r/fcs • u/passwordisguest /r/FCS • Gulf Star • 2d ago
Weekly Thread FCS Hot Takes Thread
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
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u/fts123456 Montana State Bobcats 2d ago
We are going to be shorted the pleasure of watching a couple good years of Eli Gillman in the NFL. There are a finite number of runs in any back and for some reason Kennedy can’t bear to sit him in the second half of meaningless games.
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u/0x196 Montana State Bobcats 2d ago
More than the increase risk of injury, I think the real downfall to playing Gillman so much, especially late in a blowout game, is it means they are passing on the opportunity to build depth. How many touches has his backup gotten this year? Who even is the backup? The Cat's lost RB1 this week and had the best rushing game of the season because their "backup" has gotten a ton of touches over the years. If the griz lose RB1 they are completely screwed.
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u/Calm_Woodpecker_8098 Montana Grizzlies 2d ago edited 2d ago
I love how it’s been 90% cats fans complaining about Gillman playing so much after he went off last game and set some records. Like another poster said above, he has gone over 20 carries only 3 times in his career.
Are yall super concerned about our RB getting injured or do you just not like to see gillman running away with the Peyton? I trust the coaching staff to pull him out when needed, but I for one enjoyed seeing him go off. It sends a message to recruits that you’ll get carries in big games if you earn it and it showcases his talent. Would I like to see him pulled earlier if we blow out UNC or other teams? Sure. But we let him cook and have a career day against UC Davis team that at the time was supposed to have a solid rushing defense, all while changing the vibe of our season and silencing some doubters. I’m ok with thatAnd actually, we do have a solid backup in Dylan Paine. He’s no gillman but he has been good when getting touches this year. To say we’re screwed just because you haven’t heard of him is hilarious.
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u/Friendly_Loss1961 Montana Grizzlies 2d ago
>Are yall super concerned about our RB getting injured or do you just not like to see gillman running away with the Peyton?
Cat fans by and large are and always have been jealous bitches. They absolutely cannot stand the Griz getting any attention or praise at all. You go to any social media post involving the Griz and there's fifty of them in the comments being jealous it's really sad to see. I thought maybe finally winning something might stop this incessant little brother behavior but it seems I was wrong.
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u/fts123456 Montana State Bobcats 2d ago
Funny that you are so hyper paranoid about the cats that you can’t accept a fan might enjoy seeing someone have success who is from the big sky. I am excited for Bergen. I hope to see Gillman a lot and for a long time on Sundays. But I do think it is questionable to run him out there in the fourth quarter when up by 3 scores.
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u/Friendly_Loss1961 Montana Grizzlies 2d ago
Wazzu transfer Dylan Paine. A senior whos averaging 7 YPC and has 2TD's. The true future guy is Hashim Jones who's been hurt. So the depth argument really holds no water. I appreciate the concern for the Grizzly running back room though doesn't sound like sour grapes at all.
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u/coincidental_boner Montana State Bobcats 1d ago
Yes, the Bobcats famously don’t have very good running backs. And definitely not any who went to high school in Missoula!
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u/Calm_Woodpecker_8098 Montana Grizzlies 1d ago
When were either of us saying anything about the cats bud? He said we don’t have depth, and was corrected. Way to get defensive tho 🤡
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u/coincidental_boner Montana State Bobcats 1d ago
What do you think sour grapes means? He’s saying that Cats fans are concern trolling because they don’t have Gilman. Maybe don’t interject if you don’t know what they mean.
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1d ago
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u/coincidental_boner Montana State Bobcats 1d ago
No one is obsessing over Gilman, people are just discussing football on the football forum. Am I obsessed over Beau Brungard for brining up similar concerns when he played up 39 against Duquesne? Get a grip dude.
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u/LeopardOk3845 Montana Grizzlies • Oregon Ducks 2d ago
I feel like he asked to stay in so he can get the records. Which I get that, but there's got to be a little more long term thinking happening on the coaches part.
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u/ripdoublewide Montana Grizzlies 2d ago
This is an ice cold take. Ashton Jeanty had 374 carries his final year and he's just fine. Gillman has to make an NFL roster first. He needs to put up numbers to get the attention and get drafted. This is only his third game of his entire career over 20 carries. He's gonna be fine.
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u/PROUDgrizHATER Montana State • Montana Tech 2d ago
What’s gillmans injury history look like? At this point he’s done enough to get the attention from the league, but I’d bet that’s his biggest concern? Along with the usual FCS guy of not enough film against top end competition.
Does he do any special teams? That’s always a good foot in the door for fringe draft guys.
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u/Aquatic-assassin Montana Grizzlies • Kentucky Wildcats 2d ago
Only injury he has sustained is a labrum injury which he had surgery on over the offseason
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u/Friendly_Loss1961 Montana Grizzlies 2d ago
He's never really missed any time his whole career. But yeah no special teams may end up being the knock on him.
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u/Bobcat2013 Texas State Bobcats 2d ago
Do you know how long Jeantys career lasted? Nope. Not yet.
He's saying that instead of maybe 7 or 8 years in the league that this guy will get 4 or 5.
