One drive but the defense is playing like they did against Sac so far.

Would have liked a play action on second down.

Some of the home teams are struggling a bit.

North Dakota St down 17-10.
South Dakota tied 14-14.
Mercer up 7-3
Incarnate Word tied 3-3.

Hopefully we can take after Montana St and South Dakota St who are both up 3 scores.

That’s true, though I do think if you had those three weapons, they’re going to get close to their current numbers. Larison might not have the receiving yards he does this year if Doss is on the team in place of any of our WRs. But Doss isn’t taking any carries away from Larison and Larison isn’t taking many receptions from Doss. I think the offensive stats would likely be a combination of the two years. The rushing yards would be more consolidated with Larison (as opposed to being more spread out in 2018) and the receiving stats would be more top heavy as well, as opposed to what we have this year. And I think Larison might even have better rushing stats as teams had to worry about a borderline NFL caliber WR out there.

If Larison was a WR, then yes, unless you’re running an Air Raid system where the QB throws 55 times per game, someone’s stats are going to suffer. But having Doss, Harrell and Larison with a either of the two QBs and a coach who knows what he’s doing, you’re going to end up with a FCS version of the 99 Rams with Bruce, Holt and Faulk or the Manning Colts with Harrison, Wayne and James.

Fun to think about and discuss, at the very least.

Was looking at Hastings's stats and wondered how they compared to Maier in 2018 and they're remarkably similar.

Hastings: 303-436, 3745 yds (312 ypg), 69.5 comp%, 32 TD, 8 INT in 12 games
Maier: 364-557, 3931 yds (302.3 ypg), 65.4 comp%, 34 TD, 10 INT in 13 games

However what's different how they got there. Larison is our leading receiver this year as a RB with 755 yards. But we have 4 guys with at least 500 rec yards and another with 474. In 2018, we had two WR with more rec yds than Larison has (Doss with 1334 and Harrell with 896) but they were the only two over 400 (Gilliam was third with 385).

We also had a more productive overall run game in 2018 (26 more rush ypg). Gilliam had 976 yards, Thomas had 686 and Modise had 293. This year, our second leading rusher (Perez) only has 212 yards.

Didn't really have a point there, just thought that was interesting. Can you imagine how prolific our offense would be if you could combine Larison with Doss and Harrell? Not that Gilliam was bad (104.7 total ypg that year and as a redshirt freshman) but he's not Larison (173 total ypg)

Nice. I'll have to look for that. Even if it's cheaper than full price I'll take it.

Can you clarify a bit. I subscribe to Disney+ and through my cable I have ESPN. Do I still need to subscribe to ESPN+ to watch this game? I was planning to but if it comes with my Disney+, that would be great.

Man that box score is wild. 557 passing yards, 85 passing attempts, 8 turnovers.

Gut reaction having not watched the game is that as long as we don’t turn the ball over, we’ll be fine. I mean, Illinois St clearly couldn’t stop SEMO besides the turnovers. And the fact that you were +7 in turnovers and only won by 8 is a bad look. A win is a win but still.

The last time the top 4 seeds all made the semis was 2011. So history says one of them is going to lose.

Four times since then, 3 of the top-4 made it. However three of those instances were in the last 5 years (19, 20 and 22). So while history also says it's likely that at least 2 of the top-4 don't make the semis, we've bucked that trend recently.

Also, fun fact but in the last five seasons, 7 of the 20 top-4 seeds didn't make the semifinals. 3 of those 7 instances of a fop-4 getting upset early were Sac St in 19, 21 and 22.

Alright, now I have to figure out a way to convince my wife to let me show up a little late to her parents 50th anniversary party so I can go to the game.

Unfortunately we likely have a better chance of winning the national title this year than her okaying this.

My hope is that we win this game and anything after that is gravy (unless South Dakota loses and then I’d expect them to win 2 games). That’s not to say we can’t beat South Dakota but going there is going to be tough. Don’t want to get ahead of myself though. Win this game and go from there.

Montana would get SDSt in the second round.

Illinois St went 9-3 but got crushed in their three losses to Iowa 40-0, NDSt 42-10 and Missouri St 41-7. Missed the other two Dakotas.

SE Missouri St has one ranked win, over No 22 UT Martin. Lost to a 5-7 team this year also.

Both beat Southern Illinois. SEMO won 38-21 and ISU won 45-10. Both games were at SIU.

Illinois St is the 12 seed.

Give Montana the 13 please and feed them to South Dakota if they win their first game.

You can sign me up for playing Idaho again only because it would mean we won 2 games and then would be hosting a semifinal game.

Also especially surprised they put Idaho at 8 since it means the three Big Sky seeds are all on the same side. MVC got 2 on the same side but SD is on the other half.

Correct. 1-16, 2-15, 3-14, 4-13, 5-12, 6-11, 7-10, 8-9.

A little surprised they didn’t make Idaho 6 or 7. For one I think they had the resume for it. But if they and Mont St both win their first games, they’ll play each other. I know that’s not a huge consideration, if a consideration at all, but I would have matched Idaho up with a MVC team in the QFs.

Well we got the 5. Nothing weird by the committee.

One game for sure. If we get the 4 we’d have 2 home games if we win the first one. If we’re the 5 we only get 1 unless the 4 seed loses their first game.