Also, learning that Idaho's success is largely attributed to the return of new Head Coach Jason Eck, who was running South Dakota State's offense the past few years.
Big Sky looks like a conference with 2 tiers. The top teams being Sac-the 2 Montanas, Idaho and Weber state. Perhaps the Aggies can continue their winning streak. A win against Sac state should get us in the play-offs.
I see that the NCAA rankings put 6 Big Sky teams among the top 14 schools in the FCS and the Aggies have played or will play 45 of them. Sheesh! Of course, with our 3-4 record, we get no votes, as opposed to the likes of 4-3 Campbell and 3-3 Stephen F. Austin. Same as it ever was.
We haven’t beat anyone who’s having a good season, our best win is against Northern Arizona and they’re 3-5 and even San Diego is just 3-3.
Sagarin has us as the #11 FCS team but that’s just on comparative scores, not who you’ve beat, which affects the non algorithmic polls.
More precisely, 3 tiers:
1. Teams that should coast into the playoffs: Mont. St., Weber, Sac St
2. Teams that control their own (difficult) destiny: Idaho, Montana, Davis
3. Teams that have no chance of the playoffs: everybody else
and Idaho has only 1 more top echelon team to play while Montana has 2. Montana could well drop games against Weber and Montana State. Their name recognition and having their AD on the selection committee could get them in with 4 league losses (and probably would although I would question it with their weak first half of season schedule. Will be interesting to see how Idaho fares against Sac.
Different year same story, the inability to split or otherwise beat most of the playoff caliber teams on the schedule is what's keeping Davis out of the hunt. A win this week puts Davis at 0.500, fhat's 4-4, with zero quality wins. That's a big statement too, because Cal Poly has got nothing to lose and will throw shots all night this Saturday.
I actually give a little credence to Montana beating South Dakota, who just beat Southern Illinois, but it was only the Yotes' 2nd win this season so feels less impactful.
Ags really needed that win vs. Weber...that's going to haunt them.
With the acknowledgment/assumption that the Ags need to win out to get into the playoffs, I think I will be pulling for Sac State. An Aggie win over Idaho combined with an additional Idaho loss to Sac would put UCD in a better position than Idaho (with the opening proviso) to gain a playoff invitation.
Montana 89 yards of offense in first half. Weber only 139. Kind of boring to watch. Montana offense very conservative with Brown. Montana’s offense (or lack thereof) is their weakness.
Robby Hauck looked like he was running in concrete trying to catch the Weber guy after whiffing on the TD run.