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FCS vs. FBS, 2021 — a quick rundown

Posted on August 26, 2021 by Sandlapper Spike

2019 preseason college football rankings, featuring The Citadel (and the rest of the SoCon)

Posted on June 8, 2019 by Sandlapper Spike

A few links of interest:

– Hero Sports FCS Preseason Top 25 (The Citadel is ranked 25th)

– Hero Sports FCS Preseason All-American teams (Bulldogs punter Matthew Campbell in on the third team)

– Homecoming at The Citadel — a brief gridiron history

It must be June, because the college football preview magazines are on the street. What follows is a quick review of the mags’ rankings from The Citadel’s perspective, with a few other tidbits thrown in for good measure.

Not included in this writeup: my annual look at the preseason Massey Ratings. I’ll discuss those in a future post.

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Street & Smith’s FCS top 25 has James Madison at #1, with North Dakota State ranked second. South Dakota State is 3rd, followed by Eastern Washington and Jacksonville State. Four of those five teams were in the magazine’s preseason top 5 last year as well.

Wofford is ranked #8, and Furman is #14. Others of interest: Towson (9th), Elon (18th), and North Carolina A&T (19th).

The magazine’s preseason All-America squad includes Wofford offensive lineman Justus Basinger (named the SoCon’s top NFL prospect), East Tennessee State defensive back Tyree Robinson, and Furman specialist Grayson Atkins (honored as a placekicker on this list).

This year’s SoCon preview was authored by Pat Yasinskas, who is currently based in Tampa. In his reportorial career, Yasinskas (a native of Pennsylvania) has primarily written about the NFL, covering the Carolina Panthers for The Charlotte Observer and the NFC South for ESPN.com.

To be honest, I am unsure how much time the graduate of Saint Leo University has spent following the Southern Conference. I found two twitter accounts for him, both inactive.

At any rate, the league preseason rankings for S&S:

1 – Wofford
2 – Furman
3 – East Tennessee State
4 – Chattanooga
5 – Mercer
6 – Samford
7 – The Citadel
8 – Western Carolina
9 – VMI

With regards to The Citadel, Yaskinskas writes that the Bulldogs have “a chance to be competitive, mainly because 10 starters return on offense. The development of quarterback Brandon Rainey will be a key.” He also references new defensive coordinator Tony Grantham and linebacker Willie Eubanks III.

Charleston Southern is projected to finish third in the Big South. Monmouth is the pick to win that league instead of Kennesaw State, which might raise a few eyebrows (and the Owls did not make Street & Smith‘s preseason top 25).

Towson is ranked second in the CAA, while Elon is picked to finish fifth.

S&S has South Carolina State finishing fourth in the MEAC, with North Carolina A&T the favorite in that conference. Other top-dog choices in FCS leagues include Eastern Washington, James Madison, Princeton, North Dakota State, Duquesne, Jacksonville State, Colgate, San Diego, and Nicholls.

In the shadowy world of FBS, Georgia Tech (which will host The Citadel on September 14) is projected to finish last in the ACC’s Coastal Division.

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Lindy’s ranks North Dakota State #1 in its FCS preseason poll. The rest of its top 5: South Dakota State, Kennesaw State, Jacksonville State, and UC Davis.

Wofford is ranked #13, East Tennessee State #17, and Furman #20. Other teams of note include Towson (6th) and North Carolina A&T (22nd).

The Lindy’s preseason first team All-America squad for the FCS includes Tyrie Adams of Western Carolina, who is listed not as a quarterback but as an all-purpose player. Two ETSU defensive stalwarts, defensive lineman Nasir Player and the aforementioned Tyree Robinson, are also on the first team. (Player is a product of Ridge View High School in Columbia.)

Towson quarterback Tom Flacco is the magazine’s first-team quarterback and its preseason MVP for the entire division. His teammate, placekicker Aidan O’Neill, is also on the first team.

The magazine also has a preseason second team, which includes Wofford offensive lineman Justus Basinger and Furman “bandit” linebacker Adrian Hope. Towson running back/kick returner Shane Simpson is the all-purpose designee on the second team.

The national preview (which focuses on North Dakota State) was written by George Gordon. I could not find any background information on him. I am assuming he is not related to any of the Civil War/British generals who also share his name; he presumably has no association with well-known law enforcement officer James W. Gordon or noted library sciences advocate Barbara Gordon, either.

The preseason SoCon rankings, per Lindy’s:

1 – Wofford
2 – East Tennessee State
3 – Furman
4 – Samford
5 – Mercer
6 – Chattanooga
7 – Western Carolina
8 – The Citadel
9 – VMI

A brief blurb about The Citadel in the magazine states that defensive lineman Joseph Randolph II is “one of the league’s underrated players”.

On the one hand, ETSU is picked to finish higher in the league standings by Lindy’s than just about any other source. On the other, the magazine references Logan Marchi as returning at quarterback for the Buccaneers, which will not be the case.

Charleston Southern is the preseason #5 team in the Big South, while South Carolina State is picked to finish fourth in the MEAC.

Teams expected by Lindy’s to win their respective FCS leagues include Colgate, Duquesne, Jacksonville State, Kennesaw State, Nicholls, North Carolina A&T, North Dakota State, Princeton, San Diego, Southern, Towson, and UC Davis.

Georgia Tech is picked to finish last in the ACC Coastal Division, and is ranked the #90 FBS team overall.

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As was the case last year, Athlon does not have an FCS conference preview section. Craig Haley of STATS FCS Football has again written the magazine’s national preview of the division, with a Top 25 ranking list, an All-America team, and projected playoff qualifiers. The entire section takes up only four pages in Athlon‘s 304-page tome.

Haley’s top 5: North Dakota State, James Madison, South Dakota State, Eastern Washington, and UC Davis.

Wofford is 10th in this poll, and Furman is 16th. Those two teams are the only SoCon squads projected to make the FCS playoffs, and their meeting in Spartanburg on November 16 is one of ten “must-see matchups” listed by the magazine.

Also ranked: Towson (#11) and Elon (#21). Both are also expected to advance to postseason play as at-large picks out of the CAA, with James Madison the pick to win that league. Other conference favorites include Colgate, Duquesne, Eastern Washington, Jacksonville State, Kennesaw State, North Dakota State, Nicholls, San Diego, and North Carolina A&T.

Athlon‘s preseason All-America team features just one SoCon player, with Nasir Player of ETSU again receiving recognition from a major publication. As was the case with Lindy’s, Towson’s Aidan O’Neill is the placekicker.

Georgia Tech fares no better in Athlon than it does in Street & Smith‘s or Lindy’s, as the Yellow Jackets are picked to occupy the cellar of the ACC Coastal Division (with a 4-8 overall record). The preseason national FBS ranking for Georgia Tech by the magazine is #75.

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A couple of other notes:

– Phil Steele is not releasing an FCS preview magazine this season. I think the nation will survive.

– Athlon features a list of “The 100 Twitter Accounts to Follow” for college football. Shockingly, @SandlapperSpike did not make the cut. Clearly this an outrage.

While quite a few individuals on Athlon‘s list are represented on my own timeline, there are several people mentioned by the magazine that you couldn’t pay me to follow — in particular, the business/media analysis twitter picks, namely the deadly duo of Darren Rovell and Richard Deitsch. Frankly, life is too short to follow either one of those two killjoys.

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Finally, my favorite tweet over the last week or so:

Does your college have a tank?

Because we have a tank. 😏#FireThoseCannons | #TheCitadel pic.twitter.com/Ymu1E8fCTs

— The Citadel Football (@CitadelFootball) June 4, 2019

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Adrian Hope, Aidan O'Neill, Athlon, Brandon Rainey, Charleston Southern, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Elon, FCS, Furman, Georgia Tech, Grayson Atkins, Joseph Randolph II, Justus Basinger, Lindy's, Mercer, Nasir Player, North Dakota State, Samford, SoCon, Street & Smith's, The Citadel, Tom Flacco, Tony Grantham, Towson, Tyree Robinson, Tyrie Adams, VMI, Western Carolina, Willie Eubanks III, Wofford | Leave a comment »

2018 preseason rankings and ratings, featuring The Citadel (and the rest of the SoCon)

Posted on June 6, 2018 by Sandlapper Spike

Yes, it’s that time of year. The preview magazines are out, and the Massey Ratings have been updated for preseason 2018. Let’s get right to the nitty-gritty!

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Lindy’s ranks North Dakota State #1 in its FCS preseason poll. The rest of its top 5: James Madison, Sam Houston State, Jacksonville State, and South Dakota State. Incidentally, the top four teams were also the top four squads in Lindy’s 2017 preseason poll (with NDSU and JMU flip-flopped).

Wofford is ranked #10 (as was also the case in the magazine’s 2017 preseason poll), Samford #13, and Furman #17. Other teams of note include Kennesaw State (#7), North Carolina A&T (#19), and Elon (#21).

The Lindy’s preseason first team All-America squad for the FCS includes two players from Samford, quarterback Devlin Hodges and defensive lineman Ahmad Gooden. Not only that, but both are the magazine’s preseason national MVPs (on offense and defense, respectively).

Lindy’s first team also includes Wofford offensive lineman Ross Demmel. That is a bit problematic, as Demmel (who was an academic senior last season) is not on the Terriers’ 2018 roster.

The magazine’s preseason second team does feature a Wofford player who is expected to be on the field this year, however, in defensive lineman Miles Brown.

The preseason SoCon rankings, per Lindy’s:

1 – Wofford
2 – Samford
3 – Furman
4 – Western Carolina
5 – Chattanooga
6 – The Citadel
7 – Mercer
8 – East Tennessee State
9 – VMI

Charleston Southern is the preseason #2 team in the Big South, while Towson is projected to finish 11th in the 12-team CAA.

South Carolina State is picked 5th in the MEAC.

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Street & Smith’s FCS top 25 is similar to Lindy’s at the top, with North Dakota State and James Madison 1-2 in the rankings. South Dakota State is 3rd, followed by Kennesaw State and Jacksonville State.

Samford is ranked #10, Furman #17, and Wofford #21. Others of interest: Elon (9th), North Carolina A&T (15th), and Richmond (24th).

The magazine’s preseason All-America squad includes Samford’s Hodges and Gooden. No other SoCon players are named (and Street & Smith’s does not have a preseason second team).

As was the case last year, the SoCon preview was written by S&S assistant editor Will Long, who is based in Charlotte (and is a graduate of Clemson). The rankings:

1 – Samford
2 – Furman
3 – Wofford
4 – Mercer
5 – Western Carolina
6 – The Citadel
7 – Chattanooga
8 – East Tennessee State
9 – VMI

Charleston Southern is projected to finish third in the Big South (behind Kennesaw State and Monmouth). Towson is picked 8th in the CAA.

S&S is not bullish on South Carolina State, with Buddy Pough’s charges ranked 9th in the 10-team MEAC.

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Disappointingly, Athlon does not have an FCS conference preview section. The magazine does have a Top 25 preview written by Craig Haley of STATS FCS Football. The top 5, per Haley: North Dakota State, James Madison, New Hampshire, South Dakota State, and Kennesaw State.

Samford is 12th in this poll, with Wofford 16th. Those two teams are the only SoCon teams projected to make the FCS playoffs.

(It should be noted that the Terriers are not listed as a potential qualifier in the Athlon magazine currently on the shelf of your local bookstore. Wofford and Youngstown State were left off the page by mistake, but subsequently included in an online summary).

Also ranked: Elon (#10) and North Carolina A&T (#20). Monmouth, everyone’s favorite traditional Big South school, is included in an “others to watch” category.

Athlon‘s preseason All-America team includes Ahmad Gooden, but not his teammate Devlin Hodges; the squad’s quarterback is Eastern Washington’s Gage Gubrud.

Wofford’s Miles Brown is on the team, as is Western Carolina punter Ian Berryman. The magazine does not have a preseason All-America second team.

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Okay, let’s talk about the Massey Ratings…

For the last few years, I’ve been incorporating the Massey Ratings into my game previews. For those not entirely familiar with this ratings system, here is an explanation:

The Massey Ratings are designed to measure past performance, not necessarily to predict future outcomes…overall team rating is a merit based quantity, and is the result of applying a Bayesian win-loss correction to the power rating.

…In contrast to the overall rating, the Power is a better measure of potential and is less concerned with actual wins-losses.

