New Hampshire 52 Fordham 42 - Final

New Hampshire moves on to play at #8 Holy Cross.

Delaware 56 St Francis PA 17 - Final

Delaware moves on to play at #1 South Dakota State

Richmond 41 Davidson 0 - Final

Richmond moves on to play at #2 Sac State.

19-14 Wyoming at the end of the 1st quarter.

Furman 31 Elon 6 - Finał

Elon moves on to play at #7 Incarnate Word.

Toke, this game is scheduled for 2 p.m. PT not 10 a.m. You might want to edit the start time in the topic line.

In an early matchup of common opponents, Hawaii just defeated Sac 74-61 in Hawaii.

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Hopefully, we'll be 5-1 by then, Toke!

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Sac is ranked #11 in attendance after the regular season and that number could go up after the playoff games. The Aggies were #30 this year.




https://herosports.com/fcs-football-2022-attendance-leaders-bzbz/

There had been hope that the strength of the Aggie schedule, plus close losses to No. 1 South Dakota State (24-22) and No. 2 Sacramento State (27-21) would sway the selection committee despite UCD’s 6-5 overall record.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.

And while I can make a case for a 6-5 team not getting into the playoff, it’s hard to imagine how both Idaho and Montana did make it into the final field over this 6-5 Aggie team.

In the next-to-last game of the season, the Aggies traveled to Moscow and drilled No. 15 Idaho, 44-26. UCD led, 31-7, at halftime and never looked back. You would think that late-season head-to-head matchups, especially one as lopsided as this one, would weigh heavily in the selection committee’s judgment.

Montana, meanwhile, limped to the finish line, losing four of its last six games, including a 30-23 setback to Idaho and a final game 55-21 shellacking by Montana State. Indeed, the much-hyped Brawl of the Wild turned into the Maul of the Wild.

Worse yet, the Griz finished 4-4 and sixth in the Big Sky Conference, while the Aggies were 5-3 and in fifth place. Again, you would think conference standings would weigh heavily in the selection committee’s judgment, especially with a team that failed to break .500 in the Big Sky and finished halfway down the league standings.

Montana and the Aggies had six common opponents. Montana was 2-4 against those six, while the Aggies were 3-3. Once again, what criteria could the committee be using if not this?

https://www.aggiesportstalk.com/discussion/1991/2022-fcs-playoffs

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Good point. I just took a look at their roster:

13 transfers from other 4 year programs including 4 from power conferences.
16 JC transfers

Taylor really went heavy into transfers! Wow!

https://hornetsports.com/sports/football/roster?path=football

Great, thoughtful post, Kerberos. Thanks for taking the time write it up and share it with us here on AST. Also, Nick Amoah was the Aggie player in the presser who said the Davis was the only D1 school he got an offer from that would allow him to be an engineering major and play football as well.

I agree with you that Hawkins is a great fit for the Aggies. He bleeds Aggie Pride and the "Aggie Way" of combining athletics and academics. He also continues our amazing history having produced so many great collegiate and pro coaches over the years.

The thing that jumps out to me every time I look at it, however, is the stunning, overall success of Troy Taylor in just 3 years at Sac State. What he has done over there in that short period of time is practically unimaginable. He took over one of the weakest programs in the Big Sky and promptly won or shared 3 straight Big Sky titles while going 29-7 overall and 23-1 in league play to date and has Sac State in a position to play for a possible undefeated, national championship. He has accomplished what we have been chasing ever since we moved to D1 and he's done it in just 3 years.

What I would like to know more about is how Taylor managed to accomplish this in such a short period of time? I ask this not as criticism of our program or Hawkins but out of a curiosity as to how he has been so successful so fast .

I know we have higher academic requirements which limits the pool size of the athletes that we can recruit but is that that big of an advantage for him? Many other schools nation wide and schools in the Big Sky have similar or perhaps even less stringent academics requirements and haven't had that kind of success so fast. Is he just a gifted coach with a superior offensive mind? Are there other possible factors that anyone can identify that has attributed to the meteoric success he has had with the Sac State program?

Montana not only got in with a home game, they got a nationally televised ESPN2 game to boot.

Delaware lost 4 of their last 6 games and got selected with a home game as too. The selection committee says they take into account how a team is currently playing as well...yeah right!

Playing in Texas is always going to be tough no matter who we are playing.

Milwaukee is now 2-3 after losing today to St Thomas (MN) 74-72. St Thomas (Summit League) is now 5-2.

The Aggies out rebounded Sac 37-29 including a 15-5 advantage in the second half. This is the first time Sac was beaten on the boards this season.

Interesting note: This was the 120th game between these two schools with Sac leading the all-time series 69-51 since the first game in 1948.