Ranking the FCS Conferences in 2020

[bonarae]

... surprised to see no one post this before me? xconfusedx

The PL just above the SWAC? I'm stunned but can they rebound?

http://www.fcs.football/cfb/story.asp?i=20200526062004647435204

[JSUSoutherner]

I did post it before you.

https://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?253013-SoCon-Fan-Triggering-Material

[DFW HOYA]

... surprised to see no one post this before me? xconfusedx

The PL just above the SWAC? I'm stunned but can they rebound?


The SWAC passes the PL in 2020. Their top seven is better than the PL's seven.

Of more regional interest is that the NEC has pulled ahead of the PL.

[cx500d]

... surprised to see no one post this before me? xconfusedx

The PL just above the SWAC? I'm stunned but can they rebound?

http://www.fcs.football/cfb/story.asp?i=20200526062004647435204
The pioneer should be above the swac.

[NY Crusader 2010]

The SWAC passes the PL in 2020. Their top seven is better than the PL's seven.

Of more regional interest is that the NEC has pulled ahead of the PL.

Spot on, especially if we're basing 2020 pre-season rankings on last year's product. I've been saying for a couple years that the NEC has passed us, even though the computer rankings continue to show us slightly stronger. However, the PL as a whole was about as young as I've ever seen it in 2019. I think you're going to see multiple teams make marked improvement. Two teams I have my eye on are Lafayette (proven QB who started as a frosh LY -- only PL QB who could effectively throw the ball downfield) and Fordham. HC should remain a title contender -- a change at OC is a plus IMO. I don't know enough about what Georgetown returns. But they were definitely a disappointment in conference last year and it wouldn't surprise me to see them in the top 3.

Am I sleeping on Tom Gilmore?

[Herder]

Come on now, where’s Haley? We all know the CAA is the best conf.

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

Can the PL produce more than 1 team with a winning record for the for the first time since 2016? I'd like to think so but it's far from a slam dunk. Holy Cross should be able to keep their head above water thanks to a very good coach. Colgate has the QB and some good pieces but did lose quite a bit along the OL. Bucknell would be my wildcard. They were darn close to a winning record in Cecchini's first year. Lehigh needs to find an OL and QB. Lafayette had 2-3 games last year that turned some heads but overall they were not very good in year 3 of the Garrett era. Fordham has a boatload for talent (best LB duo on FCS) but can't put it all together. I've basically given up on Georgetown. I know they suffered injuries last year but a winless conference season after all the expectations was a failure for Sgarlata and the program. I don't think they bounce back from that.

I also believe the Ivy League will still be a Top 5 conference in 2020 despite the big 3 suffering significant losses. The talent level is soo deep and the staffs don't change much. The top teams simply reload this point....

[NY Crusader 2010]

Can the PL produce more than 1 team with a winning record for the for the first time since 2016? I'd like to think so but it's far from a slam dunk. Holy Cross should be able to keep their head above water thanks to a very good coach. Colgate has the QB and some good pieces but did lose quite a bit along the OL. Bucknell would be my wildcard. They were darn close to a winning record in Cecchini's first year. Lehigh needs to find an OL and QB. Lafayette had 2-3 games last year that turned some heads but overall they were not very good in year 3 of the Garrett era. Fordham has a boatload for talent (best LB duo on FCS) but can't put it all together. I've basically given up on Georgetown. I know they suffered injuries last year but a winless conference season after all the expectations was a failure for Sgarlata and the program. I don't think they bounce back from that.

I also believe the Ivy League will still be a Top 5 conference in 2020 despite the big 3 suffering significant losses. The talent level is soo deep and the staffs don't change much. The top teams simply reload this point....

I feel like I've said this about a half-dozen times about Bucknell since 2007 and every time they just end up being what we're used to seeing out of Lewisburg. They did have that one season where they had that OT loss to Fordham 5 or 6 years ago and finished 9-2.

As far as teams with winning records, I'm predicting 3 out of 7 will find a way to be +.500 this year. Since we started playing FBS guarantee games, the overall winning % of the conference has declined. That's what happens when you replace low-end Ivies and Marist with the likes of Syracuse, Navy and Air Force on the schedules. On top of that, for whatever reason, Sacred Heart and Monmouth can't lose against the PL. Probably 15-0 against our conference collectively since about 2015.

