Who do you jump us over though?

South Dakota has 4 losses, all to either FBS or ranked FCS teams. They have 3 wins over ranked FCS teams.
Illinois St has 3 losses, all to either FBS or ranked FCS teams. They have 2 wins over ranked FCS teams.
Youngstown has 4 losses, all to either FBS or ranked FCS teams. They have 2 wins over ranked FCS teams.
Jackson St maybe. They have a FBS loss and a loss to 7-4 Grambling. No ranked wins. You could sell me on us being ahead of them.
Stephen F Austin has 2 losses, to FBS and a ranked FCS team. They have 1 ranked win.
Villanova has 2 losses, to FBS and a ranked FCS team. They have 1 ranked win.
Mercer has 1 loss to an unranked (but 9-2) FCS team. No ranked wins. You could sell me on us being ahead of them.
Monmouth has 2 losses, to a FBS and a ranked FCS team. They have 1 ranked win.
Rhode Island has 2 losses, to a FBS team and a 4-5 Ivy League team. They have 1 ranked win. They seem like they're benefitting from the schedule since they miss Momnouth and Nova. You could sell me on them.

Tennessee Tech, Harvard and Lehigh are probably overseeded but they're all undefeated. Going to be a hard sell on them, even if we might be better. Seems like there's a clear top-3 and then a huge jumble of teams depending on what rating system you like and how much stock you put in a tougher schedule vs winning more games.

That Idaho St loss really hurts. Even if we win that game by 1 point, which still isn't great, it would mean we're a playoff lock, likely a have a home game locked up, and are playing for a first round bye this weekend against Sac.

I think we're better than the 17th best team, but I don't think it's unreasonable to put us there. Seems weird to be dropped 6 spots because of a 3 point swing (39-38 win or a 36-35 win vs 38-36 loss), but there's consequences for losing a game at home to a 5-6 team.

I think it would have been better for us if Sac had lost since they'd be out of the playoffs for sure. I don't think us beating a 7-5 Sac vs. a 6-6 Sac matters all that much to our seeding. Where it matters is now if Sac beats us, they get selected over us if the Big Sky only gets 3 teams.

A few years ago I would have said Sac St joining the MAC is the stupidest thing ever, but we currently live in a world where USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington are in the Big 10 and Cal and Stanford are in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

LOL. I had the same thought. Misspelling an incorrect phrase is some solid work.

I'm sure most voters just saw we lost by 3 TDs and assumed it was an easy MSU victory.

I'd take the points but I tend to be a pessimist about my teams.

Sac had a better resume than we did in 2023.

Using the STATS poll after the regular season ended...

Sac lost at No. 4 Idaho by 9, at home to No. 5 Montana St by 12, at No. 2 Montana by 27, at No. 25 UC Davis by 10. They won at 6-5 Nichols by 14 (playoff team by winning their conference) and at Stanford.

UC Davis lost at Oregon St, at home to 4-7 Eastern Washington by 3, at home to No. 2 Montana by 8 and at 5-6 Northern Arizona by 17. Won at 6-5 Weber St by 1, home to 6-5 Southern Utah by 2, and home to No. 15 Sac by 10.

We got burned that year because we lost to EWU and NAU. I get we had the H2H win, and that certainly counts for something. Both teams had 1 good win, we had 2 other wins over +.500 teams while they had one but we had two losses to sub .500 teams and they had none.

The year we actually got screwed over was 2022. Went 6-5 but lost to FBS, No. 1 by 2 points on the road, No. 2 by 6 points on the road, No. 3 by 17 on the road and No. 9 by 5 at home. We won at Idaho by 18 but they get picked over us. Deserved to be picked over Montana that year also.

On the other hand, had we lost, we would 100% need to win the Sac game to get in. I know we were winning in the 4th quarter, but it's not like we were up 21 when the game got stopped.

One game to keep an eye on is Youngstown St-Northern Iowa in the MVFC. For that conference, NDSt is in at (likely) 12-0. South Dakota doesn't play this weekend and is 8-4. Illinois St is in great shape at 8-3 with wins over South Dakota and SDSt. North Dakota plays South Dakota St. Both are 7-4. Winner is likely in. So that's four teams. Youngstown is 7-4 so a win would put them at 8-4. That's a team we'd be competing against on the bubble if we lose to Sac.

I'm sure there are others too.

That's embarrassingly bad. You can see the pellets from the turf kick up too.

For Sac, absolutely yes. For Davis, maybe. I think we should get in as the 4th Big Sky team with a loss, but it's not a lock.

A 7-5 Sac would have 0 ranked wins and 0 wins over a team with even a .500 record. They have no case to get in. Beat us, and they're the 3rd Big Sky team in (likely get picked over us and we get picked over NAU).

A 7-4 Davis, has as 21 point win over a likely ranked 8-4 Northern Arizona (assuming they beat 3-8 Weber this weekend) and a 16 point win over a likely 7-5 Southern Utah (if they beat a 2-9 team this weekend)

Got a video link to the play?

Seems like that throw should have gone to the outside shoulder and PInnick threw it inside.

Welp, lets regroup and end Sac's season next week.

Man, no idea what happened on that one. Don't know if that's on the WR or Pinnick but someone screwed up.

Tough spot to be in. MSU had 3 timeouts so if we end up in 3rd and long, they call a timeout with a chance to get the ball back. Once it was 3rd and short and then when we picked up the 1st down, I would have liked to see them take a shot down the field.

But we also get the ball to start the 2nd half. If it's 28-21 and our offense was clicking, I bet they go for it more.

Nice flop by Pinnick.

Yep, the positives of 4th and short in opposing territory outweigh the negatives. If you're punting from the 40 or so, a lot of times, the ball is going to go into the end zone, in which case you're only gaining 20ish yards of field position. And if you punt it, you have a nearly 0% chance of picking up the first down (unless the opponent fumbles the punt).

Things like how many yards to pick up the first, where you are in the game, how your offense is performing matters. But in a vacuum, going for it on 4th and short in opposing territory is the smart play.

I'm generally pro review. But the point of review is to overturn obvious mistakes. In all sports, too many times they review a play for 3 minutes while looking at 15 different angles. If it takes more than a minute to look at something, it's not an obvious mistake and you should just uphold the call and move on.

That was a really weird review. Like, even if the MSU guy actually fumbled it, which he didn't because he was down, the MSU guy recovered the ball anyway in the same spot on the field. So it's not a turnover no matter what and it's not like the ball got knocked back 15 yards where you want to see if the guy was down.