You're correct on that front. Grad transfers don't need to sit out a year. IIRC there used to be a rule where the grad school program that you're enrolling in couldn't be offered at the school you were at but I'm not sure if that's still the case.

That's a hell of a win right there.

And not being able to throw the ball consistently doesn't help either. Much easier to run the ball when teams have to respect your passing game.

SIU might not have been after losing to Youngstown at home but they're still a good team. Seems like they probably should have swapped the SIU-SD pod with the Davidson-Kennesaw St pod. Then you'd have SIU-East Tennessee St and Kennesaw St-North Dakota State.

But that's what happens when you prioritize travel. SIU would have to fly either way. Davidson to East Tennessee St is less than a 3 hr drive while Kennesaw to ETSt is 4 1/2 hours.

Montana is favored by 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 depending on where you look.

ESPN listing SDSt as 8 1/2 favorites over Sac State per Caesars Sportsbook. Was hoping that would be under a TD so I would jump on SDSt.

Montana St is 13 1/2 point favorite over UT Martin

NDST -12 over Southern Illinois
JMU -16 over SE Louisiana
Sam Houston -14 over Incarnate Word
Nova -11 1/2 over Holy Cross
East Tenn -1 over Kennesaw St

$110M for a coach but they'll still tell us they can't pay the players.

Hawkins also said Barriere is arguably the best player he's ever coached against, which includes five Heisman winners, so maybe we don't take Hawkins literally on this stuff, especially when it comes to preseason quotes. Maybe he actually felt that way or maybe it was just preseason coach-speak where everything is positive. I bet it's the latter.

I'm not saying the 2021 team was bad. Second best record we've posted at the FCS level. Even if you're pessimistic on this team and rank 2019 above them, it's still a top-3 UCD team since we moved to FCS. We're in a pretty good spot right now as a program, though of course we want to keep building on it. I'm just saying that the 2018 was clearly better/more talented/however you want to frame it.

The 2018 team was unequivocally better than the 2021 team
10-3 vs. 8-4
12.3 point differential vs 5.6
6.2 yards per play on offense vs 5.4
5.5 yards per play allowed on defense vs 5.8
61.86 Sagarin rating (8th in FCS) vs 54.08 (25th)
6.21 Massey rating (4th in FCS) vs. 5.54 (18th)

I could make an argument that the 2019 team was better than this team, they just played a way tougher schedule (lost to an 8-5 Cal and 6 FCS playoff teams, didn't lose to a 1-win FCS team, only 1 loss by 20+ points vs. 2 for the 2021 team). Like what do you think our record is this year if we play UCLA (8-4), NDSt, Sac, Montana St, Montana, EW and either Northern Iowa (6-6) or South Dakota (7-5)? At best that's probably a 5-6 team.

At the very least, 2021 team is much closer to 2019 than they are to 2018.

SDSt. They’re really good.

Really wishing I had trusted my instinct and bet SDSt today. Will be interesting to see where the line against Sac is next week.

You’re right. We should be much more positive about a team that is on pace to give up over 700 yards in the game.

I forgot about the “most stacked roster” comment before the season.

60 could be if they really want it.

Checked in when it was still 14-10. Looked at the box score and the massive yard advantage reminded me of EWU when that game was still close. Major “the score doesn’t reflect how the game has been going” vibes.

Seems about right to me. South Dakota State is #2 in both Massey and Sagarin and they’re at home. FWIW, Massey’s score estimator tool has the spread at 14. Don’t think that factors in HFA either.

Related article headline:

If it's taken you this long to get fed up with the Kings, you're sure a glutton for punishment!

Did they ever say what the Harrell injury was? I know there was speculation on here. I hadn't seen it before now but boy that didn't look good. The non-contact injuries are rarely good, especially when it comes to the knee. Usually ends up being the ACL.

That EWU-UNI with the winner facing Montana pod is rough also.

EWU easily could have gotten a seed (they did beat Montana, after all). Then you've got UNI who faced each of the other 5 MVC teams that made the playoffs (going 2-3), beat Sac State by 18 on the road and only lost to Iowa State by 6.

They've been underrated most of the year but Sac at 8 seems about right. There seems to be a clear top-3 with Sam Houston/JMU/NDSt but after that it seems like there's a big bunch of teams grouped together. Just ranking the top-4 Big Sky teams is tough.

Sac went 8-0 but avoided Montana State and EWU. Winning at Montana is impressive. Did lose by 18 at home to UNI.
Montana lost to both EWU (road) and Sac (home) but both were by 7 or less. Beat Washington and beat Montana St by 19.
EWU lost to Weber and Montana St by a combined 4 points, however both were at home. Also beat Montana but that game was home also.
Montana St lost to Wyoming and Montana. Won at EWU and at Weber.

Credit to Sac for going 8-0, but do they go 8-0 if they play all three other 9-2 teams like Montana did? My instinct says EWU is the best team but their toughest conference road game was UCD so who knows. If I was ranking those four, I'd probably go EWU-Sac-Montana-MSU, though I could flip the first two.

So in 2019 NDST and Montana should get credit for beating a No. 4 team because that's where we were ranked when we played them even though we ended up 5-7 and nowhere near the rankings?

Sorry, that's not how it works when you evaluate a team. A good example is this year's Northern Iowa team. Do you think the committee looked at their win over Sac State and just disregarded it because Sac was unranked at the time? Or do you think they thought, "boy, that's a great win on the road by 18 points against a team that went 8-0 in the Big Sky and is the team we're seeding 4th in the playoffs"?

Where did I say Maier would be a savior? I simply responded that I'd rather have him than any of the other four options, which you say you agree with.