Last Four In: Elon, Richmond, Rhode Island, Austin Peay
First Four Out: Eastern Kentucky, Fordham, North Dakota, New Hampshire
Moved Sacramento State to #1 overall this week. Say what you want about the questionable calls or barely winning over Idaho or Weber State or whatever. The Hornets are undefeated, lead the best overall conference in the FCS and have a win over an FBS team. It’s not that they’re even necessarily better than South Dakota State or Montana State, their resume is just better overall. So they’re getting the nod.
Next, this Atlantic Sun/Western Athletic Alliance is not cool. For weeks, it seems the narrative has been that the top team in the joint adventures Power Ranking was going to receive their automatic bid to the playoffs. After finally finding some literature on the subject, which escaped me for more than three months, it appears the individual conference champions will be compared. The team with the better record of all games…you know what? Forget it. This has been so confusing. They should officially merge the leagues until each can sport their own group of six teams and earn their own automatic bids or forfeit the whole venture and go as independents. For this week, I’m giving each conference a representative. Abilene Christian is still undefeated in “conference” play, they get the autobid. Austin Peay, just barely sneaks into the field, but if I contemplate any more, I may take them out. The difference in the last six to ten teams for one or two spots is paper thin.
I’m probably going to have to do a super in-depth article during that final week, so be on the lookout for that. This year is turning out to be just as crazy as any of the years of recent memory.
Bids By Conference
**Atlantic Sun (1): Austin Peay
Big Sky (4): *Sacramento State, Montana State, Weber State, Idaho
Big South (1): *North Carolina A&T
Colonial (5): *William & Mary, Delaware, Elon, Rhode Island, Richmond
Missouri Valley (2): *North Dakota State, South Dakota State
Northeast (1): *St. Francis
Ohio Valley (1): *Southeast Missouri
Patriot (1): *Holy Cross
Pioneer (1): *Davidson
Southern (4): *Samford, Furman, Chattanooga, Mercer
Southland (2): *Southeastern Louisiana, Incarnate Word
**Western (1): *Abilene Christian
* denotes an automatic qualifier
** one of the champions between the Atlantic Sun and Western combined, will also receive an automatic bid