…A team’s Offense power rating essentially measures the ability to score points. This does not distinguish how points are scored, so good defensive play that leads to scoring will be reflected in the Offense rating. In general, the offensive rating can be interpreted as the number of points a team would be expected to score against an average defense.

Similarly, a team’s Defense power rating reflects the ability to prevent its opponent from scoring. An average defense will be rated at zero. Positive or negative defensive ratings would respectively lower or raise the opponent’s expected score accordingly.

…the Massey model will in some sense minimize the unexplained error (noise). Upsets will occur and it is impossible (and also counter-productive) to get an exact fit to the actual game outcomes. Hence, I publish an estimated standard deviation. About 68% of observed game results will fall within one standard deviation of the expected (“average”) result.

…Preseason ratings are typically derived as a weighted average of previous years’ final ratings. As the current season progresses, their effect gets damped out completely. The only purpose preseason ratings serve is to provide a reasonable starting point for the computer. Mathematically, they guarantee a unique solution to the equations early in the season when not enough data is available yet.

Massey rates every single college football team — not just FBS and FCS squads, but D-2, D-3, NAIA, junior colleges, even Canadian and Mexican schools. This season, there are preseason ratings for 957 colleges and universities, from Alabama (#1) to Minnesota State Community & Technical College (#957).

This year, The Citadel is #218 overall in the preseason ratings. As a comparison, the Bulldogs were the preseason #130 team last year, #113 in the 2016 preseason, and #174 in the 2015 preseason.

The teams on The Citadel’s 2018 schedule are rated as follows (with the chances of a Bulldogs victory in parenthesis):

at Wofford – #162 (21%)
Chattanooga – #217 (56%)
Charleston Southern – #214 (56%)
at Mercer – #174 (29%)
at Towson – #178 (28%)
East Tennessee State – #264 (72%)
at VMI – #403 (92%)
Furman – #158 (28%)
at Western Carolina – #185 (35%)
Samford – #148 (27%)
Alabama – #1 (0%)

On the site, The Citadel’s matchups with ETSU and WCU are not listed for some reason. I used the Massey simulator to derive projected win percentages for those two games.

There are simulations for any possible matchup. Feel free to waste a few hours playing with them.

Going by the ratings, a Massey preseason poll for the SoCon would look like this:

1 – Samford
2 – Furman
3 – Wofford
4 – Mercer
5 – Western Carolina
6 – Chattanooga
7 – The Citadel
8 – East Tennessee State
9 – VMI

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Massey’s FCS-only ratings for select schools:

North Dakota State – 1
James Madison – 2
South Dakota State – 3
Weber State – 4
Western Illinois – 5
Northern Iowa – 6
Youngstown State – 7
Southern Utah – 8
South Dakota – 9
Eastern Washington – 10
Richmond – 13
Delaware – 15
Kennesaw State – 19
Samford – 25
Yale – 27
Furman – 30
Wofford – 32
Elon – 34
Mercer – 37
Colgate – 38
North Carolina A&T – 39
Towson – 41
Western Carolina – 44
William and Mary – 50
Charleston Southern – 57
Chattanooga – 60
The Citadel – 61
Harvard – 64
Lehigh – 65
East Tennessee State – 81
Gardner-Webb – 86
Presbyterian – 93
South Carolina State – 95
Campbell – 110
VMI – 113
Georgetown – 115
Davidson – 124
Mississippi Valley State – 125

Massey is clearly a big fan of the Missouri Valley Football Conference (six teams in the top 10). Mississippi Valley State is the lowest-rated FCS squad.

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In the “overall” category, some schools of note:

Alabama – 1
Georgia – 2
Clemson – 3
Oklahoma – 4
Ohio State – 5
Penn State – 6
Wisconsin – 7
Auburn – 8
Notre Dame – 9
Oklahoma State – 10
TCU – 11
UCF – 12
North Carolina State – 16
Miami (FL) – 17
Michigan – 19
Mississippi State – 20
Virginia Tech – 21
Florida State – 25
Southern California – 27
Wake Forest – 28
Georgia Tech – 32
South Carolina – 33
North Dakota State – 34 (highest-rated FCS team)
Duke – 35
Texas A&M – 39
James Madison – 45
Missouri – 49
Florida – 50
Navy – 53
Florida Atlantic – 57
North Carolina – 59
Maryland – 60
Army – 67
Appalachian State – 68
UCLA – 69
Tennessee – 75
Weber State – 80
Western Illinois – 81
Rutgers – 87
Air Force – 96
BYU – 97
Western Ontario – 111 (highest-rated Canadian team)
Southern Mississippi – 112
Connecticut – 118
Northwest Missouri State – 131 (highest-rated D-2 team)
Fullerton College – 150 (highest-rated junior college team)
Coastal Carolina – 156
Georgia Southern – 159
San Jose State – 173
Texas State – 180
Mt. Union – 200 (highest-rated D-3 team)
St. Francis (IN) – 245 (highest-rated NAIA team)
North Greenville – 297
UDLA Puebla – 359 (highest-rated Mexican team)
Newberry – 360
Lenoir-Rhyne – 416
Limestone – 445

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Football season is getting closer. Trust me, it is…

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Athlon, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Furman, Lindy's, Massey Ratings, Mercer, North Dakota State, Samford, SoCon, Street & Smith's, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | 1 Comment »

College Football 2017, Week #2: the top 15 matchups

Posted on September 8, 2017 by Sandlapper Spike

From last week, an explanation of what this topic is all about:

On his college hoops ratings website, Ken Pomeroy has an algorithm called ‘FanMatch’, in which “games are rated for competitiveness and level of play with a lean towards higher-scoring games”. It is a way to rate the potential watchability of various basketball contests. There is just a touch of whimsy involved, which makes it even better…

As noted before, I’ve created a very complicated (and secret) formula to produce game ratings; this matrix is called “Tingle Factor”, or TF. The higher the TF, the better.

I’ll list the top 15 TF games of Week 2, excluding The Citadel-Presbyterian, because it wouldn’t be fair to compare that game with less consequential pigskin contests.

Sometimes the best games of the week are the anticipated, high-profile contests, but often under-the-radar matchups are well worth watching.

Usually, those under-the-radar games would include includes FCS contests, but this week the top 15 are all FBS vs. FBS battles. Surprisingly, the North Dakota State-Eastern Washington game, a matchup of traditional and highly-ranked FCS powers, did not make the top 15. Perhaps the algorithm knows something we don’t know.

To access a Google Document that has a complete schedule of televised/streamed D-1 college football games (including all the announcing teams), see this post: Link

Here are the top 15 games for Week 2. All of them are being played on Saturday.

Road Team	Home Team	Gametime (ET)	TV/Streaming	TF
Auburn	Clemson	9/9, 7:00 pm	ESPN	88.1
Stanford	Southern California	9/9, 8:30 pm	FOX/FS-Go	87.9
Georgia	Notre Dame	9/9, 7:30 pm	NBC	87.5
Oklahoma	Ohio State	9/9, 7:30 pm	ABC/ESPN3	87.1
South Carolina	Missouri	9/9, 7:00 pm	ESPN2	81.8
Boise State	Washington State	9/9, 10:30 pm	ESPN	80.5
Northwestern	Duke	9/9, 12:00 pm	ESPNU	76.0
TCU	Arkansas	9/9, 3:30 pm	CBS	75.3
Iowa	Iowa State	9/9, 12:00 pm	ESPN2	72.1
Wake Forest	Boston College	9/9, 1:00 pm	ACC Digital Network	70.3
Mississippi State	Louisiana Tech	9/9, 7:30 pm	CBS Sports Network	68.1
Pittsburgh	Penn State	9/9, 3:30 pm	ABC/ESPN3	67.2
Nebraska	Oregon	9,9, 4:30 pm	FOX/FS-Go	65.9
Tulane	Navy	9/9, 3:30 pm	CBS Sports Network	65.0
Utah	BYU	9/9, 10:15 pm	ESPN2	63.8

Additional notes and observations:

– The three CBS/CBS Sports Network games will also be streamed on CBS Sports Digital.

– The Georgia-Notre Dame game will also be streamed on NBC Live Extra.

– The games on the ESPN “Family of Networks” will also be streamed via WatchESPN.

– Because none of the top 15 matchups are on the Pac-12 Network, most college football fans will be able to watch all of these games.

– As you can see, the top four games are all very closely rated by the system. All four have a higher rating than any game played last week.

– Perhaps the biggest surprise in the top 15 is the Wake Forest-Boston College game. When those two teams played two years ago, the Demon Deacons eked out a 3-0 victory.

Last season, the score was 17-14. For some reason, however, the algorithm really likes that matchup this week.

– This is the second week in a row games involving South Carolina and Navy have cracked the top 15.

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This should be a great slate of college football games, especially in the late afternoon and evening. It should be filled with compelling matchups.

Can’t wait.

Filed under: Football | Tagged: Arkansas, Auburn, Boise State, Boston College, BYU, Clemson, Duke, Eastern Washington, Georgia, Louisiana Tech, Mississippi State, Navy, Nebraska, North Dakota State, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Southern California, Stanford, TCU, TF, Tingle Factor, Tulane, Utah, Wake Forest, Washington State | Leave a comment »

With less than a month to go until football season begins, an odds-on look at Week 0 and Week 1

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Sandlapper Spike

Please note: the information contained in this post is for entertainment purposes only. Use of this information in violation of any city, county, state, federal, international, interplanetary, or interdimensional laws is prohibited.

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I’m basically going to do three things in this post: take a look at the sizable number of “lopsided” early-season contests; compare Massey Ratings projected game scores with early lines for various games of interest; and make a list of the best opening weekend (and pre-opening weekend) matchups.

Why am I doing this? Well, why not?

Lines are courtesy of an offshore site to be named later.

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There are 136 contests in Weeks 0 and 1 that feature at least one Division I team. Among them are 44 FBS vs. FBS games; of those, 11 are games between Power-5 conference teams, 9 are Group of 5 matchups, and 24 are games in which a P5 team is playing a G5 opponent.

There are also 48 FBS vs. FCS matchups, 26 FCS vs. FCS contests, and 18 games in which FCS teams face non-D1 opposition.

Of those 136 games, 36 have an early-line spread of 30 points or more.

The breakdown of those 36 matchups:

FBS vs. FBS: 6
FBS vs. FCS: 18
FCS vs. FCS: 4
FCS vs. non-D1: 8

It’s not great that more than 26% of the D-1 games which take place prior to and through the Labor Day weekend are projected to be that one-sided. Of course, it could be argued that this is the best time for these matchups, given that the general football-loving public is starved for live gridiron action of any kind, no matter the blowout potential.

As of August 1, the largest point spread for any D-1 game in this time period is the Florida A&M-Arkansas contest on August 31, a Thursday night affair in Little Rock. The Razorbacks are favored by 51.5 points. Two games have 51-point spreads, Bethune-Cookman vs. Miami (the homestanding Hurricanes are favored, just to state the obvious) and an all-FCS matchup, Mississippi Valley State vs. North Dakota State (with the host Bison expected to prevail).

The biggest road favorite is Washington, favored by 30.5 points at Rutgers. Stanford plays Rice at a neutral site (Sydney, Australia); the Cardinal are 31.5-point favorites.

The other four FBS vs. FBS matchups with a spread of 30+ points: UTEP-Oklahoma (44 points, the largest spread in an all-FBS game), Kent State-Clemson (38.5 points), Georgia Southern-Auburn (35 points), and Akron-Penn State (33 points). To the surprise of no one, the home teams are all favored.

The other three FCS vs. FCS games with 30+ point spreads: Butler-Illinois State (36 points), Valparaiso-Montana (34 points; apologies to Adam Amin), and Delaware State-Delaware (33 points). Again, home teams are the favorites.

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In the table below, I’ve included every FBS/FCS game in Week 0 (eight games played on August 26, and one on August 27), and a sampling of contests from Week 1 (August 31 through September 4). Just to reiterate, not every D-1 game from Week 1 is listed.

The first nine games in the table are from Week 0.

