Valley well represented in playoffs

[fdbird83]

6 teams in.

2021 FCS Football Official Bracket | NCAA.com

The official 2021 College Football Bracket for FCS. Includes a printable bracket and links to buy NCAA championship tickets.

www.ncaa.com

 

[Birdswin]

Yes six teams in - but, only one in the Top 8 at #2. Then there are 5 on the same side of the bracket - plus, in back to back rounds, playing each other. SIU at South Dakota - with the winner going to ND State. It could work out where ND State would play a conference opponent throughout, except for one round.

 

[topiarydan]

and 2 of top 8 seeds are leaving fcs

 

[fdbird83]

I believe I read that they don't have 2 schools from the same conference play each other in the 1st round except when those schools didn't play each other during the regular season. SIU at South Dakota.

 

[Total Red]

I believe I read that they don't have 2 schools from the same conference play each other in the 1st round except when those schools didn't play each other during the regular season. SIU at South Dakota.

If so, that would be a new policy because the Redbirds played N. Iowa in the 1st round in 2014 and Western ILL in the 1st round in 2015, and both times the Redbirds had already faced those teams in the regular season. I've always had the feeling that the selection committee wants to reduce the chances of two teams from the same conference making the finals the way Illinois State and NDSU did.

 

[fdbird83]

Maybe they changed the rules.
Todd Hefferman

@THefferman
·
4h

For anyone curious, the FCS playoff committee can't put two teams in the same conference against one another in the first round UNLESS they didn't play during the regular season. SIU did not play South Dakota or North Dakota State. #Salukis

 

[redbirdfan04]

They did change the rule you can't play a conference opponent you played during the regular season in the first round.

 

[redbirdfan04]

and 2 of top 8 seeds are leaving fcs

Did you think 2 of the bottom FCS schools would be leaving for FBS?

 

[redbirdfan04]

Yes six teams in - but, only one in the Top 8 at #2. Then there are 5 on the same side of the bracket - plus, in back to back rounds, playing each other. SIU at South Dakota - with the winner going to ND State. It could work out where ND State would play a conference opponent throughout, except for one round.

I firmly believe they try to have the Big Sky, CAA, and Valley knock each other out. They never want two teams from the same conference in the title game again.

 

[fourthandshort]

With our Redbirds out of playoffs, I hope to update my MVFC playoff records since 2010 .. problem is I lost my original file where I kept the older results when I last did this a few years back. So need to compile all years again.

Spoiler alert ... MVFC does really well in playoffs, even excluding NDSU ... many non-MVFC peeps seem to think wwe are Paul McCartney & The WIngs .. we most certainly are not. Last time I did this, removing NDSU's 40-2 or so, the rest of MVFC was right around 25-13 in non-MVFC playoff games for a .658 win % and only CAA was close at our .500 win %. Big Sky and Southland were both under .500. Everyone else (aka, mostly autobids) was well under .300.

Noting, Big Sky has improved a lot the last few years, so they certainly closed gap a lot with their depth and playoff results lately. We'll see how much when I update. Though my sample size goes back to 2010.

But it gets way worse, if we similarly exclude each conferences dominant team to measure strength of rest of each conference

- MVFC excl NDSU .. was around .660.
- CAA excl JMU, or CAA excl UNH .. was at about .500 win % in both scenarios
- Big Sky excl EWU .. was around .350
- Southland excl SHSU .. was under .300

This not coincidentally speaks to many of our arguments in favor of Spack. The conference is loaded with quality playoff caliber teams. This also speaks to why I have always argued MVFC has gotten screwed out of bids most years. Most years, there should have been 1 more MVFC team, some years, 2 more teams. Yes, the Dakotas are a huge reason for this MVFC sustained success, but so is Spack .. 4 actual quarterfinal finishes, plsu 2 other teams I would argue were at that level (2011, 2016).

But the MVFC .660 win % in playoffs since 2010 excluding NDSU makings this blaringly obvious. Recall 2019, FCS pundits were all talking about what a down year it was in MVFC .. we got just 4 teams, and ISU was viewed as 1 foot out the door as we limped into playoffs. And we know how that went ... all 4 made round of 16, 3 made round of 8 .. with ISU and UNI giving NDSU and JMU all they could handle in the quartesr, and their toughest games of entire playoff. SIU (8-4, 5-3) was clearly screwed out of bid that year .. and that was acknowledged by outsiders.

I assume this is why we got 6 bids this year .. 2014 (dominant) and now 2019 (underdogs) were very compelling arguments, but taking over 2010-current, it is overwhelmingly compelling.

Anyway, I hope to update this over next week or so.