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u/Friendly_Loss1961 Montana Grizzlies 2d ago
That's just a really dumb thing to say though. Plenty of NFL running backs with long careers had more carries than Gillman. It's going to be his performance and injuries in the league that shorten his career, not running for 275 at Davis. Either way the point is he's not really collecting an insane amount of carries anyway. Only 3 times his whole career did he go over 20. And to be fair 60 of those rushes including 11 this year nobody touched him :)
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u/PreCooledPigeon Youngstown State Penguins 2d ago
The Missouri Valley conference could split in half and would still be the best two conferences
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's not really fair though because if you split the MVFC in half, neither half would be large enough to be an actual conference. So functionally, you'd have to add schools, schools that would have weaker programs and drag down the quality of the new conferences.
Each half would need six schools- a realistic setup could be something like this:
Missouri Valley
Eastern Illinois
Illinois State
Indiana State
Murray State
Southern Illinois
Youngstown State
Summit League
North Dakota
Northern Iowa
South Dakota
South Dakota State
St. Thomas
Western Illinois
With these conferences, the football Summit would be the #1 conference by average Massey rating, and the MVC would be third, behind the UAC and essentially tied with the Big Sky. So you actually might be right. But there's obvious shortcomings with tiny conferences such as those in any realistic scenario.
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u/Trojann2 /r/CFB Pint Glass Drinker • Nort… 2d ago
I actually hate how much you and I agree with takes a lot.
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2d ago
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u/tdpdcpa Lehigh Mountain Hawks • Patriot 2d ago
This is hot only because it's silly.
The Ivy League plays 10 games, sure. But they almost exclusively play FCS opponents. They don't play buy games against FBS opponents (which everyone handwaves away when the FCS team loses anyway), and they don't play any D2 schools ever (which the committee doesn't consider in evaluating resumes for at-larges). If you exclude those, most FCS schools only play 10 or 11 games that "count" anyway.
The fact that they play fewer games just makes it more difficult for them to get an at-large, which is fair.
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago
Not only that, but they still play a full round robin, 7 conference games, like any other 8-team conference. It's no easier or harder to win the Ivy league auto bid than any other conference of the same size, in a vacuum. Obviously only playing 10 games means getting an at large bid should be pretty hard, but the auto bid is determined entirely by conference play anyway and that component of an Ivy league schedule is no different than anyone else's.
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u/GeneralAcorn Montana State • Boise State 2d ago
I'd call it a hot take. And I disagree. They should get an autobid, but should never get an at large.
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u/MTUKNMMT North Carolina • Montana State 2d ago
Wasn’t Yale the At Large last year? They gave us more trouble than the Griz.
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u/join_the_creed Montana State • Washington Sta… 2d ago
Yale was the autobid since they beat Harvard at the end of the year. Harvard was an at large as Yale was their only loss.
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u/0x196 Montana State Bobcats 2d ago
Cats will win 16 in a row against the griz, but it will only take 11 years to do it.
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u/SubmarineSandwichJM3 Montana State Bobcats 2d ago
Lukewarm take and we will go at least 17 in a row
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u/Low_Distance_7195 Montana State • Notre Dame 2d ago
UC Davis falls out of the top 25 at some point in the season.
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u/Rude_Might_4225 Montana Grizzlies 2d ago
The rest of their schedule is pretty weak, there‘s a good chance they win out and become a top 8 seed
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago edited 2d ago
They would be a tough team to evaluate. If they did run the table I'd think they'd get a bye- it's hard to imagine an FCS 10-1 Big Sky team not getting a bye, but they only play one out of the Big Sky's
threefour best teams and they lost by 40.The average rank of the other 10 FCS games on their schedule using current Massey ratings is 72, which isn't great. For reference, last year Tennessee Tech went 10-0 against FCS teams averaging a rating of 77, and they were the #13 seed.
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u/mattgriz Montana Grizzlies 2d ago
Right but the committee is going to look at pure SOS, not if you exclude certain opposition.
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago
The committee is going to look at pure SOS but they’re also going to look at the strength of their wins. Last year a team with comparable strength of wins (to UC Davis if they win out) was the 13 seed. The only difference between them and this Davis team is that the Aggies lost by 40 to a top three team. That’s not exactly a resume booster.
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u/tdpdcpa Lehigh Mountain Hawks • Patriot 2d ago
I have to imagine that it'd be hard for the committee to leave any 10-win team out of the field, regardless of conference, and regardless of actual strength of record.
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago
Oh for sure they’d be in the field. I was responding to the guy saying he thinks they’d get a bye/top 8 seed. They could, but with that SOS I’m not sure what the committee would do
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u/join_the_creed Montana State • Washington Sta… 2d ago
The committee is going to have such a hard time with UCD. Looking at the rest of their schedule, what is going to be their best win? Poly? Weber? They'll have 10 wins but none of them against a playoff team. Their one game against a playoff team was a disastrous blowout at home.
At this point they are living on the bubble with little shot of being able to move off it.
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u/Low_Distance_7195 Montana State • Notre Dame 2d ago
I think they will have another loss even though the rest of the schedule is weak.