Favorite	Underdog	Line	Massey	Differential
Colorado State	Oregon State	3.5	34-31	0.5
BYU	Portland State	32.5	44-13	1.5
Florida A&M	Texas Southern	1.5	26-24	-0.5
Jacksonville State	Chattanooga	6.5	28-26	4.5
Cal Poly	Colgate	7	35-31	3
USF	San Jose State	20	41-31	10
Stanford	Rice	31.5	38-7	0.5
Sam Houston State	Richmond	6.5	38-34	2.5
Hawai’i	Massachusetts	1	33-31	-1
Wake Forest	Presbyterian	39	35-0	4
Toledo	Elon	37.5	43-7	1.5
Georgia State	Tennessee State	18	38-17	-3
Arkansas	Florida A&M	51.5	52-3	2.5
Mercer	Jacksonville	21	42-21	0
Samford	Kennesaw State	7.5	38-30	-0.5
Towson	Morgan State	28	35-7	0
Oklahoma State	Tulsa	17	42-33	8
Ohio State	Indiana	20.5	31-17	6.5
Army	Fordham	15.5	40-24	-0.5
Eastern Michigan	Charlotte	12.5	35-27	4.5
Navy	Florida Atlantic	13.5	42-28	-0.5
Colorado	Colorado State	7	35-28	0
Clemson	Kent State	38.5	44-3	-2.5
Texas	Maryland	16.5	34-27	9.5
Oklahoma	UTEP	44	49-13	8
North Carolina	California	12.5	42-32	2.5
Villanova	Lehigh	6.5	28-22	0.5
Pittsburgh	Youngstown State	14	40-24	-2
North Carolina State	South Carolina	5.5	28-17	-5.5
Notre Dame	Temple	15	28-24	11
Georgia	Appalachian State	14.5	21-18	11.5
Michigan	Florida	4	24-20	0
Virginia	William and Mary	19.5	33-14	0.5
North Dakota State	Mississippi Valley State	51	52-0	-1
Texas Tech	Eastern Washington	16.5	45-38	9.5
Mississippi State	Charleston Southern	18.5	38-21	1.5
The Citadel	Newberry	30	37-7	0
Wofford	Furman	13.5	26-14	1.5
Gardner-Webb	North Carolina A&T	7	28-21	0
Baylor	Liberty	30	42-14	2
East Tennessee State	Limestone	28.5	35-7	0.5
Auburn	Georgia Southern	35	34-13	14
Air Force	VMI	31.5	41-10	0.5
Alabama	Florida State	7.5	33-21	-4.5
LSU	BYU	13	21-7	-1
Southern	South Carolina State	2.5	27-24	-0.5
Virginia Tech	West Virginia	4	29-26	1
UCLA	Texas A&M	3.5	25-28	6.5
Tennessee	Georgia Tech	3.5	31-32	4.5

—

Odds (hey, a pun!) and ends:

Not listed: James Madison-East Carolina, which does not have a line at present for some reason. However, Massey projects FCS defending champ JMU to win the game 38-31.
Western Carolina’s season opener at Hawai’i also does not have a line (at least, not one that I could find), possibly because the Rainbow Warriors play a game at Massachusetts the week before.
The same is true for Coastal Carolina, which opens by hosting the aforementioned Minutemen.
Two teams in the table that are favorites (UCLA and Tennessee) are projected to lose by the Massey Ratings.
Massey projects several games to be considerably closer than the current lines, notably Appalachian State-Georgia, Maryland-Texas, Eastern Washington-Texas Tech, Temple-Notre Dame, and Tulsa-Oklahoma State.
On the other hand, Massey likes North Carolina State and Alabama even more than the offshore folks do.

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On his college basketball ratings website, Ken Pomeroy has something called ‘FanMatch’, in which “games are rated for competitiveness and level of play with a lean towards higher-scoring games”. It is a somewhat whimsical way to rate the potential watchability of individual games on a given night.

I’m going to do the same thing here. However, I am purposely not going to rate Newberry-The Citadel, which from my vantage point is the most watchable game of the Labor Day weekend.

Below is a listing of the Week 0/1 games that I consider to be the twenty best in terms of quality/competitiveness. I’ve created a secret formula to produce these game ratings; it is called “Tingle Factor”, or TF. The higher the TF, the better.

Road Team	Home Team	Gametime (ET)	TV/Streaming	TF
Alabama	Florida State	9/2, 8:00 pm	ABC/ESPN3	86.73
North Carolina State	South Carolina	9/2, 3:00 pm	ESPN	84.20
Tennessee	Georgia Tech	9/4, 8:00 pm	ESPN	83.90
Virginia Tech	West Virginia	9/3, 7:30 pm	ABC/ESPN3	83.55
Richmond	Sam Houston State	8/27, 7:00 pm	ESPNU	80.11
Tulsa	Oklahoma State	8/31, 7:30 pm	FS1/FS-Go	79.68
Chattanooga	Jacksonville State	8/26, 6:30 pm	ESPN	75.41
Colorado State	Colorado	9/1, 8:00 pm	Pac-12 Network	72.15
Oregon State	Colorado State	8/26, 2:30 pm	CBS Sports Net	72.00
James Madison	East Carolina	9/2, 6:00 pm	ESPN3	68.44
Temple	Notre Dame	9/2, 3:30 pm	NBC	67.18
Kennesaw State	Samford	8/31, 7:00 pm	ESPN3	66.95
Texas A&M	UCLA	9/3, 7:30 pm	FOX/FS-Go	65.60
Hawai’i	Massachusetts	8/26, 6:00 pm	TBA	65.47
Maryland	Texas	9/2, 12:00 pm	FS1/FS-Go	64.19
Eastern Washington	Texas Tech	9/2, 4:00 pm	FS Nets/FS-Go	64.03
South Carolina St.	Southern	9/3, 2:30 pm	ESPN2	63.88
Navy	Florida Atlantic	9/2, 8:00 pm	ESPNU	63.79
Villanova	Lehigh	9/2, 12:30 pm	Patriot League DN	63.58
Colgate	Cal Poly	8/26, 7:00 pm	ESPNU	63.56

Notes:

Alabama-Florida State will be played in Atlanta, GA
Georgia Tech-Tennessee will also be played in Atlanta, GA
North Carolina State-South Carolina will be played in Charlotte, NC
Colorado State-Colorado will be played in Denver, CO
Chattanooga-Jacksonville State will be played in Montgomery, AL
Virginia Tech-West Virginia will be played in Landover, MD

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The season is getting closer…and closer…

Filed under: Football | Tagged: Adam Amin, Alabama, Cal Poly, Colgate, Eastern Washington, FBS, FCS, Florida Atlantic, Kennesaw State, Maryland, Massey Ratings, Mississippi Valley State, Montana, Navy, North Dakota State, Oklahoma, Rutgers, Samford, Texas, Texas A&M, TF, Tingle Factor, UCLA, UTEP, Valparaiso, Washington | Leave a comment »

2017 preseason rankings and ratings, featuring The Citadel (and the rest of the SoCon)

Posted on July 4, 2017 by Sandlapper Spike

Previous posts on The Citadel’s upcoming football campaign:

– Inside the numbers: run/pass tendencies, 4th-down decision-making, and more (including coin-toss data!)

– A look at “advanced stats” from The Citadel’s most recent SoCon season

– The Citadel’s fans aren’t afraid to travel

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I think it’s time to take a gander at some preseason rankings and ratings. After all, what’s the purpose of even having a month of July otherwise?

First up, some rankings…

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This year, the Street & Smith’s college football annual returns, after several years of being usurped by the byline of The Sporting News (which had been acquired by the same company that owned Street & Smith’s about a decade ago). Now, the magazine is going by the Street & Smith’s name again, a return to a tradition that began in 1940.

On a personal level, I was pleased to see this. For years, it was a somewhat of a tradition for my father to buy the Street & Smith’s annual in July (usually after we made a trip to the barber shop). I would voraciously read the magazine cover-to-cover, even the section on the “Little Three” (yes, back in the day S&S would routinely have a page dedicated to the preseason prospects for Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan).

Anyway, the SoCon preview for this year’s annual was written by S&S assistant editor Will Long (who also wrote the FCS preview article in the magazine). Long is a resident of Charlotte who graduated from Clemson, so presumably he has some familiarity with the conference.

Long wrote that the SoCon “is as wide-open as it has been in recent memory.” His preseason predictions:

1 – Wofford (#9 in the S&S preseason Top 25 of the FCS)
2 – The Citadel (#12)
3 – Chattanooga (#18)
4 – Samford (#20)
5 – Mercer
6 – Furman
7 – Western Carolina
8 – East Tennessee State
9 – VMI

Sam Houston State is the magazine’s #1 team in its preseason top 25, followed by North Dakota State and defending FCS champion James Madison. Big South favorite Charleston Southern is #13, while MEAC standard-bearer North Carolina Central is #22.

The preseason FCS All-America team for Street & Smith’s includes Wofford defensive lineman Tyler Vaughn, South Carolina State linebacker Darius Leonard, and Western Carolina running back Detrez Newsome (on the team as a return specialist).

—

Other preseason magazines tend not to have specific previews for FCS conferences, but stick to national previews and Top 25 rankings.

Athlon ranks The Citadel #25 in its preseason list. North Dakota State is #1 in its rankings, ahead of James Madison, South Dakota State, and Sam Houston State. Wofford is ranked #10, Chattanooga #15, and Samford #18.

Wofford is projected to win the SoCon, with Chattanooga and Samford receiving at-large bids to the FCS playoffs. Based on the rankings, The Citadel is one of the “last two teams out” for making the playoffs, according to Athlon.

Incidentally, the magazine’s online site posted an article that mentions Wofford as a “dark horse” candidate to win the national title.

The annual’s preseason FCS All-America team includes Charleston Southern defensive lineman Anthony Ellis, South Carolina State linebacker Darius Leonard, Western Carolina punter Ian Berryman, and two North Carolina A&T players — offensive lineman Brandon Parker and punt returner Khris Gardin.

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Lindy’s ranks James Madison #1 in its FCS preseason poll. The rest of its top 5: North Dakota State, Sam Houston State, Jacksonville State, and Eastern Washington. Wofford is ranked #10, Chattanooga #11, The Citadel #18, and Samford #22. Other teams of note include Richmond (#9 here, and in the top 10 of all three rankings for the magazines mentioned in this post), Charleston Southern (#12), and Kennesaw State (#25).

The Lindy’s preseason first team All-America squad for the FCS includes Charleston Southern defensive lineman Anthony Ellis and teammate Solomon Brown (a linebacker), South Carolina State’s Darius Leonard (who may have the most preseason accolades of any FCS player in the Palmetto State), and Western Carolina’s Ian Berryman at punter.

Lindy’s also has a preseason second team, and that features Chattanooga offensive lineman Jacob Revis, Western Carolina return specialist Detrez Newsome, and The Citadel’s Kailik Williams (listed as a safety).

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For a couple of years now, I’ve been incorporating the Massey Ratings into my weekly game previews. For those not entirely familiar with this ratings system, a quick explanation:

Kenneth Massey (complete with bow tie) is an assistant professor of Mathematics at Carson-Newman University. His college football ratings system was used (with several others) for fifteen years by the BCS, the predecessor to the CFP. Massey has ratings for a wide variety of sports, but the lion’s share of the attention surrounding his work has been focused on college football.

Massey’s bio on the school website notes that he is “likely the most famous of C-N’s faculty” as a result of his ratings systems.

From the ratings website:

The Massey Ratings are designed to measure past performance, not necessarily to predict future outcomes…overall team rating is a merit based quantity, and is the result of applying a Bayesian win-loss correction to the power rating.

…In contrast to the overall rating, the Power is a better measure of potential and is less concerned with actual wins-losses.

…A team’s Offense power rating essentially measures the ability to score points. This does not distinguish how points are scored, so good defensive play that leads to scoring will be reflected in the Offense rating. In general, the offensive rating can be interpreted as the number of points a team would be expected to score against an average defense.

Similarly, a team’s Defense power rating reflects the ability to prevent its opponent from scoring. An average defense will be rated at zero. Positive or negative defensive ratings would respectively lower or raise the opponent’s expected score accordingly.

…the Massey model will in some sense minimize the unexplained error (noise). Upsets will occur and it is impossible (and also counter-productive) to get an exact fit to the actual game outcomes. Hence, I publish an estimated standard deviation. About 68% of observed game results will fall within one standard deviation of the expected (“average”) result.

…Preseason ratings are typically derived as a weighted average of previous years’ final ratings. As the current season progresses, their effect gets damped out completely. The only purpose preseason ratings serve is to provide a reasonable starting point for the computer. Mathematically, they guarantee a unique solution to the equations early in the season when not enough data is available yet.

That lack of data won’t stop us from discussing the rankings, though!

