FCS polls

[propar80]

Re: FCS polls

Here's the first GPI Index Poll out. I personally think that by the end of the year this is the most accurate poll out there for FCS. Not sure I agreee with us at #12, but if we take care of business against WIU and beat UNI at their place, I would put us in the top 10 in FCS.
Also...look how far ahead in the conference standings the MVFC is. Not sure you can argue against it this year, IMO.

http://www.collegesportingnews.com/c...Champ-as-No.-1

Go Jacks!!

[GopherHole]

Re: FCS polls

Porpar - thanks for posting the GPI Index Poll and your comments about how outstanding the MVFC is. It does pose a question to me about the poor quality of football being played at the bottom end of the FCS.

Why does the Pioneer Football League even field football teams? Correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't offer scholarships for football and they can't be making any serious money despite not paying scholarships.

According to the College Sporting News rankings, USD and Missouri State would rule the Pioneer league instead of battling to stay out of last place in the Missouri Valley.

53. South Dakota (46.29)
63T. Missouri St (52.00)

55T. Drake (49.00)
67. Jacksonville (54.57)
89. San Diego (69.14)
90. Butler (69.57)
94. Dayton (76.14)
107. Marist (83.00)
111T. Morehead St (85.57)
120. Campbell (92.43)
121. Davidson (94.00)
122. Valparaiso (94.29)

According to the NCAA, the Pioneer Football League averaged 3,261 fans/game last year. The MVFC averaged 11,824 fans/game. Funding football is not cheap, and ticket sales and sponsorships are primary ways to fund sports. Most Pioneer schools charge between $8-$20 for tickets, some even less. Even if they averaged $15/ticket, it would barely generate $244,000 in gate revenue. Furthermore, if they were able to get an FBS big pay-day game, they still would have trouble funding football. However, the most Valpo can hope for is a smaller pay day in Fargo with humiliating results.

Bottom line, why would you support a program where your not even competitive on the field with USD or Missouri State, and at best you may brake even in funding without scholarships? I'm so thankful that we are in a quality FCS conference like the Missouri Valley. (This is not meant to be smack on USD or Missouri State, because they eventually will have teams that could compete for a Valley championships, just not this year.)

Sorry for the slight detour regarding polls.

[ST_Lawson]

Re: FCS polls

Porpar - thanks for posting the GPI Index Poll and your comments about how outstanding the MVFC is. It does pose a question to me about the poor quality of football being played at the bottom end of the FCS.

Why does the Pioneer Football League even field football teams? Correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't offer scholarships for football and they can't be making any serious money despite not paying scholarships.

According to the College Sporting News rankings, USD and Missouri State would rule the Pioneer league instead of battling to stay out of last place in the Missouri Valley.

53. South Dakota (46.29)
63T. Missouri St (52.00)

55T. Drake (49.00)
67. Jacksonville (54.57)
89. San Diego (69.14)
90. Butler (69.57)
94. Dayton (76.14)
107. Marist (83.00)
111T. Morehead St (85.57)
120. Campbell (92.43)
121. Davidson (94.00)
122. Valparaiso (94.29)

According to the NCAA, the Pioneer Football League averaged 3,261 fans/game last year. The MVFC averaged 11,824 fans/game. Funding football is not cheap, and ticket sales and sponsorships are primary ways to fund sports. Most Pioneer schools charge between $8-$20 for tickets, some even less. Even if they averaged $15/ticket, it would barely generate $244,000 in gate revenue. Furthermore, if they were able to get an FBS big pay-day game, they still would have trouble funding football. However, the most Valpo can hope for is a smaller pay day in Fargo with humiliating results.

Bottom line, why would you support a program where your not even competitive on the field with USD or Missouri State, and at best you may brake even in funding without scholarships? I'm so thankful that we are in a quality FCS conference like the Missouri Valley. (This is not meant to be smack on USD or Missouri State, because they eventually will have teams that could compete for a Valley championships, just not this year.)

Sorry for the slight detour regarding polls.

Honestly, I don't think the Pioneer League was ever intended to be a competitive league (as compared to the MVFC, CAA, Southern, Big Sky, Southland). They are completely made up of schools that would be Div. II or III in football if they could, but they want to stay Div. I in at least one of their "olympic" sports. Now that schools are required to field all sports in the same division, any school that wants to stay Div. I for all sports, but doesn't want to get rid of their football program, generally goes into the Pioneer League.

