GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

Yeah, the "Valley is best" talk this year is propaganda based on prior seasons,imo. The Valley was the deepest, strongest conference from 2014 to 2016, but I don't think that holds true anymore. The Big Sky and CAA are better this year. I don't think that means that Towson, for example, is necessarily better than SDSU, but I'd definitely take the middle of the CAA over the middle of the Valley on a neutral field this year. And I think I'd take the middle of the Big Sky too. The Valley just had too many non conference losses and too much inconsistency in conferecent to produce much this year.

The good news is that neither UNI nor Western can be routed through Brookings in the second round now. I'm always a fan of playing teams from outside your conference in the playoffs.

[UWMandSDSU]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

I agree about ISUB as that 3rd team. That game at UNI hurts. How about Ill St 2-5 in conference. Just a couple weeks ago they were a top 10 team

And they beat SIU 51-3.

[mitchellrabbit]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

Yeah, the "Valley is best" talk this year is propaganda based on prior seasons,imo. The Valley was the deepest, strongest conference from 2014 to 2016, but I don't think that holds true anymore. The Big Sky and CAA are better this year. I don't think that means that Towson, for example, is necessarily better than SDSU, but I'd definitely take the middle of the CAA over the middle of the Valley on a neutral field this year. And I think I'd take the middle of the Big Sky too. The Valley just had too many non conference losses and too much inconsistency in conferecent to produce much this year.

The good news is that neither UNI nor Western can be routed through Brookings in the second round now. I'm always a fan of playing teams from outside your conference in the playoffs.

Is Weber St deserving of their ranking. They only beat the big skys last place team by 12. You have a 13 team conference there is a good chance that 3 or 4 will look dominant. Dont know much about the CAA but they seem to get the benefit of the doubt most of the time

[SteelSD]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

Is Weber St deserving of their ranking. They only beat the big skys last place team by 12. You have a 13 team conference there is a good chance that 3 or 4 will look dominant. Dont know much about the CAA but they seem to get the benefit of the doubt most of the time

And don’t forget Weber lost to the same NAU team that got boat raced by 32 by Missouri State. Just seems like a weird year where every team has warts and can come down to how you match up against the other team.

[Sodakbull]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

Yeah, the "Valley is best" talk this year is propaganda based on prior seasons,imo. The Valley was the deepest, strongest conference from 2014 to 2016, but I don't think that holds true anymore. The Big Sky and CAA are better this year. I don't think that means that Towson, for example, is necessarily better than SDSU, but I'd definitely take the middle of the CAA over the middle of the Valley on a neutral field this year. And I think I'd take the middle of the Big Sky too. The Valley just had too many non conference losses and too much inconsistency in conferecent to produce much this year.

The good news is that neither UNI nor Western can be routed through Brookings in the second round now. I'm always a fan of playing teams from outside your conference in the playoffs.

I think all these conferences have a lot of inconsistency throughout them. I thought UC Davis was king in the Big Sky but they are losing to EWU as I type. Weber State got beat by Northern Arizona earlier and they lost to Missouri State, who is near the bottom of the valley. But I am not fully convinced of the strength of the CAA either. Their best team got blasted by NDSU and JMU who was supposed to be on NDSU's level has been beaten twice in conference. People all year have assumed JMU was playing at NDSU's level and if that assumption is proven false in the next few weeks, the conference is just pretty good. They don't have a truly elite team and pretty much take turns beating each other. I think we will find out how tough they are if they get 5 teams in the tournament. Everyone wants the bragging rights but the differences are marginal and on any given day anything can happen. The team that gets healthy at the end, can play some games at home and really want to be champions can make it happen. Hopefully that is the Jacks.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

Weber also beat EWU, who is about to blow out UC Davis. That win will possibly jump the Eagles over the Jacks. Yes, Weber has a bad loss to NAU, but we have a bad loss to a 5-5 UNI team too. As do most of the CAA teams. The only consistent team this year has been NDSU. But I still think the top 5 teams in either the CAA or the Big Sky would have a winning record against the top 5 Valley teams this year. NDSU is head and shoulders better, but I think Elon/Stony Brook/Towson/Idaho State/Delaware/Maine/Weber are better and have been more consistent than ISUb, ISUr, WIU, and UNI. I just don't think the Valley deserves more than 2 bids this year. Prior years are a different story, but I don't see the dominance this year.