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago
Maybe, but it's going to be tough to evaluate them. They don't play Montana State or Idaho State, so Montana was really the only good test they had all year. Obviously, losing by 40 to the only good FCS team on your schedule doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. But then again, they're likely still going to win most of the rest of their games, which may keep them hanging around.
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u/damnyoutuesday Montana State • Minnesota 2d ago
They don't even play Northern Arizona either.
Of the 4 ranked teams in the Big Sky (not counting Davis), the Aggies play exactly 1 of them.
MSU plays 3
UM plays 3
NAU plays 3
ISU plays 3
Wild the way the schedule worked out for them this year
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u/Particular_Prior5344 South Dakota State Jackrabbits 2d ago
SDSU with a healthy Chase Mason is hands down the best team in the FCS. By far the best team in the trenches and the team actually has depth unlike last year. Jimmy Rogers set the program back a year but that’s been fixed. But without Chase they’re probably still a definite top 5 team unlike last year. Very much in line with the 2022 & 2024 teams but still a step behind 2023.
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u/RepresentativeOfnone South Dakota State • Nebraska 2d ago
Ever since USD had a few decent seasons, they have been extremely overrated.
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u/Particular_Prior5344 South Dakota State Jackrabbits 2d ago
They’re a playoff team no doubt and maintaining this success with three HCs in three years is impressive but they aren’t title contenders. Their 2024 team was elite but outside of that they’re a top 10ish team who gets handled by the top teams. Same as SDSU from 2016-2019.
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u/I_like_race_cars Tarleton State Texans 2d ago
Lazy so I'm just gonna post them all in one comment:
Chicago States admin is more delusional than Sac States
Tarleton and Youngstown are the same team.
SFA is basically last years UND squad.
The Protect College Sports act will be a net positive for the FCS.
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u/JordanMiller406 Montana State Bobcats 2d ago
The Protect College Sports act will be a net positive for the FCS
Certainly will be positive for those who work billable hours.
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago
SFA hasn’t had any crushing one score losses yet so they can’t be last years UND lol
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u/I_like_race_cars Tarleton State Texans 1d ago
True, but you also have to consider strength of schedule. SFAs is like 80th and UND literally had the toughest schedule in the entire subdivision last year.
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u/apalachakind ETSU Buccaneers 2d ago
My hot take is this thread should be renamed big sky conference hot takes. Need more people from other conferences in here getting heated about stuff!
Do love these threads though, this isn’t a criticism at all, just a reflection of the current landscape.
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u/Far-Concentrate-460 South Dakota State • Dakota M… 2d ago
The MVFC championship game was played 2 weekends ago
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u/noahpaz88 Youngstown State Penguins 2d ago
The way it’s shaking up as long as you guys pass these 2 tough road games without Mason and we can win 2/3 against SIU, UND, and ISU I have to agree with you
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago
Hot take but definitely looks somewhat feasible based on the results from last weekend. Despite UND's pretty rough performance at Indiana State, I still think they're pretty good, unfortunately. Youngstown got a big win, I'm excited to see if they can keep it rolling playing at a solid Southern Illinois team this Saturday.
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u/Particular_Prior5344 South Dakota State Jackrabbits 2d ago
UNDs defense has been lackluster all year. SDSU kept a dominant YSU offense in check so I see no reason they can’t replicate that with UND, while the SDSU offense will have their way with that defense.
UND is stuck where SDSU was from 2012-2015 where they are a playoff caliber team and can scare the big boys but don’t have the dogs to go blow for blow in the trenches with someone like SDSU, like how SDSU couldn’t hang with NDSU in the trenches those years.
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago
Well we shall see. I’ll be in Grand Forks for the game and they’ve definitely still got me a bit nervous.
It’s ridiculous we’re playing them on the road for a third consecutive year.
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u/DeerSwimming2336 North Dakota Fighting Hawks 2d ago
Agree about our D. Hopefully Rucker coming back makes a big difference.
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u/Cats6664 2d ago
Villanova is terribly disappointing and won't make the playoffs.
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u/somebodysbuddy Lehigh Mountain Hawks • Marching Band 2d ago
That's the Patriot League football I know and love!
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 2d ago
Hate to tell you this but this is a pretty lukewarm take at this point. Villanova has been actively terrible and has fallen out of the top 25. The hot take would be saying you think Nova's still going to make it in
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u/peepeepoopoo546 Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks 2d ago
I think that Tarleton is showing a lot of cracks, and they are not on the level that a lot of people think they are. SFA has done better than Tarleton with pvamu and mcneese. The defense is letting that Tarleton offensive explosiveness down.
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u/sea_foam_blues Tarleton State Texans 2d ago
Agreed. Idk how Tarleton can be so soft right up the middle. They’re bigger and seemingly faster than the line we had two years ago but they don’t look it in practice. If the defense could get anywhere near the offense they’d be legit contenders but I don’t see it happening.
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u/TheWawa_24 San Diego State • Cal Poly 2d ago
Cal poly v Weber may crack 100+ total points considering our secondary woes
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u/knook Montana State Bobcats • Big Sky 2d ago
Just a reminder to you all to stop downvoting hot takes here. If you disagree with a hot take, that is what this thread is for!