[propar80]

Re: FCS polls

Yes...those numbers don't make a lot of sense and some of the Non-Scholarship schools don't even play the BCS/FBS "pay-game" each year. I really think there's more to the numbers than just the (Tickets x attendance) for some of these schools. Who knows...if you can get a kid to come to Dayton for example and his parents are "well-off" and are willing to pay the $35K/year is costs to go to a school like this, then that might be a reason. The education might be another...a lot of these Non-Scholarship schools are very good academically.
Obviously D1 Men's Basketball is the driver of some of this too, but it seems to me that a lot of the FCS Non-Scholarship Football teams aren't that competitive in MBB either other than maybe Dayton and Drake(MVC). I would be nice to see Drake move into the MVFC and be a Scholarship program, IMO.

I'm sure if you went over to the AGS site and got some of the Dayton fans going on it, you'd probably find out a lot more. To be honest...I'm just not that interested in those type of schools when it comes to FCS football. IMO they bring the value of FCS/D1-AA down as far as national creditability...and FCS doesn't need any help in that dept.

Go Jacks!!

[rabidrabbit]

Re: FCS polls

Pioneer, truly no schollie football, is D-I only because not allowed to be D-III, where these teams used to be. Because the REST of their sports (read basketball) are D-I, the NCAA was shown that these FB teams had a superior position to true D-III schools, so these teams were forced to return to D-I for ALL sports. So yes, these Pioneer teams will never be seriously competitive vs. full schollie D-I schools, but at least they play, and provide an outlet to attract male students to these private schools.

The NEC is limited to 36 schollies. Patriot and Ivy don't have athletic schollies in FB, but their procedures for getting quality athletes seem to work. Although the Ancient 8 rarely play outside of themselves or the Patriot, so don't have the knowledge of how good they are relative to the rest of FCS. Harvard may go undefeated this year, 10-0, but because Ivy doesn't participate in the FCS play-offs, we'll not know if they were "great". Two other leagues are Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCU), SWAC and MEAC. The SWAC plays 9 games against each other, and plays on Thanksgiving (after the end of the FCS regular season + have a divisional title game) so that they have self-eliminated themselve from the play-offs. The MEAC participates in the play-offs, but it's been a while since the MEAC champion has advanced. IIRC, Florida A&M (a MEAC school ) has won the FCS championship 2x, but nothing since 1990 or so.

The play-offs will expand to 24, starting next year, to include an auto-bid for Pioneer. 11 auto-bid conferences, so there should be 13 at-larges. 20 teams this year, 10 autos, 10 at-large.

[JackJD]

Re: FCS polls

Honestly, I don't think the Pioneer League was ever intended to be a competitive league (as compared to the MVFC, CAA, Southern, Big Sky, Southland). They are completely made up of schools that would be Div. II or III in football if they could, but they want to stay Div. I in at least one of their "olympic" sports. Now that schools are required to field all sports in the same division, any school that wants to stay Div. I for all sports, but doesn't want to get rid of their football program, generally goes into the Pioneer League.

ST Lawson: good to have you on the board. Any guess on how many WIU fans are making the trip to Brookings? I've been Macomb a couple of times for Jackrabbit sports (Summit League Championships in Cross Country one year and Track and Field another year). It's not an exciting trip but not a bad one. We found Macomb to be a nice town...found a good restaurant...like other communities its age, has the traditional town square with the courthouse in the middle of the block...lots of great history in the area (Macomb started about 60 years before South Dakota statehood!). I've found WIU fans to be good people, like SDSU fans.

[LakeJack]

Re: FCS polls

We stayed at #20

http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/t...ot225poll.aspx

[jackmd]

Re: FCS polls

We stayed at #20

http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/t...ot225poll.aspx

Voters must not pay any attention to the GPI, that is a shame. Its much more about bias and reputation and not nearly enough based in fact. Yes, the SDSU schedule has been weak thus far. However, the MVFC is the highest rated and the Jacks GPI is top 15 if not 10 now.

An Ind. St. team we beat easily moves up 10 spots with a single win over NDSU while their only loss is to an SDSU team only 1 spot ahead of them. I'm with many others on the board as it pertains to these polls, not helpful.

[RowdyRabbit]

Re: FCS polls

Voters must not pay any attention to the GPI, that is a shame. Its much more about bias and reputation and not nearly enough based in fact. Yes, the SDSU schedule has been weak thus far. However, the MVFC is the highest rated and the Jacks GPI is top 15 if not 10 now.

