Any time you can add a team to your FBS conference that has made four playoff appearances in 31 FCS seasons - with three of those being with one coach who is no longer there and the fourth being the year after he left - you just have to do it.

Yep, that's a big boost for us no matter how we finish. It's either...

-another win over a highly ranked team which could help us over one of the MVFC teams if we finish 11-1 or 10-2
-or if we go 9-3, that H2H win could be the tiebreaker for us over a 9-3 Idaho team if it comes down to us and them for the 8 seed.

I don't want to say that Portland State is even a decent, but in terms of quality there seems to be a big difference in quality between them and a team like Northern Colorado. Close against us, close against Idaho. We still should have beat them by more, but they're not awful.

Indiana is an interesting case. They haven't played anyone good yet - though they'll get their shot in 2 weeks against Ohio St - but to their credit they've been putting it on teams.

FWIW, only EWU and Northern Colorado have played all three of UCD, Mont St, Mont this year.

Mont St 42. EWU 28
Mont 52, EWU 49
UCD 48, EWU 38

Mont St 55, UNC 14
Mont 24, UNC 0
UCD 59, UNC 7

We'd likely move behind Montana, unless we lost a very close game by a FG or so. But how far depends on the margin of loss. Lose by 30 and we'll move down a few spots. Lose by 3 and maybe they jump Montana to 4 and move us to 5. As you pointed out, South Dakota didn't drop after they lost at South Dakota St by 3 in OT.

PSU up 51-31 on Sac with 7:12 left in the game.

Me watching Sac turn back into a pumpkin after Troy Taylor left:

I went to a Kings game on election night 2016. The last couple years the NBA hasn't scheduled a single game for election night though, and isn't having any games this year either.

Kind of cool that the last 3 weeks features a round robin between 3 of the best 4 teams in the Big Sky.

Looking forward to the next two weeks. Time to see what this team really has. The win over Idaho was a good one, but at Montana and home to Montana St are a step up (Montana specifically because it’s on the road).

This is the type of performance we wanted to see. No messing around. No “oh look it’s 14-13 at halftime” type of stuff. Just put it on a bad team.

Seems longer in person than when you’re watching at home on TV.

These extended commercial breaks are awful. Both teams are just standing around waiting for 60-90 seconds.

My daughter's soccer game got cancelled so we made the last minute decision to go to the game. So if they play well, I'm taking full credit. But if they lay an egg, I'll take the blame too.

I would have to believe 10-2 absolutely gets us a top-8 seed and a bye. Wins over a top-10 ranked 9-3 Idaho and on the road against a top-15ish 8-4 Montana (lets say they lose to MSU). Losses only to an FBS team and either a 0- or 1-loss Montana St.

We'd likely have to beat Montana and go 10-2 to be a top-5 team, or a scenario where we hammer Sac and UNC but lose tight games to the Montana's. But a 9-3 UCD is definitely behind NDSt, SDSt and Montana St. And I would argue you'd have to give a 9-3 Montana the edge on H2H, even if you consider them basically even. A 9-3 South Dakota would probably be above us (losses to Wisconsin, SDSt by 3 in OT and then NDSt). But I agree that 14 is probably too low.

I don't know enough about the bottom to speak on NAU, but Idaho being #5 vs. us at #14 definitely stood out to me. We'd both have an FBS loss and a loss to Montana State. They would have lost to us while we lost to Montana. I'm sure you could make an argument for them to be ahead of us, but not 9 spots.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2024-10-31/2024-fcs-playoff-bracket-predictions-entering-final-month-season

FWIW. Has us finishing 9-3, beating Northern Colorado and Sac. Predicts us to get the #14 seed and hosting NAU in the first round. Winner would get #3 South Dakota St.

Agreed on NAU vs. UCD. For 8-4 NAU (7-4 vs. FCS or better like you said) to get in over an 8-4 UCD, I think we'd have to squeak by Northern Colorado and get hammered by the Montana's and Sac. NAU would also probably need Sac to win out to bolster the resume.

Assuming a win over Northern Colorado (not a sure thing!), yes, if we lose all three we'd be 8-4. According to the probabilities, that's a 25% chance of happening.

So the second part of his post is that if there's a 25% chance we lose all three, that means there's a 75% chance we win at least 1 of the 3 games, which means there's a 75% chance we finish with at least a 9-3 record. Again, assuming a win over Northern Colorado.

Even though I don't think we're actually the 4th best team in the FCS, it's still cool as hell to be ranked that high.