Ho hum...another blowout over an overmatched opponent in TSU. Cent AK won again to stay with us at 6-0 in the conference.
McNeese should be an easy win, but it's a rivalry game so you never know. Northwestern will be an easy win. That Central Arkansas game is setting up to be a classic. For all the marbles. Glad it's at our place. It's really our only true test of the entire season. It should tell us whether this team is for real or not. It's really hard to tell with our cupcake schedule. Not our fault the whole conference sucks.
The FCS College Football playoff committee released their top 10. They'll continue to do so for the next three weeks until the actual playoff seeds are released. SHSU was slotted at No 2. Top for is: 1. Jacksonville State, 2. SHSU, 3. EWU, and 4. NDSU. Hope that holds, we'd get EWU at home and not have to face NDSU until Frisco.
Game was much closer than it should've been. We took the foot off the pedal after halftime and McNeese started to play some offense. I'm still concerned about our pass defense. Still getting beat over the top too often.
I got out of my car and it was 28-3. Checked my phone a little while later and saw it was 49-43. SMH... We had some db's out, but still.....we can't put teams away in the 2nd half. It's been a pattern all year long. Hope it doesn't come back to haunt us in the playoffs.
They still have a team? Good for them. It's important for those kids to get out there and be active. #Play60
Game was much closer than it should have been, but offense was still dominate at least. May have to try to go to the UCA game. It'll essentially be our first playoff game (although we may end up playing them again in the playoffs, hopefully at home).
Obviously it's not too uncommon for teams who are constantly going up by 3 TDs in the first quarter to take it easy in the second half, allowing the opponent to make a comeback towards the end. Potentially troubling? Yes. But not the worst problem in the world to have. I imagine if the game was close throughout the team would be engaged throughout. Of course we'll know for sure come the last week of the season onward.
If by "active" you mean 500 kids standing in a parking lot drinking free St. Arnolds, then yes, good for them.
I suppose it's a good problem to have. Yes, I know we're 9-0 and ranked #1 in the country.....but why can't we maintain all the 25 point leads we always get in the 1st half of games? :mad: But I do wish we could milk the clock on offense a little more once we go up by 3 or more touchdowns.
We generally play a lot of backups in the 3rd and 4th quarters. My concern is more conditioning. I remember in 2011 we were having similar success (although the Southland seems worse and the team seems to be scoring better), and the team didn't play in the 4th a lot (Flanders, Sincere, etc.). When we had to go up against NDSU, seemed like we ran out of steam. Same when we played Montana in the semis and they made a huge comeback (even though they came up short).
New playoff rankings released. 1. Jacksonville State 8-1 2. Eastern Washington 8-1 3. North Dakota State 8-1 4. James Madison 8-1 5. Sam Houston State 9-0 9. Central Arkansas 8-1 LOL.... They're really hammering us for our SOS. Should (hopefully) fix itself if we beat UCA.
I think if we beat UCA (hopefully beat them really well), then we can jump up to 3/4. I'd rather be 4 in that scenario if EWU and NDSU end of the 2/3 seeds. We'd have to play JSU on the road in the semis, but we've beat them on the road before, and they're offense doesn't seem that great.
This is the first year I've noticed these rankings. Are they what will be used to determine seeding? Weren't they the ones that hammered the s*** out of us last year in the semis?
The selection committee is new for this year. It should be the same committee that ultimately decides the seedings. Interesting note, the AD of JSU is on the committee. I think he has to leave the room during the actual seeding process though when they select the seeds. JSU stomped us last year. But to be fair, every time we lose our last game we get stomped. We beat them the year before, on the road I believe. They've had a hard time scoring this year (last game was 17-10 I think). We'd have better odds against them than EWU or NDSU, I think. Still think if we beat UCA we'll get a good bump from the committee.
New playoff rankings released last night. More shuffling at the top, but SHSU stayed #5. JSU fell to number three and NDSU jumped to #1. UCA is now ranked # 7, so we really need a win on Saturday. 1. NDSU 2. EWU 3. Jax St 4. JMU 5. SHSU 6. The Citadel 7. UCA 8. Richmond 9. UND 10. SDSU
Being undefeated and #5 is aggravating, but it's hard to defend our SOS when Saturday's game is literally the first time we will face a team this year that currently has a winning record. That being said, it's not our fault that the Southland is so pathetic and that programs like Lamar, sfa and McNeese are playing so horribly this year. It will suck if we end up 11-0 and don't get home field until Frisco, but we've never really had a problem winning playoff games on the road under Keeler (3-2 road playoff record). And this year's team is Keeler's best yet. Playoffs should be interesting as I think any one of those top 5 teams could easily win it all.