An Ind. St. team we beat easily moves up 10 spots with a single win over NDSU while their only loss is to an SDSU team only 1 spot ahead of them. I'm with many others on the board as it pertains to these polls, not helpful.

The Sports Network Poll and the Coach's (SID) poll are both jokes, I've found the AGS poll is much more accurate.

http://www.anygivensaturday.com/show...11#post1867811

[Kemo]

Re: FCS polls

Though I don't necessary agree with the TSN poll, I won't complain about it. The Coach's (SID) Poll is a complete joke and is always the worst poll out there every week. It should be revamped or discontinued.

The funny thing is, I'm positive the knock on us is our schedule so far (though many teams in the top 10 haven't played anymore difficult schedule than us), but if we beat a 1-5 Northern Iowa team this week we'll shoot up in both the TSN and Coaches poll.

[gabe01]

Re: FCS polls

You guys are really getting the shaft in the polls. Maybe they think USD is SDSU? It happens up north!

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Re: FCS polls

Though I don't necessary agree with the TSN poll, I won't complain about it. The Coach's (SID) Poll is a complete joke and is always the worst poll out there every week. It should be revamped or discontinued.

The funny thing is, I'm positive the knock on us is our schedule so far (though many teams in the top 10 haven't played anymore difficult schedule than us), but if we beat a 1-5 Northern Iowa team this week we'll shoot up in both the TSN and Coaches poll.

We are supposed to beat UNI - the shine is off their no win season, and losing to us makes them a turd sandwich. We won't move up more than a spot or 2 if we beat them.

If Youngstown loses to surging SIU next week, they are a very pedestrian 1-3 and 4-3 when they come to Brookings. They will be lucky to be in the top 20.

SIU plays NDSU the week before we play them. Even if they beat Youngstown, they will be 4-2 and 5-4. They might crack the top 25, but they won't go any higher unless they beat us.

In other words, in a lot of voter's minds our schedule could be weak until we play NDSU.

[jackmd]

Re: FCS polls

We are supposed to beat UNI - the shine is off their no win season, and losing to us makes them a turd sandwich. We won't move up more than a spot or 2 if we beat them.

If Youngstown loses to surging SIU next week, they are a very pedestrian 1-3 and 4-3 when they come to Brookings. They will be lucky to be in the top 20.

SIU plays NDSU the week before we play them. Even if they beat Youngstown, they will be 4-2 and 5-4. They might crack the top 25, but they won't go any higher unless they beat us.

In other words, in a lot of voter's minds our schedule could be weak until we play NDSU.

These are good points as to the logic of many voters. This kind of thinking is exactly why the polls aren't an accurate reflection of the level of relative quality. When you have 5 teams in the top. When you have 5 teams in the top 25 in the nation and they all play each other someone has to lose. UNI will drop some but both Ind. St and SIU will rise. The only explanation is that many voters are naive and base their decision on reputation not current performance. Jacks will move up 3-5 spots with a victory over UNI as it will be judged as our biggest win thus far by a majority of the voters (right or wrong).

1. N Dakota St (1.00)
6. Youngstown St (7.29)
12. S Dakota St (15.00)
16. Illinois St (17.71)
20. Northern Iowa (20.14)
25. Indiana St (22.86)
34. S Illinois (33.29)
43. W Illinois (37.86)
53. South Dakota (46.29)
63T. Missouri St (52.00)

[Nidaros]

Re: FCS polls

You guys are really getting the shaft in the polls. Maybe they think USD is SDSU? It happens up north!

I am not worked up about staying No 20. If we beat UNI, and are still 20 then I will start to heat up emotionally.

[mitchellrabbit]

Re: FCS polls

Southeast La is 3-0 in the Southland and is receiving votes. They play Central Arkansas and Sam Houston St their next 2 games, so we will see how good they are. Central Arkansas jumped us in the polls, why? Theyve lost to a 2-4 Stephen F Austin team. UC Davis is also receiving votes. Since scoring 8 pts against the Jacks, they have scored 20, 37, 41 and 52 pts. Theyve lost to Cal poly by 8 and Montana st by 7. I dont think our schedule has been weak. Every game in the MVFC is tough. The toughest conference in FCS.l As for the coaches poll, what a joke. Indiana St comes out of nowhere and goes to 25 and we still dont get in the top 25 even though we have won 5 straight including a 14 pt win at Indiana St.