JMU - NDSU

[StLRedbird]

Illinois State is one top Ten FCS QB performer away from being in this game next year...

:text-+1:
Three things I want to see in the spring:
1. Update on the health status of both Davis and Pryor.
2. How the backups at both positions perform.
3. How does the LB situation look?

Regarding your #1 .. also want an update on Ridgeway. The dude came into his own as season progressed. Looking forward to seeing him and our entire 2 deep DL returning next year ... they are all back, 1st and 2nd string.

Yeah, I should have included him, too. During halftime at the NDSU game, I was selling the thought to the Bison faithful that Ridgeway was critical to how we were stopping their run game. I remember saying a few times that I thought the second half would be very different.

Boy, was I wrong. We didn't skip a beat with Powell in his place. At least, I think it was Powell. My memory ain't what it used to be. So I didn't call out Ridgeway because I thought our depth at NG was better than QB or RB.

 

[fourthandshort]

:text-+1:
Three things I want to see in the spring:
1. Update on the health status of both Davis and Pryor.
2. How the backups at both positions perform.
3. How does the LB situation look?

Regarding your #1 .. also want an update on Ridgeway. The dude came into his own as season progressed. Looking forward to seeing him and our entire 2 deep DL returning next year ... they are all back, 1st and 2nd string.

Yeah, I should have included him, too. During halftime at the NDSU game, I was selling the thought to the Bison faithful that Ridgeway was critical to how we were stopping their run game. I remember saying a few times that I thought the second half would be very different.

Boy, was I wrong. We didn't skip a beat with Powell in his place. At least, I think it was Powell. My memory ain't what it used to be. So I didn't call out Ridgeway because I thought our depth at NG was better than QB or RB.

I posted same on AGS .. I like Powell a lot, but we're talking about 50 lb weight difference. But we actually shut them down much better 2nd half than 1st half. Not suggesting Powell was the difference, but we did step it up 2nd half as a team defensively.

 

[J0K3R2]

I'm probably being too hard on the selection committee. To a large extent their hands are tied by the automatic qualifiers. I'm not sure every conference have a should have a team included.

I'm partially with you on that; with you in the sense that ditching at least some of the automatic qualifiers would result in much better quality playoffs, especially initial rounds, where teams like Holy Cross, Central Connecticut, and San Diego got their teeth kicked in, and all were autobids from pretty awful conferences (the Patriot League, from which Holy Cross originates, was very close to having 4-8 Lafayette as their conference champion).

On the other hand, there would be some sense of loss and the bigger conferences (MVFC, Big Sky, CAA) would probably crowd out the field big time; 9/14 at-large teams came from one of these three, and when adding in conference champs, 60% of the teams in the playoff already came from those conferences. Now, the at-large teams deserved it, and there were some teams left out that also were quite deserving, and arguably much better than at least those three auto bids in CCSU, Holy cross, and San Diego (looking at SIUC here). But there's something to be said about giving every conference a chance and having that variety in the playoff, and that would be very hard to get rid of.

 

[fourthandshort]

I used to be very down on auto bids. But I do feel like they've been more deserving the last several years. Teams like KSU, Colgate, and San Diego actual won a few games. But that wasn't always the case. Back in 2012, our USD lost every MVFC conf game, but beat Colgate in OOC game .. and they were undefeated in conf and got autobid. Other less extreme examples from 2011-2015. But again, the top teams in those one bid conferences have improved lately ... so it currently bothers me less.