Week 7 in review

What a crazy week in the FCS. Let us look at it by conference today.

The Ivy League is still Penn’s to lose as they won, and Harvard coughed up a 17 point lead in the 3rd quarter to lose to Lehigh. Yale on the other had did remain unbeaten with a 4th quarter touchdown. They share the Ivy League lead.

The surprising league today was the Big Sky. Eastern Washington had to come back to Northern Colorado. Northern Arizona handled Montana State in the biggest surprise of the day by a score of 34-7. Montana and Portland State went to the wire as well, but Montana ended their west coast jinx 23-21. This is now basically a three way tie at the top between Eastern Washington (4-1), Montana (4-1), and Montana State (3-1) who all have one loss in the conference and a 5-2 overall record. Northern Arizona is 4-2 overall but also only has one conference loss (2-1).

The Big South featured Liberty rolling over VMI 41-7. Liberty is undefeated in conference and 5-2 over all. They are not getting a lot of national respect, but they have a good offense. Technically Coastal Carolina is undefeated in conference too thanks to a win today, but this is Liberty’s to lose.

The Colonial Athletic Conference had Delaware and Villanova win, but James Madison lost to New Hampshire 28-14, and Richmond surprised Umass 11-10.


The Great West saw an upset as well as Southern Utah beat Cal Poly 20-7, and the Cal Poly touchdown as meaningless as the game ticked away. South Dakota U (soon to be Great West) lost to Northern Iowa.

The MEAC served up surprises as well. Bethune-Cookman shut out South Carolina State 14-0. I did not see that one coming. Hampton stayed undefeated in the MEAC and 5-1 overall. Florida State’s 31-0 drubbing of Savanah State keeps them with an outside hope of a MEAC title.

The Missouri Valley remains a mystery. South Dakota State’s 31-10 victory over Southern Illinois muddies the water in the MVC. Every team now has a loss. Youngstown State’s victory over Western Illinois was also a shocker and cost Western a chance to grab a lead in conference.

The NEC is Robert Morris as they showed again by beating Albany 38-0. Wagner is next in conference and they won 22-14 over St. Francis PA.

The Ohio Valley Conference is a showdown between undefeated Jacksonville State (including that big win at Ole Miss) and SE Missouri State, the surprise team this year who is undefeated in conference and 5-1 overall. Jacksonville State had no problem with Tennessee State 24-0, and SE Missouri survived Austin Peay after a slow start 41-24. They were down 13-14 at half.

Colgate has the Patriot league lead, I think. They won 44-3 over Cornell (Ivy League). This league is weak overall.

Pioneer Conference is going to be Jacksonville, who hung an 86-7 victory on Valpo, or Dayton, who beat Butler 33-13. Both are 5-1 overall and undefeated in conference.

The Southern Conference went according to plan. Wofford beat Western Carolina 45-14 and Appy State beat Citadel 39-10. Both are undefeated in Southern Conference play. Chattanooga pulled off a second half come back (35-27) on Georgia Southern to remain in the chase with one conference loss and they have yet to play Wofford.

Southland also went pretty calmly. SF Austin continued to roll as did Sam Houston State. When those two meet it ought to be fun. McNeese State gave LSU all they could handle, but were unable to pull off the upset. LSU ran up the score at the end to try and avoid being a laughing stock. McNeese St. was only down 16-10 at half.

SWAC ends our tour with Grambling State showing a great game in beating Alcorn State 38-28. Southern let Jackson State have a tough time of it. That game ended with Jackson St squeeking at a 49-45 victory.