[caribbeanhen]

Come on now, where’s Haley? We all know the CAA is the best conf.

So where do the Conferences stand now?

The best conference is the MVFC, aka Paul McCartney and Wings but the decade of dominance is over and we have a new man

[Professor Chaos]

MVFC
Big Sky

CAA

AWC
Southland
SOCON
Big South
Ivy League
OVC

SWAC
NEC
Patriot League
MEAC
Pioneer League

[caribbeanhen]

MVFC
Big Sky

CAA

AWC
Southland
SOCON
Big South
Ivy League
OVC

SWAC
NEC
Patriot League
MEAC
Pioneer League

Just tossing this out there

https://masseyratings.com/cf/compare1aa.htm

1 MVFC

2 CAA

3 Big Sky

4 ASUN

5 Southern

6 Ivy

7 Southland

8 WAC

9 Big Sky

10 Ohio Valley

11 SWAC

12 Patriot

13 Northeast

14 MEAC

15 Pioneer

[atthewbon]

How I'd personally rank them:
1. MVFC
2. Big Sky
3. CAA
4. AQ7 or whatever they are calling it this year
5. Southland
6. Ivy (kinda hard to rank them because they don't play enough ooc)
7. SOCON
8. OVC
9. Big South
10. SWAC
11. NEC
12. Patriot
13. MEAC
14. Pioneer

5-9 are all pretty close and 10-13 are also fairly close.

[Reign of Terrier]

MVFC
Big Sky

CAA

AWC
Southland
SOCON
CAA without JMU
Big South
Ivy League
OVC

SWAC
NEC
Patriot League
MEAC
Pioneer League

My addition.

But seriously, it's really just helpful to view the FCS as a subdivision with like 4-8 elite programs (with top 4 being much better than the next 4), and then you have everyone else.

If you're going to break it up into conferences as a classification, the bottom tier is really just about institutional commitment to football. The Patriot/Pioneer/NEC are going to be at that bottom, and the MEAC/SWAC will be as well because of weird HBCU administrative quirks and the fact that they are more likely to schedule non-D1 HBCUs.

And this may sound like a tautology, but the reason why the MVFC and Big Sky are better than the rest of the pack (and the CAA, kinda) is because they have more than one elite team. I think the MVFC is truly the best conference (so when I bash them, keep this post in mind!) because I think legitimately have 4 or so top 15 teams in any given year.

Having said that, I would like the champ of any of the next tier teams (except maybe the OVC with all the problems they get) to have just as much success in the CAA (without JMU) and Big Sky (sans, say, Weber and EWU) as they do in their own conference. In other words, give 2019 Austin Peay against the Big Sky except the seeded teams. Give me 2018 KSU against the entire CAA (except maybe JMU), etc etc.

The FCS is a development subdivision, and the difference between being bad and being average is institutional commitment to the game. The difference between average and good is coaching. The difference between good and great is coaching, culture, consistency, and confidence, and maybe a sprinkle of talent. The difference between great and elite is all that and maybe even more talent and coaching.

[atthewbon]

I still think this year that there is a pretty big gap between the "power 3" (MVFC, Big Sky, and CAA) and everyone else. Especially in terms of depth of teams. I think the CAA is slipping a bit but is still overall much closer to the MVFC and Big Sky than it is to the AQ7 or anything below.

[Reign of Terrier]

I honestly refuse to see the love of the CAA. They just aren't the same conference they were a decade ago, or even 7 years ago. On occasion, when JMU is down (think 2018) they will catch them sleeping, but really no team in that conference has the consistency of an elite program any more.