Massey rates every single college football team — not just FBS and FCS squads, but D-2, D-3, NAIA, junior colleges, even Canadian and Mexican schools. This season, there are preseason ratings for 959 colleges and universities (Zorros ITQ, the football team at the Technological Institute at Querétaro, is the preseason #959 squad).

This year, The Citadel is #130 overall in the preseason ratings. As a comparison, the Bulldogs were the preseason #113 team last year and were #174 in the 2015 preseason.

The teams on The Citadel’s 2017 schedule are rated as follows (with the chances of a Bulldogs victory in parenthesis):

Newberry – #341 (98%)
Presbyterian – #296 (96%)
East Tennessee State – #279 (92%)
Samford – #143 (50%)
Mercer – #178 (74%)
Wofford – #110 (43%)
Chattanooga – #117 (36%)
VMI – #228 (87%)
Western Carolina – #208 (83%)
Furman – #169 (62%)
Clemson – #2 (0%)

The Citadel is favored in 7 of 11 matchups, with one tossup.

Don’t worry about that 0% number for the Clemson game, though. When I began simulating the game, on just my fourth try The Citadel beat the Tigers 31-20. Never bet against the Bulldogs.

There are matchup simulations for each game. Feel free to waste a few minutes of your time toying around with them.

Based on the ratings, here are the projected overall season records for The Citadel’s Division I opponents (there aren’t simulations for teams below D-1, so Newberry is not listed):

Presbyterian (2-9)
East Tennessee State (2-9)
Samford (7-3, not including a tossup game versus The Citadel)
Mercer (4-7)
Wofford (10-1)
Chattanooga (8-3)
VMI (3-7, not including a tossup game against Western Carolina)
Western Carolina (2-9, not including a tossup game versus VMI)
Furman (5-6)
Clemson (12-0)

Note: Western Carolina plays 12 regular-season games this season, because it opens at Hawai’i.

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Let’s look at the FCS-only ratings for a list of select schools:

North Dakota State – 1
James Madison – 2
Eastern Washington – 3
Youngstown State – 4
South Dakota State – 5
Northern Iowa – 6
Jacksonville State – 7
Wofford – 8
Chattanooga – 9
Sam Houston State – 10
Charleston Southern – 11
Villanova – 12
Illinois State – 13
Central Arkansas – 14
Richmond – 15
The Citadel – 16
South Dakota – 17
Western Illinois – 18
New Hampshire – 19
Samford – 20
Lehigh – 26
Cal Poly – 28
Princeton – 30
Furman – 32
William and Mary – 33
San Diego – 34
Liberty – 35 (ranked here despite it being a “transition” year for LU)
Colgate – 36
Mercer – 38
Stony Brook – 41
Delaware – 45
Fordham – 47
Kennesaw State – 50
Gardner-Webb – 52
Towson – 54
Grambling State – 58
Western Carolina – 59
Harvard – 61
VMI – 64
Dartmouth – 67
North Carolina A&T – 70
Monmouth – 71
Yale – 77
Holy Cross – 78
Elon – 79
North Carolina Central – 80
East Tennessee State – 90
Presbyterian – 94
South Carolina State – 96
Campbell – 110
Delaware State – 121
Davidson – 122
Mississippi Valley State – 123
Arkansas-Pine Bluff – 124 (of 124 FCS teams)

North Dakota State is the preseason #1-rated FCS school, as it was last year. NDSU checks in at #58 overall. Other schools on the “overall list” that may be of interest:

Alabama – 1
Clemson – 2
LSU – 3
Florida State – 4
Oklahoma – 5
Michigan – 6
Washington – 7
Ohio State – 8
Miami (FL) – 9
Southern California – 10
Florida – 14
Virginia Tech – 15
North Carolina – 16
Louisville – 19
Tennessee – 20
North Carolina State – 23
Georgia Tech – 24
Notre Dame – 30
Georgia – 34
Appalachian State – 40
Northwest Missouri State – 46 (highest-rated Division II team, and I can’t believe it either)
Texas – 49
Wake Forest – 53
Vanderbilt – 59
Duke – 61
James Madison – 62
UCLA – 64
Kentucky – 65
Navy – 66
Air Force – 73
South Carolina – 74
Maryland – 78
Missouri – 81
Virginia – 83
New Mexico – 92
Georgia Southern – 93
Army – 99
Kansas – 104
Wofford – 110
Rutgers – 113
East Carolina – 115
Chattanooga – 117
Charleston Southern – 120
Coastal Carolina – 125
Massachusetts – 131
Ferris State – 136 (rated second-highest in Division II)
Marshall – 148
Charlotte – 152
Laval – 156 (highest-rated Canadian team)
Buffalo – 164
Texas State – 190
Butte College – 197 (highest-rated junior college team)
Trinity (CT) – 270 (highest-rated Division III team)
St. Francis (IN) – 280 (highest-rated NAIA team)
UAB – 285
North Greenville – 305
UDLA Puebla – 465 (highest-rated Mexican team)

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Less than two months until actual official pigskin activity…

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Athlon, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Furman, Massey Ratings, Mercer, North Dakota State, Samford, SoCon, Street & Smith's, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | 2 Comments »

The 2016 FCS Playoffs — a review of the bracket

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Sandlapper Spike

The Bracket

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Links of interest:

– The Citadel’s playoff path: a bye, then a familiar foe

– Lehigh football snubbed of home playoff game

– New Hampshire makes field for 13th straight year

– Albany left out of playoffs; coach calls exclusion “a sham”

– Wofford earns playoff bid

– Charleston Southern disappointed not to host playoff game

– After being disappointed in the seeding, Sam Houston State coach: “It is what it is”

– South Dakota State gets seed

– Youngstown State in playoffs after a ten-year absence

– “Samford shouldn’t even be in the tournament, let’s just get it straight”

– North Carolina A&T makes playoff, but coach says “we’re still pretty down around here”

– Chattanooga makes playoff field

– Cal Poly gets bid, will host San Diego

– Preview article on NCAA.com

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First, let’s correct an error in that last article I linked above, the one posted on the NCAA’s own website:

Some other teams that will miss out on postseason action as a whole include Montana, Western Illinois and North Carolina Central, who all lost steam down the stretch and were defeated in Week 12.

North Carolina Central won on Week 12, defeating North Carolina A&T 42-21. The Eagles aren’t missing out on postseason action, either — North Carolina Central is going to the Celebration Bowl instead of the FCS playoffs, while the team that lost to the Eagles (North Carolina A&T) got a bid as an at-large team.

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I also linked a “handicapping the field” article from the Bison Media Zone. Media members in North Dakota do not think Samford should have made the field.

Of course, being a resident of the Flickertail State isn’t the be-all and end-all when it comes to FCS expertise. In this particular preview, the writer referred to Charleston Southern as the “Mocs”.

I also think he has his guns pointed in the wrong direction when it comes to the exclusion of Albany. I tend to agree that Albany should have been in the tournament, but he failed to identify the most obvious beneficiary of the Great Danes’ absence — New Hampshire.

The two teams played in the same league (the CAA) and finished with the same overall record (7-4). Albany beat FBS Buffalo (admittedly, not the best FBS squad in world history). More to the point, the Great Danes won at New Hampshire.

The Wildcats also managed to lose to Ivy League cellar-dweller Dartmouth, and had no real standout victory. Albany’s worst loss was to Delaware, which strikes me as considerably more acceptable than losing to Dartmouth.

Albany head coach Greg Gattuso called the snub of his team “a sham” on Twitter. He had other comments:

I guess, if I had a question for the (selection) committee, it would be, what in (New Hampshire’s) body of work would be better than ours?

I just think the resume was better. Oh, by the way, we beat them head-to-head at their field. Remember us beating them at their field two weeks ago?

One criteria they might say is conference record. But to me, it’s a skewed point when (New Hampshire) didn’t play the second- and third-place teams. They didn’t play Richmond, they didn’t play Villanova. To me, conference schedule when you don’t play everybody should be thrown out (in picking the tournament).

I think Gattuso has a very legitimate argument.

New Hampshire had been in the playoffs in each of the previous 12 seasons; perhaps the committee just felt comfortable sticking them in the field. Maybe there is an unwritten rule that UNH has to be in the tournament.

Once New Hampshire was picked, the committee then got the chance to pair the Wildcats with Lehigh, and gave New Hampshire a home game in the first round. UNH’s average home attendance is 11,108, so it could be assumed its host bid (in terms of a cash guarantee) was quite good.

Albany’s average home attendance this season was 5,928. Could the committee have been thinking about the potential monetary difference if it came down to Lehigh-Albany or Lehigh-UNH? I’m sure the official answer is “No”, but cynics may have some doubts.

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In related news, during an interview on a North Dakota radio show, selection committee chairman Brian Hutchinson referenced North Carolina A&T’s “bid offer” as a point in its favor.

I think he probably misspoke — after all, North Carolina A&T isn’t even hosting a first-round game — but what his comment really illustrates is that money is never far from the mind of the committee when selecting, bracketing, and seeding teams. That is unfortunate.

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The committee apparently had no choice but to pair San Diego and Cal Poly against each other in the first round, despite the fact the two schools have already played this season. From the NCAA’s “Pre-Championship Manual“:

5. Regular season non-conference match-ups in the first round of the championship should be avoided, provided it does not create an additional flight(s).

6. Teams from the same conference will not be paired for first-round games (except for teams from the same conference that did not play against each other during the regular season; such teams may play each other in the first round);

7. Once the first-round pairings have been determined, there will be no adjustments to the bracket (e.g., a seeded team may play a conference opponent that advanced out of the first round).

If Cal Poly and USD had been in the same league, the rematch would have been avoided — but since they’re not, they had to be matched up, because not doing so would have created two extra flights.

That is because Poly and USD were less than 400 miles from each other, but more than 400 miles away from every other unseeded team. Here is the rule on busing/flights:

During the championship, institutions that are playing within 400 miles (one way) of their campus will be required to travel to that site via bus. Institutions traveling more than 400 miles (one way) to their game will be approved for air travel to that site.

I think it’s absurd that the “allow one more flight” stipulation only applies if teams are in the same conference, but that’s the rule, and the committee had no other option. The rule needs to be changed.

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Of course, when it comes to bracketing, the committee tends to take the path of least resistance anyway. This is the second year in a row there has been a regular-season rematch in the first round.

Last year, the Patriot League champion (Colgate) played at New Hampshire, with the winner facing James Madison. Colgate and UNH had already met during the 2015 regular season.

Naturally, this year the Patriot League champion (Lehigh) will again play at New Hampshire, with the winner again facing James Madison…

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The manual has this to say about awarding host sites:

3. If the minimum financial guarantees are met, the committee will award the playoff sites to the higher seeded teams.

4. When determining host institutions for playoff games when both teams are unseeded, criteria shall apply as follows: (1) quality of facility, (2) revenue potential plus estimated net receipts, (3) attendance history and potential, (4) team’s performance (i.e., conference place finish, head-to-head results and number of Division I opponents), and (5) student-athlete well-being (e.g., travel and missed class time).

This is not exactly breaking news, but it does explain one aspect of hosting that apparently bothered Charleston Southern coach Jamey Chadwell:

…Chadwell expressed disappointment about having to go on the road, but said getting a playoff opportunity was the ultimate goal.

“It’s disappointing. I don’t know all of the details, but you would think a conference champion would get more favor in the bidding process,” Chadwell said.

As it happens, conference champions don’t get more favor in the bidding process — unless they are matched up against teams in their own league in the first round (which would only occur if the two teams had not met during the regular season).

Charleston Southern hosted last year, but that was because it was a seed and met a minimum financial guarantee. This season, the Buccaneers were unseeded and paired with Wofford.

The decision to hold the game in Spartanburg probably came down to Wofford offering a better financial package, but Charleston Southern fans should be concerned about “quality of facility” being a more significant criterion for hosting than “revenue potential”.

Attendance history is also a factor. Below is the average home attendance for the 16 unseeded teams in the field:

North Carolina A&T: 14,472
Youngstown State: 14,353
New Hampshire: 11,108
Illinois State: 10,156
Chattanooga: 9,494
Central Arkansas: 8,767
Weber State: 8,734
Richmond: 8,700
Cal Poly: 8,413
Wofford: 7,625
Lehigh: 6,527
Villanova: 6,153
Samford: 5,897
Charleston Southern: 2,712
San Diego: 2,405
St. Francis (PA): 1,617

Attendance affects both a potential bid by a school, and the committee’s evaluation of its revenue potential.

