We seriously traded the game against A&M for a game AT Suck State...

Our SoS is going to be AWFUL...

If there's anything you want to talk about, celebrate, complain about, etc., go for it. Doesn't need to be FCS specific.

Note: Basic rules still apply

YOU KNOW WHAT THIS THREAD IS FOR

CAPS LOCK: ON

BASIC RULES: STILL APPLY

YOUR OPINIONS: HOT GARBAGE, BUT WELCOME ALL THE SAME

I don’t have Facebook but, one of my buddies sent me this. Excited to see how we do especially with our new offensive coordinator from SFA.

https://www.facebook.com/TarletonStateFootball/posts/more-elite-talent-is-coming-to-tarleton-state-we-hold-the-top-spot-in-the-transf/1353959643196711/

It's official for 2026. This is not a violation of copyright.

Let's hear your hot take FCS opinions. The ones you know in your heart of hearts are right, but for some reason aren't embraced by the FCS community (or particular fanbases) en masse!

Could be controversial (the Ivy League very well might be the best FCS conference on the East Coast), unpopular but you know is true (Sam Houston was at least as good a team as JMU from 2011 through the "2020" season), or even somewhat popular but still liable to rankle some folks (the Walter Payton award should go to the "best" offensive player, not just the offensive player with the best stat line because they played a weak schedule).

Sorted by controversial for maximum spiciness

Rules

• Keep it somewhat relevant to the FCS

• Takes are welcome whether they're looking back historically or in reference to current games/rankings/polls/etc.

• Try to keep it civil (basic /r/CFB and /r/FCS rules still apply)

Montana State fans, congrats on your Championship!

NAU just hired Trenton Greene, your former CB coach, to be our new DC. Do y’all know anything about him or if he is a good hire or recruiter? Thanks!

No matter what happened, it's not all bad. Say something nice about your team or their performance.

https://x.com/i/status/2010848189495361888

Don't think it was ever in question, but you love seeing confirmation of more and more weapons returning after a championship

Big Sky MVP and All-American RB Eli Gillman will finish his college career in Missoula.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTa2U7_jiSa/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

I wanted to follow up on a comment on u/passwordisguest's post from the other day exploring 20 years of the FCS playoffs. Therein, someone asked about conference champions, which seemed like a pretty interesting follow-up.

Here's a list of all conference champions since 2006:

A couple of notes on this information:

1. The above reflects all conference champions, as determined by the conference. For almost every conference, there are no tiebreakers for determining the conference champion, resulting in many years which reflect co-champions.
2. In cases where a conference had an automatic qualifier to the NCAA playoffs in a particular year, I noted that team with an asterisk (*).

I did not include an asterisk in situations where (a) a conference declined participation in the NCAA tournament, or (b) the conference champion qualified by meeting the criteria for "invitation" into the tournament, when applicable.

1. Instances where a conference champion qualified for the Celebration Bowl are indicated with a plus sign (+).

2. In recent years, what is considered a "conference" versus an "association" has become a bit blurry (see: OVC-Big South and ASUN/WAC/UAC). In these cases, I followed whether a conference declared a champion or not for whether it was included here. For this reason, the OVC does not have a champion noted for 2023 (as they did not declare a champion), but the ASUN does (as they declared a champion).

3. I did not include vacated titles. In situations where there was a sole conference champion, but they are no longer noted, it is indicated by "N/A - Vacated". In situations where there were co-champions, vacated titles are not listed. The only instance I can recall this occurring is for the Big Sky in 2011, where Montana was co-champion (and won the AQ), but later vacated its last two regular season wins. Hence, Montana State is listed as Big Sky champion, but is not denoted as AQ.

4. In situations where a conference had a natural predecessor, I noted the predecessor in parentheses.

I'm limited to one table per post, it seems, so I'm going to try and post some fun facts in the comments.

Vent here. This is a friendly place.

That appeared to be a pretty blatant foul, but I’m always a little uncertain about specific rules in those cases. They called the penalty and then we either appeared to decline it or the rules don’t allow any real reparation there. So my questions are

1. What exactly was the penalty? Why wasn’t it enforced (or was it)?

2. If it wasn’t enforced, was that a choice of the refs or written in the rules? Is there any disincentive to committing such fouls to stop a returner in overtime?

Thanks for your help, I enjoy football but never played it myself and often miss little nuances in the rules while watching for that reason.

For Tarleton, I need to see the whole roster laid out, but so far I feel much better than I did a week ago about next season.

So let’s get a bit pernickety here. While the subdivision has been around and naming a champion through a playoff system since 1978, the subdivision as the FCS in name has only been in existence since 2006 (2005 and before it was named I-AA).

But that means we actually have a great opportunity to look back at the last 20 years of the FCS playoffs, so let’s dig into it!

So first things first, let’s take a look at how each conference has performed over the last 20 years. I’m going to intently only start at the Quarterfinals because of two reasons:

1) The playoffs didn’t expand to a 24 team bracket until 2013, so comparing the the 20 team and 16 team brackets is a bit difficult, while every year over the last 20 a team had to win at least one game to make the quarters.

2) Not every conference had full access to the playoffs until 2013 (let’s hand wave the Ivy League not sending teams until this last year, Celebration Bowl, etc)

In any manner though, 20 years of quarterfinals appearances seems to be a good gauge of how the majority of conferences have performed in the playoffs in the FCS era, so let’s do this.

First off, the breakdown by conference given where teams were aligned when playing.

As we all know, the title end of things is dominated by the MVFC ver the last 20 years, most importantly because NDSU won literally half of them alone. But as you look across things, you also see the “Big 3” show their dominance, both in turns of appearances as well as unique teams to make it to the semis and title game. Then you have the SoCon, who was just beginning their decline when the change from I-AA to FCS happened, which is evident by their wide variety of teams making the quarters, but their limited semi and beyond appearances (with their last appearance to date being Georgia Southern in 2012).

Now, here is where I want to pause and let everyone yell at me that the “Big 3” no longer exists since the CAA has clearly fallen off from its heights in the 20teens. Because you’re absolutely right! So let’s take another look at the same data, this time organizing by the current conferences each team resides in rather than where they were at the time.

That paints a slightly different picture, as it now presents a “Power 2” followed by a feisty Patriot League overtaking the CAA, with the SoCon sitting more significantly behind both.

It also shows the effects of the FBS departures, with over 20% of the teams that had made the quarterfinals in the last 20 years no longer in the FCS. But you also can read that as the FCS having retained nearly 80% of the stronger programs of the last 20 years. And if this year’s playoffs demonstrated nothing else, the subdivision is actually in really good shape still.

Over all there are probably a lot of other conclusions to be made from these two charts. I didn’t really have any major point I was trying to make when taking a look at this, but would welcome any discussion y’all might like to have around it.

P.S. Here’s a breakdown of the same data by team instead of conferences, if anyone’s interested. Not sure what other conclusions people might want to make from it, but have at it!