for me to drift to your way of thinking. Less than a week and we will know a lot more. Looking forward to it!NYcrusader, I agree with you that if the Top 5 FCS teams played the bottom five FBS teams, the FCS teams would run the table with some 3 score blowouts. If the Top 10 FCS teams played the bottom 10 FBS teams, FCS goes 7-3 or 8-2. I think it’s after that where we are more at odds. See my longer thread above where I ask you a couple direct questions. I’m curious your thoughts Having read your most recent 2-3 posts in this thread, its clear that you've watched a lot of football and know what you're talking about. Right now, I'd say that's not a bad projection. I also think FCS isn't as deep at the top as it was in the 1990's and early 2000's. There's definitely a drop-off after the Top 5. Programs like Delaware, McNeese State, Youngstown, Jacksonville State and Furman -- even the Montana schools to an extent, aren't what they were 15 years ago. So many top I-AA/FCS programs like App State and Georgia Southern have moved up to the G5 and contributed to a little bit of a vacuum. But don't get me wrong, plenty of FCS teams that are borderline Top 25 or worse have beaten and will continue to upset FBS teams. It's not rare at all for non-playoff FCS teams to get FBS wins. And they're not always against the "Bottom 10".
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Post by Sons of Vaval on Aug 30, 2021 18:39:27 GMT -5
Midwest - good posts earlier. Thanks for the thoughts.
I'm honestly not sure I see a material difference between the following four conferences: Missouri Valley, Big Sky, Sun Belt, and C-USA.
There's a reason, as NY Cru pointed out, you never see schools from these conferences play top FCS teams because they know the games would either be a coin flip or the FCS team would be favored. Not good to write a school a check and then lose to them.
As it relates to UConn, they are not a Top 25 FCS program at the moment. Just aren't. Randy Edsall has six wins since 2017. Three of them are against FCS opponents. I really think UConn would finish in the bottom half of the Missouri Valley if they played in that league this year.
Furthermore, I saw on Twitter today that UConn is 2.5 point favorites this weekend. HC, mind you, is receiving votes in most FCS Top 25 polls. If they are just field goal favorites at home against a PL school that's receiving votes, where does that mean they stand against the top FCS programs?
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Post by Sons of Vaval on Aug 30, 2021 18:40:23 GMT -5
And, by the way Midwest, like yourself (it seems), count me in the camp as someone who loves a good FCS tilt over a P5 game.
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Post by midwestsader05 on Aug 30, 2021 19:14:25 GMT -5
Midwest - good posts earlier. Thanks for the thoughts. I'm honestly not sure I see a material difference between the following four conferences: Missouri Valley, Big Sky, Sun Belt, and C-USA. There's a reason, as NY Cru pointed out, you never see schools from these conferences play top FCS teams because they know the games would either be a coin flip or the FCS team would be favored. Not good to write a school a check and then lose to them. As it relates to UConn, they are not a Top 25 FCS program at the moment. Just aren't. Randy Edsall has six wins since 2017. Three of them are against FCS opponents. I really think UConn would finish in the bottom half of the Missouri Valley if they played in that league this year. Furthermore, I saw on Twitter today that UConn is 2.5 point favorites this weekend. HC, mind you, is receiving votes in most FCS Top 25 polls. If they are just field goal favorites at home against a PL school that's receiving votes, where does that mean they stand against the top FCS programs? SOV, I take these point lines with a grain of salt this early in the season. I’m just stating what I see in each team. Like I mentioned earlier, if we beat UCONN by say 3 or 7, I think it means HC is likely a Top 15-20 FCS program this year. If we lose by 3 or 7, UCONN is likely at Top 20-25 FCS program and HC is where we currently are in most preseason polls (25-35) This question will be more interesting once we see the products on the field. Also, what if UCONN or HC wins by 2-3 scores. That will be intriguing as to which team it reflects as better or worse than current projections (for example if we win by 14, maybe HC is a Top 10-15 FCS team and/or UCONN is literally one of the 3 worst teams in FBS) I really hope it’s not the other way around and we are hoping UCONN is better than what they showed the Fresno game….from what I’ve seen of this thread, 80% of Crossports pundits will think HC goes 6-5 at best and are two score underdogs at Fordham. I don’t see many willing to give UCONN any credit if they happen to overwhelm us.
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Post by hc87 on Aug 30, 2021 20:43:06 GMT -5
UConn would definitely be in the Top 20-40 in the FCS imo....not really high praise I know but the FCS-level has been fairly watered down over the past 20-25 years or so as a fair amount of former Top 20 FCS-level programs have gone FBS during that time frame. The FCS 20-40 include teams currently like ourselves, NC A&T, Missouri St, Austin Peay, Alabama A&M et. al. Not a slight against those teams or ourselves, but after the first 10-15 FCS teams or so, an FBS-level team, regardless of how down they are, should beat teams outside of the FCS Top 20 relatively easily.
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Post by nycrusader2010 on Aug 30, 2021 20:54:04 GMT -5
UConn would definitely be in the Top 20-40 in the FCS imo....not really high praise I know but the FCS-level has been fairly watered down over the past 20-25 years or so as a fair amount of former Top 20 FCS-level programs have gone FBS during that time frame. The FCS 20-40 include teams currently like ourselves, NC A&T, Missouri St, Austin Peay, Alabama A&M et. al. Not a slight against those teams or ourselves, but after the first 10-15 FCS teams or so, an FBS-level team, regardless of how down they are, should beat teams outside of the FCS Top 20 relatively easily. And I'm not convinced UCONN would be favored against or beat all of those teams. But I agree, with two dozen or so schools moving up from FCS to G5 over the past 25 years, the depth isn't quite there. One more recent parallel -- Idaho recently dropped down from FBS to the Big Sky Conference. They were probably comparable at the time to where UCONN now is as a program and in terms of talent. And they dropped down and were an immediate nothing-burger at the FCS level. IMO, if UCONN were in the CAA this year they go either 2-6 or 3-5 in conference. They could quite possibly be the worst Division I football team in Connecticut. Let that sink in.
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Post by hc87 on Aug 30, 2021 21:05:12 GMT -5
I'm not saying they're good by any measure but I also think we here are generally downplaying UConn on a game played across the country (their 1st in 2 years) to a decent Fresno St team in 100+ degree heat.
I was hoping they'd lose a 35-10, 38-13 type of game out there....getting spanked like they did out there, they are going to be looking to put that game behind them against us imo.
Hope I'm wrong, but I think this will be a tough game for us to pull out down at the Rent this Saturday. We shall see...
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Aug 30, 2021 23:38:43 GMT -5
We shouldn't overthink this as to how a big loss or borderline loss or a win last week would affect our upcoming opponent. To me the key issue is: how good a team are we facing?
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Post by Chu Chu on Aug 31, 2021 11:27:00 GMT -5
All of this handicapping of Saturday's game is entertaining, but I fully expect that the UConn team who takes the field against us will be chastened and highly motivated. They have some good athletes and they will not be suffering from jet lag or heat prostration. They will be a worthy opponent that I know our coaches take seriously. It should be a great and enjoyable game!
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