Only two of the eight first-round matchups are hosted by teams that had lower average home attendance than their opponents. Richmond is hosting North Carolina A&T, and Central Arkansas is hosting Illinois State.

The second of those involves two schools with fairly close numbers in terms of attendance, but the other matchup has a much wider differential. Either North Carolina A&T wasn’t particularly interested in hosting, or Richmond put in a major league bid.

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I’m disappointed that for the FCS playoffs, there is yet again a mini-South Carolina bracket in what is supposed to be a national tournament.

This is the second year in a row The Citadel and Charleston Southern have both been bracketed in this fashion, and it is a lame, lame move by Brian Hutchinson and his committee for the second year in a row.

Bulldogs quarterback Dominique Allen:

It’d be nice to face somebody else, somebody besides teams we play all the time.

Linebacker Tevin Floyd of The Citadel:

We have histories with both [Wofford and Charleston Southern], so I think we just wanted to experience something new.

Head coach Brent Thompson of The Citadel:

When it’s the playoffs, you look for some different opponents. You want to get some people to travel in and maybe work outside (the norm) a little bit. But it is what it is, and we have to win the state of South Carolina at this point.

Floyd also said he was happy to be playing at Johnson Hagood Stadium, and Allen referenced a “fun” matchup with either potential opponent, but the point is clear.

I also don’t understand why the committee couldn’t have swapped the Charleston Southern-Wofford pairing and the North Carolina A&T-Richmond pairing in order to avoid a potential second-round rematch.

In other words, the CSU-Wofford winner could have been matched up against North Dakota, while the survivor of N.C. A&T-Richmond played The Citadel (instead of the other way around, as the committee arranged things).

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If the committee seeded all the teams, 1 through 24, it would be possible to have a balanced, fair tournament. Instead, bracketing decisions are made explicitly for geographic reasons, and they lead to inequities.

Weber State and Cal Poly both were 7-4 overall; Weber State was 6-2 in the Big Sky, while the Mustangs were 5-3. Now, due to unbalanced league schedules, Cal Poly played a slightly tougher slate than the Wildcats (and it also had a good non-conference win over South Dakota State). On the other hand, Weber State beat Cal Poly during the season.

You could argue that if every team in the tournament were seeded, Cal Poly might deserve a slightly higher seed than Weber State. If so, both teams would probably be seeded in the 17-20 range.

If that happened, each would play first-round road games against similarly-rated opponents. Instead, we have the current geographical setup and the “400 miles” bus/flight cutoff point.

Thus, Cal Poly plays a home game against San Diego of the non-scholarship Pioneer League, a team the Mustangs already defeated earlier this season 38-16. Meanwhile, Weber State travels almost 1,800 miles to play at Chattanooga, a solid SoCon squad that acquitted itself well last week against Alabama.

The decision to make Lehigh travel to New Hampshire also seems problematic to me; if anything, it should be the other way around. Again, however, cash is king in this tournament — though a few folks in Las Vegas are apparently putting their hard-earned money on Lehigh (which is a 4 1/2 point favorite despite having to go on the road).

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Final “toughest schedule” numbers from the NCAA for Jacksonville State, James Madison, Sam Houston State, and The Citadel:

The Citadel: 19th
James Madison: 57th
Jacksonville State: 80th
Sam Houston State: 102nd

All four finished undefeated against non-FBS competition. SHSU, which was 11-0, did not play an FBS opponent, while the other three schools were all 10-1, with each losing to an FBS team from a power conference.

The committee decided to give Jacksonville State the highest seed out of this group. Did it help Jacksonville State that it made the finals last year? Probably. Did it help Jacksonville State that its director of athletics was on the committee? It couldn’t have hurt.

What it means is that if The Citadel is fortunate enough to advance to the quarterfinals, and its opponent is Jacksonville State, the Bulldogs will be the road team. It is not evident why that should be the case.

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Another seeding oddity, in my opinion, was North Dakota being the #7 seed and South Dakota State being the #8. I’m not sure why the Jackrabbits would have been behind UND.

Because the committee seeded those teams in that way, SDSU has a potential rematch with North Dakota State in the quarterfinals. I don’t have a problem with regular-season rematches once teams advance to the quarterfinals, but it seems to me the committee had an easy opportunity to avoid that situation, and in a perfectly justifiable way.

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Per at least one source that deals in such matters, here are the lines for the eight first-round games, as of Tuesday afternoon:

Wofford is a 1.5-point favorite over Charleston Southern, over/under of 51.5
Chattanooga is a 15-point favorite over Weber State, over/under of 51.5
Lehigh is a 4.5-point favorite at New Hampshire, over/under of 63.5
Richmond is a 13-point favorite over North Carolina A&T, over/under of 53.5
Illinois State is a 1.5-point favorite at Central Arkansas, over/under of 49.5
Youngstown State is an 8.5-point favorite over Samford, over/under of 50.5
Cal Poly is a 12.5-point favorite over San Diego, over/under of 65.5
Villanova is a 14.5-point favorite over St. Francis (PA), over/under of 37.5

As you can see, there are two road favorites (Lehigh and Illinois State).

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Massey Ratings predicted scores for this Saturday:

Wofford 26, Charleston Southern 24
Chattanooga 31, Weber State 19
Lehigh 33, New Hampshire 28
Richmond 36, North Carolina A&T 24
Central Arkansas 23, Illinois State 21
Youngstown State 28, Samford 20
Cal Poly 35, San Diego 29
Villanova 21, St. Francis (PA) 7

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I’m not pleased with how the tournament was constructed. However, there is nothing that can be done about it, at least not for this season. All eyes will now be following the action on the gridiron.

If you’re in the field, you have a chance. That’s the bottom line.

Filed under: Football | Tagged: Albany, Brian Hutchinson, Cal Poly, Central Arkansas, Charleston Southern, Chattanooga, FCS playoffs, Illinois State, Jacksonville State, James Madison, Lehigh, New Hampshire, North Carolina A&T, North Dakota, North Dakota State, Richmond, Sam Houston State, Samford, San Diego, South Dakota State, St. Francis (PA), The Citadel, Villanova, Weber State, Wofford, Youngstown State | Leave a comment »

2016 Football, Game 10: The Citadel vs. VMI

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel vs. VMI, to be played on Alumni Memorial Field at Foster Stadium in Lexington, Virginia, with kickoff at 1:30 pm ET on Saturday, November 12. The game will not be televised.

The contest will be streamed on ESPN3.com, with Wade Branner providing play-by-play and Dave Harding supplying the analysis.

The game can be heard on radio via the various affiliates of The Citadel Sports Network. WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station.

Mike Legg (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) will call the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze.

It is also possible to listen to the action with a smartphone, using a TuneIn Radio application.

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Links of interest:

– Game notes for The Citadel and VMI

– SoCon weekly release

– Brent Thompson’s 11/8 press conference, including comments from Cody Clark and Tyler Renew (video)

– Brent Thompson’s 11/9 radio show (video)

– FCS Coaches’ Poll

– STATS FCS Poll

– NCAA FCS selection committee rankings for November 10

– Sure, we can relive that Cam Jackson run again

– VMI’s new starting quarterback tries to lead Keydets to an upset of the Bulldogs

– Highlights of VMI’s game against Bucknell (video)

– Get well, Mike Groshon

—

The second week of preliminary rankings by the FCS selection committee resulted in a few changes, but by and large those adjustments did not really affect The Citadel.

Week 2 Rank	School	Previous (Week 1)
1	Jacksonville State	1
2	Eastern Washington	3
3	North Dakota State	4
4	James Madison	5
5	Sam Houston State	2
6	The Citadel	6
7	Chattanooga	8
8	Richmond	7
9	Central Arkansas	10
10	North Dakota	NR

The biggest news was Sam Houston State dropping from #2 to #5. The Bearkats are one of two undefeated FCS teams, with The Citadel being the other. However, SHSU’s strength of schedule is weak when compared to all but one of the other top eight teams (we’ll get to the exception in a moment).

Last week, North Dakota State fans (and media members) complained vociferously after Sam Houston State was ranked ahead of the Bison. They had a point.

It is impossible to know whether or not certain members of the selection committee were influenced by the noise emanating from Fargo. I could make a good guess, though.

Of course, NDSU didn’t get everything it wanted. North Dakota State is still ranked behind Eastern Washington and Jacksonville State. The latter school’s #1 ranking continues to be a bit puzzling.

Schedule strength of the top 10 teams through last week’s games (incidentally, Samford is 2nd overall in this category):

Jacksonville State (schedule strength of 101st out of 124 FCS teams)
Eastern Washington (tied for 12th)
North Dakota State (3rd)
James Madison (35th)
Sam Houston State (89th)
The Citadel (tied for 12th)
Chattanooga (34th)
Richmond (37th)
Central Arkansas (82nd)
North Dakota (38th)

Jacksonville State is 8-1. The one defeat came at LSU, so nobody is saying that JSU should be penalized severely for its loss. However, the Gamecocks don’t play in a very strong league, and don’t have the non-conference schedule heft to match that of Eastern Washington and North Dakota State — and both of those schools also play in tougher conferences while maintaining identical 8-1 records.

Of course, some observers would note that one difference between the three schools is that Jacksonville State’s director of athletics is on the selection committee.

The Citadel is undefeated, has a significantly better strength of schedule, and also has a win over another team in the top 10 of the rankings. However, not only are the Bulldogs behind Jacksonville State, they are ranked below Sam Houston State as well. There is no legitimate reason for that to be the case.

In my opinion, The Citadel should currently be ranked in the top 4. Eastern Washington and North Dakota State should be 1-2 in some order, followed by James Madison and The Citadel in the 3-4 spots. However, unless JSU and SHSU lose, the Bulldogs are not likely to pass either one of them (particularly Jacksonville State).

This effectively means The Citadel’s seeding “ceiling” is probably #5. The difference between being seeded #5 instead of #4 could be the difference between playing at home or on the road in a potential quarterfinal game.

That would be unfortunate for The Citadel.

—

Earlier this week, SB Nation’s “Football Study Hall” site posted a report on tempo at the FBS level. It’s a very interesting and well-considered piece.

After I read it, I decided to take a look at pace of play in FCS. Basically, I took stats from 122 teams (for practical reasons, I didn’t include “transitional” schools Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word), and determined how quickly FCS teams have run offensive plays so far in 2016. Here are the top 20 squads:

Team (Conference)	Time between plays (seconds)
Stephen F. Austin (Southland)	19.49872
Eastern Kentucky (OVC)	19.68576
Samford (Southern)	20.29769
South Dakota (MVFC)	20.86083
Sam Houston State (Southland)	21.5656
Murray State (OVC)	21.80123
Eastern Washington (Big Sky)	22.09565
Southern Utah (Big Sky)	22.11938
Southern Illinois (MVFC)	22.12278
Indiana State (MVFC)	22.34259
Dartmouth (Ivy League)	22.52891
Western Carolina (Southern)	22.53821
Eastern Illinois (OVC)	22.7168
Sacramento State (Big Sky)	22.78134
Morehead State (Pioneer)	23.02286
Montana (Big Sky)	23.18182
Marist (Pioneer)	23.25649
Princeton (Ivy League)	23.31231
Columbia (Ivy League)	23.37113
VMI (Southern)	23.48567

Stephen F. Austin’s pace is faster than all but three teams in FBS: Missouri (which is absurdly fast), Baylor, and California.

These are the 20 “slowest” teams, with Wofford taking more time between plays than any other team in FCS (only Stanford and Georgia Tech are slower at the FBS level):

Team (conference)	Time between plays (seconds)
Florida A&M (Mid-Eastern)	28.66306
Youngstown State (MVFC)	28.76508
Jacksonville (Pioneer)	28.82095
Mississippi Valley St. (Southwestern)	28.88979
Robert Morris (Northeast)	29.07609
North Dakota (Big Sky)	29.10984
Presbyterian (Big South)	29.31664
San Diego (Pioneer)	29.42857
Albany (NY) (Colonial)	29.43738
Stony Brook (Colonial)	29.46168
Chattanooga (Southern)	29.56397
Tennessee Tech (OVC)	29.77833
Texas Southern (Southwestern)	30.02473
Tennessee State (OVC)	30.05179
Charleston Southern (Big South)	30.076
North Dakota State (MVFC)	30.33216
Saint Francis (PA) (Northeast)	30.35612
Delaware (Colonial)	30.87125
Wofford (Southern)	30.90445

In my FCS Playoffs primer, I mentioned this comment from the chairman of the selection committee, Brian Hutchinson, when asked by an interviewer about “Sam Houston State’s value to the committee”:

The value of Sam Houston State is that they are an 8-0 team right now [that] is averaging close to 60 points per game and close to 600 yards of [total] offense. That’s the value that people see.