[atthewbon]

I honestly refuse to see the love of the CAA. They just aren't the same conference they were a decade ago, or even 7 years ago. On occasion, when JMU is down (think 2018) they will catch them sleeping, but really no team in that conference has the consistency of an elite program any more.
I agree that they are falling but they have had some pretty good playoff success. In the last 3 years they have sent 4 teams to the semifinals. I think the MVFC also has 4 and the Big Sky has 3. All other conferences have 1 combined (Sam Houston last year)

[caribbeanhen]

I honestly refuse to see the love of the CAA. They just aren't the same conference they were a decade ago, or even 7 years ago. On occasion, when JMU is down (think 2018) they will catch them sleeping, but really no team in that conference has the consistency of an elite program any more.

The CAA has slipped but even taking out JMU from the mix, they are still putting teams in Semis

Maine in 2018
Delaware spring 2021

Ivy bottom feeder Cornell played VMI close

[Reign of Terrier]

For perspective, the conventional wisdom on the OVC was bad but that Jacksonville State was a good team within that conference (maybe that's kind of true still, I'm not sure). From 2014-2018 (five years), Jacksonville State lost one conference game (kinda wild that Grass didn't lose his first conference game until year five, but I digress). Since 2016 (roughly 5 years with COVID stuff), JMU only lost two games, and they were in the same season.

Now, I think the CAA is better than the OVC, it can be the case that JMU runs the conference and barely loses and there's still a group of second tier teams. But who is it?

Delaware? 2 Playoff wins in a decade (both in a COVID year)
Albany? 1 win ever
Nova? 2 in a decade
Stony Brook? 1 while a CAA member (they won 2 in the Big South)
Towson? No playoff wins since 2013, and an embarrassing loss to Dusquesne
Elon? 0 playoff wins
Maine? A solid semifinal run in 2018 that was capped with a curb stomping by EWU, but other than that not much else?
Richmond? hasn't been to the playoffs since 2016, and they had the same outcome as Maine
New Hampshire? hasn't won a playoff game since 2017.

Look, I'm not outlining the above to say the CAA is a bad conference: they're obviously not because a lot of different teams make it to the playoffs. The pattern seems to be that they:

1) haven't been really good collectively as a conference in the playoffs since 2018 (no, I don't count the Spring)
2) a lot of their playoff exits have been so ugly that if it were Kennesaw State, Jacksonville State, Wofford, or SHSU (before this spring), they would get memed on pretty hard (but they don't because of weird biases in FCS media and so it gets memory holed)
3) it seems that a lot of their playoff progression is inflated by getting a relative tune up game because they're geographically more likely to play a pioneer, NEC, or patriot team.

As someone who is more of a fan of the relative underdogs in this subdivision, I would really like to see the same level of criticism to non-power teams in the CAA/Big sky that are levied onto power teams in less-strong conferences (I listed them in #2), because I don't really see it. Rather, I normally see "team x sucks because they don't play elite team y regularly and when they do it's in the playoffs on the road and I will be ****ting on their schedule until the day they show they're better in a hostile environment." Which, okay, fine...but that's its own can of worms.

[Reign of Terrier]

I really don't care about Delaware's "semifinal run" because quite frankly beating Sacred Heart and JSU and getting wholloped by SDSU doesn't strike me as the resume of a top 4 team. The spring was an anamoly.

I can concede Maine. They had a good season that year and maybe flying across the country twice in as many weeks hurt them against EWU. But that was also 3 years ago and they've been .500 since then. All of the elite teams at the FCS level (SDSU, NDSU, JMU, EWU, SHSU) have a resume of consistency and everyone else who has gotten as far as the semis seems to be "flash in the pan."

Like come on, do we really think Youngstown State is an elite program nowadays because they caught some luck in the 2016 playoffs and that when you think of the grueling MVFC, it's Youngstown state? If you had to play a playoff game against them tomorrow, you would feel pretty nice about yourself. It's the same principle. I think outside of the aforementioned programs and maybe Weber, there's nothing inherently intimidating about the remaining FCS teams. Everyone else at the top level is pretty much the same.

[Daytripper]

I honestly refuse to see the love of the CAA. They just aren't the same conference they were a decade ago, or even 7 years ago. On occasion, when JMU is down (think 2018) they will catch them sleeping, but really no team in that conference has the consistency of an elite program any more.