[CappinHard]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

If you're looking for something to follow tonight, root for Southern Utah against Weber State (currently SUU down 12-14). A Weber State loss would help significantly in seeding.

[Southeast]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

I’m very happy to see Strong getting comfortable and our running game rolling with a likely cold weather game coming against USD. He and Daniel have hung in there and become a very nice combo. No need to rush Wilson back.

[Sodakbull]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

Webers loss to a 3-6 NAU team is much worse than our loss to a 5-5 UNI team who has the number 1 SOS in the FCS. I mean NAU has lost to Missouri State, Northern Colorado and Cal Poly who are all in the bottom 1/4th of their conferences. Even USD beat Northern Colorado easily.

[98Jackfarmer]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

It was a good win. No doubt. But going forward, we gave up 38 or so points to a 2-7 team. We gave up 51 or so to a potential playoff team. We also held the Bison to 21, so, what defense do we have? I get that we have injuries, all teams do this time of year. We get stifled by UNI on offense. If we want to win a championship we have to have a consistent output by all three aspects. It's things like this that worry me about our chances.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

Webers loss to a 3-6 NAU team is much worse than our loss to a 5-5 UNI team who has the number 1 SOS in the FCS. I mean NAU has lost to Missouri State, Northern Colorado and Cal Poly who are all in the bottom 1/4th of their conferences. Even USD beat Northern Colorado easily.

Is 5-5 UNI better than 3-6 NAU? Sure. But I would qualify both as bad losses. A loss to a non-playoff team is a bad loss in my book. UNI might play NAU and win by 50, or they could show up and lose by 20+. Neither team is great this year, and I don't think applying the transitive property is really going to prove much. UNI has losses to a non-playoff Montana, NDSU, non-playoff WIU, and non-playoff YSU. 3 of their FCS losses are to teams that won't be in the postseason. Both UNI and NAU are not "quality losses" to have on the season. And those that are questioning Weber''s ranking are ignoring that they have a top 10 win (EWU) and top 25 win (ISU) that we don't (and won't) have, and will finish 9-1 against FCS competition if they win out. Weber will have a better resume than us if both teams win out, and deserves to be ranked ahead of us based on resume. According to Sagarin, Weber played the 155th toughest schedule in DI. The Jacks played the 144th toughest.

In regards to the game today, we don't seem to play well on D at SIU. 2016 game was similar to today's. I remember a nail biter there in 2012 to keep our playoff hopes alive too, although it was a much lower scoring affair back then. A win is a win, and now onto a USD team that might have a tiny bit of momentum coming into town next week. D needs to clean it up, but I guess I kind of figured it'd be a shootout today. After the way they played the last few weeks, I think they'll bounce back against USD just fine.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

It was a good win. No doubt. But going forward, we gave up 38 or so points to a 2-7 team. We gave up 51 or so to a potential playoff team. We also held the Bison to 21, so, what defense do we have? I get that we have injuries, all teams do this time of year. We get stifled by UNI on offense. If we want to win a championship we have to have a consistent output by all three aspects. It's things like this that worry me about our chances.

I agree with this. It seems like outsode of 1 or two games, we haven't played consistent in all phases since September. It also doesn't feel like we're "coming in hot" right now with momentum. A solid win next week would help get that feeling back.

[SteelSD]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

The biggest issue we have is with the rest of the MVFC outside NDSU taking a crapper we have no real quality win to hang our hat on. UNI is not an egregious loss, but our best win may end up being over ISUb... Not exactly a schedule that stands up to much scrutiny.

[98Jackfarmer]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

The biggest issue we have is with the rest of the MVFC outside NDSU taking a crapper we have no real quality win to hang our hat on. UNI is not an egregious loss, but our best win may end up being over ISUb... Not exactly a schedule that stands up to much scrutiny.

Our best win might be a 21-17 loss at Fargo to NDSU

[jacks1]

Re: GDT: @Southern Illinois Salukis

Our best win might be a 21-17 loss at Fargo to NDSU

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