As I said in that post, I hope no committee members will actually use total offense as a criterion of any real significance. Part of my concern has to do with schedule strength, of course, but style of play is also a factor.

Sam Houston State leads FCS in total offense. As you can see above, SHSU is also the 5th-fastest offense in the division, in terms of pace of play.

I think it would be more than a little ridiculous to use total offense as a marker for comparing the Bearkats to teams like Chattanooga (19th in total offense, but the 9th “slowest” team) or The Citadel (23rd in total offense, and in the bottom third in pace of play, at 27.33 seconds between plays). The latter two teams shouldn’t have their style of play held against them by a committee member who is overly impressed by raw statistics.

While I’ve got this information handy, here are pace of play rankings for the nine SoCon squads, plus a few other teams:

Stephen F. Austin (1st out of 122)
Samford (3rd)
Sam Houston State (5th)
Eastern Washington (7th)
Western Carolina (12th)
VMI (20th)
Mercer (27th)
James Madison (37th)
Lehigh (41st)
Harvard (44th)
Liberty (47th)
Kennesaw State (71st)
The Citadel (84th)
Gardner-Webb (87th)
East Tennessee State (91st)
Furman (95th)
Presbyterian (110th)
Chattanooga (114th)
Charleston Southern (118th)
North Dakota State (119th)
St. Francis [PA] (120th)
Delaware (121st)
Wofford (122nd)

—

Friday is Founders Day at VMI:

The VMI Corps of Cadets will commemorate Founders Day this Friday with a parade featuring a 17-gun salute executed by the Cadet Battery to honor VMI’s founders and the nation’s veterans.

The anniversary, which marks 177 years since 23 VMI cadets relieved the state militia and converted the state arsenal into the Institute, will also see the dedication of the recently renovated Cormack and Cocke halls at 10 and 11 a.m., respectively.

There will also be a parade at 10:30 am on Saturday.

If you’re going to the game, be sure you’re up to speed on the parking situation.

—

Scott Wachenheim is in his second year as VMI’s head coach. His team is 3-6 this season, 1-5 in SoCon play. That qualifies as improvement for the Keydets’ football program, given that VMI had won two games in each of the last five years.

The Keydets opened the 2016 season by dropping a 47-24 decision at Akron. VMI’s defense allowed 576 yards of total offense, but the Keydets stayed in the game, putting together two drives of 90+ yards to pull within two points as the third quarter ended.

Akron scored 21 fourth-quarter points to ice the contest. However, it was a very respectable showing by VMI against an FBS opponent.

VMI’s next game was a 17-13 victory at Morehead State. While the Keydets’ loss to Akron was encouraging, the win over the Eagles (which play football in the non-scholarship Pioneer League) was not. VMI’s offense was sluggish, but the defense kept Morehead State at bay, allowing the fewest points to a Keydets opponent in four seasons.

A third straight road game resulted in a triple overtime victory, 23-17 over Bucknell. The Keydets did not give up any points in the three OT sessions.

It was the first time VMI had won back-to-back games since 2005, and (unbelievably) the first time the program had won consecutive road games since the last game of the 1981 season and the first game of the 1982 campaign.

Back in Lexington, another overtime affair did not go the Keydets’ way. Mercer edged VMI 33-30 in a game reportedly marred by poor SoCon officiating (very surprising, I know). VMI trailed 21-7 at halftime before making a comeback, taking the lead with just 32 seconds remaining in regulation. The Keydets could not hold the lead, and then lost in OT.

VMI rebounded from that setback with a 37-7 home victory over East Tennessee State. Al Cobb threw three TD passes, and the Keydets rushed for 233 yards.

Since that game, VMI has lost four straight contests. The first of those defeats was a 55-21 loss at Samford. SU quarterback Devlin Hodges threw for 435 yards and 5 TDs, and VMI also got victimized by a pick-6.

Chattanooga then beat the Keydets 30-13. UTC rushed for 297 yards despite Derrick Craine missing the game with an injury. One of VMI’s two TDs was a 79-yard bomb from Al Cobb to Javeon Lara.

VMI returned home, but was beaten in Lexington 24-10 by Furman. The loss was a costly one for the Keydets, as Cobb suffered a shoulder injury.

Last week, VMI lost 32-29 at Western Carolina. The Keydets should have won the game, but basically handed the victory to the Catamounts with a series of miscues. Among other things:

VMI fumbled the opening kickoff, which was returned by WCU for a touchdown
The Keydets had four kicks blocked (two field goal attempts, two PATs)
VMI threw three interceptions
Western Carolina scored with 54 seconds to play on a 53-yard pass

—

Statistics of note for VMI:

	VMI	Opp
Points/game	22.7	28.7
Rushing yardage	1056	1487
Yards/rush	3.2	4.3
Rush TDs	16	10
Passing yardage	2266	2501
Comp-Att-Int	208-330-12	210-334-6
Average/pass att	6.9	7.5
Passing TDs	11	22
Total offense	3322	3988
Total plays	663	682
Yards/play	5.0	5.8
Fumbles/lost	7/3	11/6
Penalties-pen yds	35-318	75-681
Pen yards/game	35.3	75.7
Net punt average	34.6	34.3
Time of poss/game	28:50	31:10
3rd-down conv	47/143	48/138
3rd-down conv %	32.9%	34.8%
Sacks by-yards	13-91	23-122
Red Zone TD%	(22-35) 63%	(23-36) 64%

VMI is 2nd nationally in fewest penalties per game
The Keydets are 84th in FCS in scoring defense and 63rd in rushing defense
VMI is 29th in defensive third down conversion rate
The Keydets are 85th in time of possession
VMI is 28th in passing offense

—

Statistics of consequence for The Citadel:

	The Citadel	Opp
Points/game	30.8	18.7
Rushing yardage	3366	1129
Yards/rush	5.6	4.1
Rush TDs	29	12
Passing yardage	540	1645
Comp-Att-Int	33-82-2	140-246-8
Average/pass att	6.6	6.7
Passing TDs	4	8
Total offense	3906	2774
Total plays	685	524
Yards/play	5.7	5.3
Fumbles/lost	15/6	12/7
Penalties-pen yds	43-449	38-358
Pen yards/game	49.9	39.8
Net punt average	37.3	36.6
Time of poss/game	34:37:00	25:22:00
3rd-down conv	75/151	35/110
3rd-down conv %	49.7%	31.8%
Sacks by-yards	25-165	0-0
Red Zone TD%	(22-39) 56%	(12-20) 60%

The Citadel leads the nation in rushing offense (374.0 yards/game) and is seventh in average yards/rush
The Bulldogs are 9th in offensive third down conversion rate
The Citadel is third nationally in time of possession
The Bulldogs are 13th in fewest penalties per game
The Citadel is 21st in the country in turnover margin
The Bulldogs are 15th nationally in defensive third down conversion rate

—

VMI throws the ball on 49.8% of its offensive plays from scrimmage, with 68.2% of the Keydets’ total yards coming via the air. The Keydets operate out of the spread.

Al Cobb was the preseason choice as the SoCon’s all-conference quarterback. Cobb was injured against Furman and did not play last week versus Western Carolina.

Will he play on Saturday? Cobb is not listed on the two-deep. According to an article in The Roanoke Times, he may be available.

The starter, though, will be redshirt freshman Austin Coulling (6’4″, 200 lbs.). Coulling, a native of Salem, Virginia, has played in five games this season, starting against WCU last Saturday.

For the season, he is completing 56.9% of his passes, averaging 7.5 yards per attempt, with two touchdown passes and six interceptions.

Coulling does not lack for confidence:

After hours of watching video, Coulling said he thinks there are some areas in The Citadel defense that the offense can exploit.

“There are opportunities there for us to take,” Coulling said. “As a team, if we come out with the same energy we came out with last week and execute more efficiently than we did last week and have the same running game as we had last week, I mean, anything can happen. … We can come out on top.”

Daz Palmer (5’10”, 175 lbs.) is a freshman from Norfolk who is leading the Keydets in rushing. He is averaging 4.5 yards per carry, with 3 rushing TDs. Palmer also has 12 receptions this season.

Wide receiver Aaron Sanders (6’2″, 190 lbs.) was a preseason all-league pick. He has 62 receptions so far this year, with two TDs. Sanders had 7 catches last year versus The Citadel; in fact, Sanders has had 7 receptions in each of his last two games against the Bulldogs (including a 165-yard receiving performance in 2014).

Fellow wideout Dane Forlines (5’10”, 190 lbs.) made the all-conference team last year as a return specialist. Forlines is a dangerous punt returner, averaging 12.9 yards last season and 9.3 yards this year in that discipline. He is second on the team in receptions, with 47 catches and one TD.

Starting tight end Ryan Swingle (6’3″, 232 lbs.) has 30 receptions and four touchdown catches this season. The former quarterback is also the holder on placekicks, and VMI is not afraid to take advantage of his versatility. He threw a 50-yard pass on a trick play against Mercer.

VMI’s projected starting offensive line averages 6’3″, 279 lbs. According to the two-deep, the offensive tackles will be flipped for the game against The Citadel.

Fifth-year senior Iyan Roseborough (6’3″, 335 lbs.) has played right tackle this season for the Keydets, but is listed as the left tackle on this week’s depth chart. Roseborough is a native of Jenkinsville, South Carolina, and graduated from Fairfield Central High School.

Redshirt freshman Cole Brummit (6’4″, 250 lbs.) made his first career start against Western Carolina at left tackle. He is listed as the right tackle this week.

—

VMI’s defense normally lines up in a 3-4. In last season’s contest, the Keydets were generally effective at bottling up The Citadel’s triple option attack. After Cam Jackson broke loose for a 68-yard TD on the Bulldogs’ fourth play from scrimmage, VMI did not allow another offensive TD.

The Keydets’ D is led by two active inside linebackers. Ryan Francis (6’1″, 205 lbs.) is a redshirt junior from Knoxville who had 15 tackles versus The Citadel in last year’s matchup. Allan Cratsenberg (6’3″, 220 lbs.) is a junior from Natrona, Pennsylvania; he had 11 stops against the Bulldogs in last season’s game.

The two are currently tied for the team lead in tackles, with 94 each. They have combined for 21 tackles for loss, including eight sacks.

Francis is the main pass rusher, with six of those sacks; he also has two fumble recoveries. Against Mercer, Francis also threw a pass out of a fake punt formation; it was intercepted.

Another linebacker, Alijah Robinson (6’0″, 205 lbs.) is third on the team in tackes, with 58. Robinson also has two sacks.

Cornerback Riuq Trotman (5’9″ 155 lbs.) is a sophomore from Virginia Beach who leads the Keydets in interceptions, with three.

—

Dillon Christopher (6’2″, 200 lbs.) is in his fourth year as a placekicker for the Keydets. He has shared kicking duties with freshman Reed King (5’9″, 150 lbs.).

Regardless of the kicker, VMI has had major problems in the kicking game this season, with nine blocked kicks — five field goal attempts, and four PAT tries.

Christopher does have a strong leg, which he employs on kickoffs.

VMI’s punter is redshirt sophomore Bill Hogan (6’1″, 225 lbs.), who can also play linebacker. He has had one punt blocked this season. Hogan was the punter for VMI when the Keydets played The Citadel last season, and did a solid job.

Jake Keith (5’10”, 190 lbs.), a freshman from Blacksburg, is the long snapper.

—

Odds and ends:

– The weather forecast for Saturday in Lexington, Virginia, per the National Weather Service: sunny, with a high of 52 degrees. The projected low on Saturday night is 27 degrees.

– Per one source that deals in such matters, The Citadel is an 18-point favorite over VMI, with an over/under of 47.5.

– Other lines involving SoCon teams: Chattanooga is a 7.5-point favorite over Wofford; Samford is a 15.5-point favorite against Mercer; Furman is a 6.5-point favorite over Western Carolina; and East Tennessee State is a 24-point favorite against Cumberland.