This. They are ranked on old reputation.
https://media.giphy.com/media/xTeV7WSeybMQrIMPhS/giphy.gif

[caribbeanhen]

I really don't care about Delaware's "semifinal run" because quite frankly beating Sacred Heart and JSU and getting wholloped by SDSU doesn't strike me as the resume of a top 4 team. The spring was an anamoly.

I can concede Maine. They had a good season that year and maybe flying across the country twice in as many weeks hurt them against EWU. But that was also 3 years ago and they've been .500 since then. All of the elite teams at the FCS level (SDSU, NDSU, JMU, EWU, SHSU) have a resume of consistency and everyone else who has gotten as far as the semis seems to be "flash in the pan."

Like come on, do we really think Youngstown State is an elite program nowadays because they caught some luck in the 2016 playoffs and that when you think of the grueling MVFC, it's Youngstown state? If you had to play a playoff game against them tomorrow, you would feel pretty nice about yourself. It's the same principle. I think outside of the aforementioned programs and maybe Weber, there's nothing inherently intimidating about the remaining FCS teams. Everyone else at the top level is pretty much the same.

Remember the 2018 Maine team that had that nice playoff run got curb stomped that year by Yale, Ivies better than you have them ranked.

You put the top 4 Ivies up against Southern Conf you might be looking at a clean Ivy sweep

[Reign of Terrier]

I have 0 opinion on the Ivys lol

I was just making the point that the CAA ain't what it was.

[caribbeanhen]

I have 0 opinion on the Ivys lol

I was just making the point that the CAA ain't what it was.

and I agreed with you on CAA *

but you did rank Ivies kind of low so you have an opinion

[NY Crusader 2010]

and I agreed with you on CAA *

but you did rank Ivies kind of low so you have an opinion

Agreed. I'd be willing to bet that Harvard would beat UNH with relative ease if they played right now.

If there's anyone that can objectively rate Ivy teams, it's hardcore followers of the PL, given that we play on both sides of the fence (Ivy/Patriot circle-jerk AND "regular" FCS teams).

The fact that Monmouth still has more Top 25 votes than Harvard in some polls is mind-boggling. Harvard and Princeton are legit Top 25, maybe Top 20 teams right now. I'm not sold on Dartmouth and Yale yet. They're somewhere between decent and good.

Not sue how many Ivy players people have to see in the NFL for some to acknowledge, "hmmm you know what it's actually not a terrible football league".

[ElCid]

Agreed. I'd be willing to bet that Harvard would beat UNH with relative ease if they played right now.

If there's anyone that can objectively rate Ivy teams, it's hardcore followers of the PL, given that we play on both sides of the fence (Ivy/Patriot circle-jerk AND "regular" FCS teams).

The fact that Monmouth still has more Top 25 votes than Harvard in some polls is mind-boggling. Harvard and Princeton are legit Top 25, maybe Top 20 teams right now. I'm not sold on Dartmouth and Yale yet. They're somewhere between decent and good.

Not sue how many Ivy players people have to see in the NFL for some to acknowledge, "hmmm you know what it's actually not a terrible football league".

Are we ranking the "Ivy" or ranking just the top teams in the Ivy. They also have Brown, Cornell and Penn. Penn just lost to Lafayette. Brown just list to Bryant. The league isn't bad overall, but they are so very insulated that reliable comparisons are difficult sometimes. It isn't often that they go outside the NE for a game. Sometimes, but not often.

[caribbeanhen]

Are we ranking the "Ivy" or ranking just the top teams in the Ivy. They also have Brown, Cornell and Penn. Penn just lost to Lafayette. Brown just list to Bryant. The league isn't bad overall, but they are so very insulated that reliable comparisons are difficult sometimes. It isn't often that they go outside the NE for a game. Sometimes, but not often.

Kind of like a spaghetti western

[Katfan]

Remember the 2018 Maine team that had that nice playoff run got curb stomped that year by Yale, Ivies better than you have them ranked.

You put the top 4 Ivies up against Southern Conf you might be looking at a clean Ivy sweep
They don’t play in the playoffs so it doesn’t matter

[Reign of Terrier]

and I agreed with you on CAA *

but you did rank Ivies kind of low so you have an opinion

false, I quote tweeted to dunk on the CAA