Gardner-Webb (now 4-6) is off this week, presumably celebrating its stunning victory at Charleston Southern last Saturday. North Carolina (7-3) was upset by Duke 28-27 on Thursday night.

– Massey Ratings: The Citadel is ranked 4th in FCS (moving up one spot from last week, the second consecutive week the Bulldogs have crept up one position). VMI is ranked 69th.

Massey projects The Citadel to have a 93% chance of winning, with a predicted final score of The Citadel 34, VMI 13.

Other FCS rankings in Massey of note: Chattanooga (8th), Samford (12th), Wofford (19th), Mercer (41st), Gardner-Webb (46th), Furman (47th), Western Carolina (64th), East Tennessee State (82nd).

The top ten in Massey’s rankings, in order: North Dakota State, Eastern Washington, Jacksonville State, The Citadel, Central Arkansas, South Dakota State, Youngstown State, Chattanooga, Sam Houston State, and Northern Iowa.

– VMI’s game notes roster includes 69 natives of Virginia. Other states represented on the squad: Tennessee (9), North Carolina (4), Pennsylvania (4), Georgia (3), Alabama (2), and one each from West Virginia, Louisiana, New York, Michigan, Texas, Maryland, and South Carolina.

– The Citadel’s geographic roster breakdown (per the school’s website) is as follows: South Carolina (47 players), Georgia (23), Florida (9), North Carolina (7), Alabama (4), Pennsylvania (4), Texas (4), and one each from Louisiana, Maryland, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nevada, and West Virginia.

– VMI concludes its season next week at Wofford.

– FBS opponents for VMI in future seasons include Toledo and Old Dominion in 2018; Army in 2019; and North Carolina State in 2023.

– On The Citadel’s two-deep this week, Evan McField is listed as the #2 B-back, with Isiaha Smith not listed on the depth chart. That is the only change from last week’s two-deep.

– Game notes factoid of the week: The Citadel has rushed for at least 400 yards in five games this season, tying the school’s single-season record. Those five games: North Greenville (559 yards, the most by an FCS school in a game so far in 2016), Western Carolina (513), Samford (463), East Tennessee State (427), and Gardner-Webb (419).

– With its victory over Samford on Saturday, The Citadel won its fifth consecutive Homecoming game. The Bulldogs won their fifth straight Parents’ Day game earlier in the season when they defeated Chattanooga.

The ten consecutive “celebration” victories are a modern-day school record. The Citadel had never won eight straight such games prior to the current run.

– The original cost of the Silver Shako (which was created in 1976) was $532.72.

– More than 40 players (and a few coaches) from VMI’s 1981 team will be honored at halftime of Saturday’s game. That Keydets squad beat Army and Virginia Tech, finishing with a 6-3-1 record. VMI has not had a winning season since that year.

—

On his radio show, Brent Thompson was asked about resting starters, trying to avoid injuries, etc., given that The Citadel has clinched a playoff spot. Thompson’s response:

It’s a loser’s mentality, there’s no doubt about that. You don’t go out there worrying about which guys are going to get hurt and who’s going to do this, and who’s going to do that. We’re going to go out there and play the game, and play the game to win. There’s a game on our schedule, it’s assigned to us, and we’re going to…go out there and give it our best. It doesn’t really matter who it is, whether it’s this week or next week…we’re going to try to play it, and try to play it to win it. If there are injuries…that’s part of the game and we can’t concern ourselves with that.

Thompson also noted that the offense did not play well against VMI last season, and wants to see improvement this year.

—

The coach also mentioned the importance of getting a bye for the FCS playoffs. If the Bulldogs want to seriously contend for the national title, they almost certainly need to be a seeded team, and receive the bye that goes with that designation.

A loss to VMI would almost certainly end The Citadel’s chance at a bye. Conversely, the game against North Carolina in two weeks will probably not be a factor in The Citadel’s postseason placement, unless the Bulldogs perform well in that contest.

—

The Citadel has been a member of the Southern Conference since 1936. In all that time, the football team has never finished undefeated in league play.

Along with the outright SoCon title, and a tenth straight victory, the opportunity to finish undefeated in the conference would be reason enough for the Bulldogs to want this game very badly. They don’t really need another reason, however.

This is the Military Classic of the South.

It will be a fierce contest. VMI will come ready to play on Saturday. The Citadel must respond in kind, and with even greater ferocity.

The coveted Silver Shako is at stake, the greatest trophy in all of sports.

The Bulldogs have to do whatever it takes to keep it, and bring it back to Charleston, where it belongs.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Brent Thompson, Cam Jackson, Chattanooga, FCS playoffs, Jacksonville State, James Madison, North Dakota State, Sam Houston State, Samford, SoCon, The Citadel, VMI | 1 Comment »

The FCS playoffs — a primer

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Sandlapper Spike

The purpose of this post is to explain some of the ins and outs of the FCS playoffs, particularly for people who may not be familiar with the basics of postseason play. I’m also going to delve into a few other aspects of the playoffs (including the way the teams are selected, seeded, and bracketed), some of which I believe are problematic.

—

The tournament has expanded over the years, from a four-team setup in 1978 to today’s 24-team field. The current format has been in place since 2013.

Of the 24 teams that make the field, 10 will be conference champions that automatically qualify for the tournament. As of November 7, two teams have already qualified for the 2016 tourney — Lehigh (from the Patriot League) and The Citadel (from the Southern Conference).

While there are 10 automatic qualifiers, there are actually 13 FCS conferences. Three of those leagues do not have auto-bids to the FCS playoffs.

The Ivy League does not participate in the playoffs, so none of its schools will send a team to the tournament.

The other two conferences without automatic bids are the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC). Those two leagues send their respective champions to the “Celebration Bowl”, a separate post-season event.

However, SWAC and MEAC schools are eligible to receive at-large bids. In other words, if a team that does not win one of those leagues is deemed by the selection committee to be one of the 14 best at-large candidates, it may compete in the FCS playoffs. While that scenario would normally be unlikely, this season might provide just such a situation, thanks to two teams in the MEAC that are each having fine seasons.

North Carolina A&T is currently ranked 9th in the FCS Coaches’ Poll, with a record of 8-1 that includes a victory over an FBS opponent (Kent State). The Aggies’ only loss so far this season was to Tulsa.

Meanwhile, North Carolina Central is 7-2, with both losses to FBS schools. The two schools will play in two weeks for the MEAC title. I don’t believe North Carolina Central would receive an at-large bid at 8-3, but if North Carolina A&T were to lose to the Eagles, a 9-2 Aggies squad could be a viable at-large candidate.

The leagues that send automatic qualifiers to the playoffs:

Big Sky Conference
Big South Conference
Colonial Athletic Association (CAA)
Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC)
Northeast Conference (NEC)
Ohio Valley Conference (OVC)
Patriot League
Pioneer Football League
Southern Conference (SoCon)
Southland Conference

—

Here is this year’s tournament schedule:

Bracket announcement: Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 11:00 am (televised on ESPNU)
First round: Saturday, November 26, 2016 — eight games at campus sites (this is the Saturday after Thanksgiving)
Second round: Saturday, December 3, 2016 — eight games at campus sites (seeded teams will host in this round after getting a bye in the first round)
Quarterfinals: Friday, December 9, 2016 or Saturday, December 10, 2016 — four games at campus sites (higher-seeded team hosts)
Semifinals: Friday, December 16, 2016 or Saturday, December 17, 2016 — two games at campus sites (higher-seeded team hosts)
National Championship: Saturday, January 7, 2017 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas (kickoff at noon EST)

—

The FCS selection committee selects the 14 best at-large teams to join the 10 automatic qualifiers, and then ranks the top 8 teams.

The teams ranked in the top 8 are seeded, and also receive first-round byes. The remaining 16 teams are then bracketed and play first-round games.

It is important to understand that, unlike the NCAA basketball tournament, not every team is seeded. In fact, two-thirds of the field is not seeded. That is done on purpose, in order to allow the committee to make pairings “according to geographical proximity“.

Historically, that has resulted in the committee putting together what might be called a bracket of convenience, routinely pairing teams in first- and second-round matchups that have already played each other during the regular season, and/or in recent tourneys. This has been a source of frustration for many fans over the years, because the event is supposed to be a national tournament; after all, it is referred to by the NCAA as the Division I “National Championship”. However, it is rarely treated like one by the powers that be.

A good example of the “regionalization” of the FCS playoffs came last year. For the 2015 tournament, the selection committee set up multiple potential second-round regular-season rematches. When the dust had cleared from the first-round games, five of the eight second-round matchups wound up being regular-season rematches (two of those were matchups between teams in the same league).

Most inexcusably, the committee set up a first-round regular-season rematch between Colgate and New Hampshire.

—

Five teams from the MVFC made the field last season (four at-large picks and the automatic qualifier, North Dakota State). All five were slotted on one side of the bracket. That did not sit well with the MVFC league commissioner:

Missouri Valley Football Conference commissioner Patty Viverito said she believes the Football Championship Subdivision playoff committee made “a conscious decision” to put five Valley teams in the same bracket…

Viverito said: “It seems to me the committee has enough latitude in how they break the quadrants up that they’d be able to put teams on opposite sides of the bracket fairly easily. I wasn’t in the room. I don’t know what challenges the committee faced when they came up with this. I can’t imagine it was just a horrible oversight and they didn’t realize they’d done it until the bracket was announced. I think it was a conscious decision. I just don’t know what went into the decision-making process.”

…Viverito called the committee’s pairings “the good, the bad and the ugly.” She said her league getting five teams in the playoff field “good.” She said the formulating of the bracket and the regionalization of it “bad.” And she [called] placing five Valley teams in the same bracket “ugly.”

The complaints from the MVFC led to a change for this year:

…the NCAA approved two FCS bracketing policies that should help spread out teams from the same conferences and also avoid rematches in the early rounds. The playoff committee will now be allowed to add a flight in the first or second rounds to avoid placing four or more teams from one conference in the same side of the bracket. The committee also has the license to avoid matchups in the first round for teams that played during the regular season in a non-conference game, providing that change doesn’t result in an additional charter flight.

That won’t change a lot, but it’s better than nothing. It primarily benefits larger leagues that regularly have three or more teams make the tournament (like the MVFC, CAA, and Big Sky).

For the SoCon and Big South, however, there is no mechanism to prevent the committee from doing what it seems to like doing most — namely, pairing two teams from each conference in a first-round matchup, with the winner playing a seeded team from one of the two leagues.

—

This year, the FCS selection committee decided to do something that I’m guessing a few of the committee members will wind up regretting.

The NCAA Division I Football Championship Committee will reveal the top-10 teams in rank order three times during the month of November.

The committee will be releasing the top-10 teams for the first time in history. The rankings will be announced as part of College Football Daily on ESPNU Nov. 3 and 10 at 4 p.m. (ET).

The final release will take place Nov. 15 at 10 p.m. (ET) on the ESPNU Championship Drive: Power Hour.

This move was officially made for reasons of transparency. However, if part of the idea for releasing a preliminary list was also to help promote the FCS playoffs, the first reveal (November 3) on “College Football Daily” was not a success.

Show anchor Brendan Fitzgerald and analyst Jason Sehorn knew next to nothing about the FCS (including how many teams actually make the playoffs). The entire segment lasted less than two minutes; the producer did not even bother to use recent video clips for a highlights package that accompanied the release of the rankings.

Clearly, the committee is taking a page from the College Football Playoff (CFP) and its weekly rankings. When it comes to the CFP, though, the weekly rankings release may not be the best thing to emulate.

—

Ten people make up the FCS selection committee. All are directors of athletics, representing schools from each of the ten leagues with automatic bids:

Brian Hutchinson, Morehead State — Pioneer League [chairman]
Chuck Burch, Gardner-Webb — Big South
Richard Johnson, Wofford — SoCon
Kyle Moats, Missouri State — MVFC
Nathan Pine, Holy Cross — Patriot League
Marty Scarano, New Hampshire — CAA
Paul Schlickmann, Central Connecticut State — NEC
Greg Seitz, Jacksonville State — OVC
Brad Teague, Central Arkansas — Southland
Jeff Tingey, Idaho State — Big Sky

One of the things I noticed about the committee is the dual-league nature of its chairman, Brian Hutchinson. Morehead State competes in football in the Pioneer League, which is the league he represents on this committee. However, in other sports Morehead State is a member of the OVC.

To me, that leads to a potential “optics” issue, namely the possible impression (almost certainly unfair, but still) that the OVC has two representatives on the committee — Hutchinson and Greg Seitz, the director of athletics at Jacksonville State.

When the first set of preliminary playoff rankings were released last week, the top-ranked team was, somewhat controversially…Jacksonville State.

—

Week 1 rankings:

Rank	School
1	Jacksonville State
2	Sam Houston State
3	Eastern Washington
4	North Dakota State
5	James Madison
6	The Citadel
7	Richmond
8	Chattanooga
9	Charleston Southern
10	Central Arkansas

This will look a little different in Week 2. Charleston Southern will fall out of the top 10 after losing at home to Gardner-Webb, and so could Richmond (which lost at home to James Madison). However, how much change in the rankings is really possible? Is the committee already hamstringing itself on that front?

—

Brian Hutchinson gave two radio interviews after the rankings were released last week, both to stations in North Dakota. He should get some credit for agreeing to the interviews, because he is in the difficult position of having to speak for a committee. He may not even agree with all of the committee’s decisions, but he has to defend them anyway.

A few thoughts on his comments:

I got the distinct impression that the committee members weren’t prepared for a public rankings release
It’s conceivable that the rankings will wind up being close to valueless when it comes to the actual selection and seeding
Somewhat surprisingly, there is no established order of criteria when evaluating teams

Hutchinson was asked about the difference in seeding between two currently undefeated teams, Sam Houston State and The Citadel. One of the interviewers compared the two squads and noted that The Citadel had a better strength of schedule, including a win over another top-10 team (Chattanooga).

When asked about the “value of Sam Houston State to the committee”, Hutchinson said:

The value of Sam Houston State is that they are an 8-0 team right now [that] is averaging close to 60 points per game and close to 600 yards of [total] offense. That’s the value that people see.

I really hope that members of the selection committee aren’t using total offense as a criterion (particularly as a stand-alone benchmark) when comparing teams.

However, Hutchinson also added this:

The question about The Citadel as it relates [to Sam Houston State] is absolutely fair, though. They have a really good win over a conference opponent in Chattanooga. They’ve been undefeated. They have not yet played an FBS game, though I believe they have one the last week of the season.

So for all intents and purposes, the criteria the committee will get to evaluate them on will be done prior to the [game versus North Carolina]. Now should they win that game, obviously that would be a big feather in their cap. Should they lose it, I think most people if you look at it on paper would say they were supposed to [lose the game] — and so, that’s just how you evaluate those kinds of things.

—

The selection committee chairman was also asked if “there had been a lot of reaction around the country [to the preliminary rankings], or has it been isolated pockets like Cheney [Washington] or Fargo [North Dakota]?”

“It has been very isolated,” replied Hutchinson.

Those “isolated pockets” referenced in the interviewer’s query are the cities in which Eastern Washington and North Dakota State are located, of course. Fans of those schools are (justifiably, in my opinion) miffed that they were ranked 3-4 in the initial rankings, rather than 1-2. The committee seemed to ignore schedule strength and quality victories when ranking the teams.

The issue in question relates to potential seeding. The difference in being a 1 or 2 seed versus a 3 or 4 seed, for example, is this: if a seeded team keeps winning, it will host every game until it plays a higher-seeded team. Therefore, if a team is a 1 or 2 seed, it will host every game until the national title game (assuming that it continues to win). A 3 or 4 seed, however, might have to go on the road in the semifinals.

Obviously, that can be significant.

Each seeding “break” matters when it comes to hosting. For teams like James Madison and The Citadel, receiving a 1 or 2 seed may not be possible — but a 3 or 4 seed might be a realistic placement. The difference between being a 4 seed or a 5 seed could be the difference between playing a home game in the quarterfinals or going on the road. That matters.

—

There are two weeks left in the FCS regular season. A lot of things can (and will) change over the next two weeks.

One thing that won’t change, though, is the level of interest in the FCS playoffs from those who support teams still in the running for a spot in the field. That interest is intense, and will remain so until the bracket is revealed on November 20; it will then continue for fans of the 24 schools in the tournament.

It’s not often that people dream about making a trip to Frisco, Texas, but here we are…

Filed under: Football | Tagged: Big Sky, Big South, Brian Hutchinson, CAA, Central Arkansas, Charleston Southern, Chattanooga, Eastern Washington, FCS playoffs, Ivy League, Jacksonville State, James Madison, Lehigh, MEAC, MVFC, NEC, North Dakota State, OVC, Patriot League, Pioneer League, Richmond, Sam Houston State, SoCon, Southland, SWAC, The Citadel | 1 Comment »

Preseason football ratings and rankings, featuring The Citadel (and the rest of the SoCon)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Sandlapper Spike

Hey, let’s look at preseason rankings and ratings!

First up, some rankings…

—

I went to my local Barnes & Noble to check out some preseason magazines. Not all of them include a section for FCS teams, but a few do.

The Sporting News has The Citadel in its preseason Top 25, at #21. However, TSN thinks the Bulldogs will only finish 3rd in the Southern Conference:

1 – Chattanooga (#8 in the Top 25)
2 – Wofford (#19 in the Top 25)
3 – The Citadel (#21 in the Top 25)
4 – Samford
5 – Mercer
6 – Western Carolina
7 – Furman
8 – VMI
9 – East Tennessee State

Lindy’s only has one SoCon team in its top 25 (Chattanooga is ranked 11th). The magazine’s projected conference standings look like this:

1 – Chattanooga
2 – Western Carolina
3 – Mercer
4 – The Citadel
5 – Samford
6 – Wofford
7 – Furman
8 – VMI
9 – East Tennessee State

Athlon doesn’t have an FCS section in its magazine, but its online presence does have an FCS Top 25. The Citadel is ranked 10th in that preseason poll (UTC is #7).

—

Last season, I started to incorporate the Massey Ratings into my weekly previews as the season progressed. For the uninitiated, a quick primer on this ratings system:

Ken Massey is a math professor at Carson-Newman whose ratings system was used (with several others) for fifteen years by the BCS. He has ratings for a wide variety of sports, but most of the attention surrounding his work has been focused on college football.

A quick introduction of the Massey Ratings, from its website:

The Massey Ratings are designed to measure past performance, not necessarily to predict future outcomes…overall team rating is a merit based quantity, and is the result of applying a Bayesian win-loss correction to the power rating.

…In contrast to the overall rating, the Power is a better measure of potential and is less concerned with actual wins-losses.

…A team’s Offense power rating essentially measures the ability to score points. This does not distinguish how points are scored, so good defensive play that leads to scoring will be reflected in the Offense rating. In general, the offensive rating can be interpretted as the number of points a team would be expected to score against an average defense.

Similarly, a team’s Defense power rating reflects the ability to prevent its opponent from scoring. An average defense will be rated at zero. Positive or negative defensive ratings would respectively lower or raise the opponent’s expected score accordingly.

…the Massey model will in some sense minimize the unexplained error (noise). Upsets will occur and it is impossible (and also counter-productive) to get an exact fit to the actual game outcomes. Hence, I publish an estimated standard deviation. About 68% of observed game results will fall within one standard deviation of the expected (“average”) result.

…Preseason ratings are typically derived as a weighted average of previous years’ final ratings. As the current season progresses, their effect gets damped out completely. The only purpose preseason ratings serve is to provide a reasonable starting point for the computer. Mathematically, they guarantee a unique solution to the equations early in the season when not enough data is available yet.

In other words, preseason ratings mean very little. However, it’s July and we certainly need something to keep us going until college football season starts!

—

Massey rates every college football team — not just FBS and FCS squads, but D-2, D-3, NAIA, junior colleges, even Canadian schools. This season, there are preseason ratings for 923 colleges and universities.

This year, The Citadel is #113 overall in the preseason ratings. As a comparison, the Bulldogs were the preseason #174 squad last season.

As for the teams on The Citadel’s schedule:

Mercer — #204
Furman — #199
Gardner-Webb — #261
Western Carolina — #143
North Greenville — #312
Chattanooga — #106
Wofford — #172
East Tennessee State — #554
Samford — #149
VMI — #224
North Carolina — #24

Massey gives the Bulldogs a 5% chance of beating North Carolina. You may recall that last year’s preseason odds gave The Citadel a 1% chance of beating South Carolina. You may also recall that The Citadel finished 2016 as the transitive ACC Coastal Division champions.

One of the neat things about the Massey Ratings website is that it has matchup simulations — single games, best-of-seven series, etc. After refreshing a few times, I came up with a simulated result that favored the Bulldogs over UNC (by a 39-38 score). The average score of the simulations was 44-17 North Carolina, but I’m sure that was due to a programming error.

As for the other ten games on The Citadel’s schedule…believe it or not, the Bulldogs are currently projected to win all of them. The likelihood of that happening is remote, obviously, but it’s definitely a far cry from past prognostications.

I’ll go ahead and list the percentage chances of The Citadel winning each of those games, along with the median score, as calculated by the Massey Ratings:

at Mercer — 78% (30-17)
Furman — 87% (31-14)
at Gardner-Webb — 89% (27-7)
at Western Carolina — 56% (28-26)
North Greenville — 97% (41-10)
Chattanooga — 51% (24-23)
at Wofford — 66% (28-21)
East Tennessee State — 100% (48-3)
Samford — 70% (34-24)
at VMI — 83% (35-20)

To be honest, I’m not buying all of those ratings, even from a preseason ratings perspective.

I’m particularly dubious about the ratings for Mercer and North Greenville, and I’m not so sure about Furman’s numbers, either (I think all of them should be significantly higher). Also, Massey’s algorithm doesn’t account for SoCon officiating, especially for games played in Spartanburg.

—

As for FCS-only ratings, here is a list of select schools:

North Dakota State – 1
Northern Iowa – 2
Jacksonville State – 3
Illinois State – 4
South Dakota State – 5
Dartmouth – 6
Harvard – 7
Chattanooga – 8
Western Illinois – 9
Youngstown State – 10
The Citadel – 11
Southern Utah – 12
Richmond – 13
Charleston Southern – 14
Southern Illinois – 15
Montana – 16
Coastal Carolina – 21
Western Carolina – 22
James Madison – 23
William & Mary – 26
Samford – 27
Villanova – 28
Liberty – 34
Wofford – 39
Towson – 46
Furman – 49
Lehigh – 50
Mercer – 52
Presbyterian – 57
VMI – 61
Elon – 68
Delaware – 70
South Carolina State – 76
Kennesaw State – 77
Dayton – 81
Gardner-Webb – 82
Jacksonville – 88
Campbell – 102
Davidson – 120
East Tennessee State – 122
Mississippi Valley State – 125

The highest-rated FCS school is, naturally, North Dakota State, which checks in at #60 overall. Other schools in the “overall” list that may be of interest:

Alabama – 1
Ohio State – 2
Mississippi – 3
Stanford – 4
Clemson – 5
Arkansas – 6
Tennessee – 7
LSU – 8
Oklahoma – 9
Mississippi State – 10
Notre Dame – 14
Auburn – 17
Georgia – 18
Florida State – 20
Texas A&M – 22
Florida – 27
Navy – 33
Louisville – 35
Toledo – 39
Texas – 42
Miami (FL) – 46
Georgia Tech – 48
Virginia Tech – 49
North Carolina State – 55
South Carolina – 58
Georgia Southern – 59
Duke – 64
Virginia – 67
Maryland – 69
Vanderbilt – 70
Appalachian State – 71
Kentucky – 72
Northwest Missouri – 77 (highest-ranked Division II team)
Boston College – 78
Air Force – 79
East Carolina – 85
Wake Forest – 92
Calgary – 111 (highest-ranked Canadian team)
Kansas – 116
Army – 121
Idaho – 141
Tulane – 144
UCF – 154
Wyoming – 155
UTEP – 156
Hawai’i – 157
New Mexico State – 158
City College of San Francisco – 159 (highest-ranked junior college team)
Old Dominion – 161
Mt. Union – 175 (highest-ranked Division III team)
ULM – 176
Eastern Michigan – 181
North Texas – 192
Charlotte – 198
Marian (IN) – 244 (highest-ranked NAIA team)

The overall Top 10 is very SEC-heavy, similar to the MVC flavor for the FCS Top 10.

—

Football season is getting closer…

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Furman, Massey Ratings, Mercer, North Dakota State, Samford, SoCon, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | Leave a comment »

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