Welcome back, college sports fans, to episode 724 which is about three games that have significant impact on their respective conferences. Sure, it’s easy to say that in the sport with the most important regular season, but we will back up those thoughts. But first, last night we had a very large serving of crow after predicting Mid Tenn (4-4/114) to beat Kennesaw St (2-6/137). In fact, we suggested a blowout win by the Blue Raiders, but somehow KNST gave up 20 third downs (55% conversion), 22 first downs, 380 yards (compared to 318), and a kickoff return for a touchdown yet managed to win 44-28. Granted they had a pick six (which just washes the special teams score). We did predict a double-digit win, but we picked the wrong team. Jax St (6-2/56) took care of business by shutting out home team New Mexico St (3-5/134) which exceeded our 9 to 13-point range. So, 1-1 straight up and 1-1 against the spread yesterday brings us to an early 3-1/3-1 split.
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After yesterday’s post, we realized this was our 80th of this season (May to April). We are on a record pace due to changing the frequency of our Expectation posts. In previous years, we posted football once a week on the day of the first games during the regular season. That meant that for August and September we posted on Thursday, shifting to Tuesday or Wednesday for October and November. Bowls and playoff games became daily. For basketball, we didn’t begin posting Expectations until Conference Tournament season but posted every day there was at least one game. This season, in both men’s and women’s basketball, as we are already posting for football, if there is a game, we are creating an Expectation about it. This post (number 81 on the season) is the tenth day in a row (which is a record) and we will have at least one until December 25th which is an off day for all three leagues. After that, the next off day is during March Madness. Just guessing, we think we are going to exceed 250 total posts this season (plus March Madness) – another record. While the GCR began years before this site did, the audience was purposefully small. From 2012 to 2018, we were football only and email to colleagues and friends only. On August 30th, 2019, we published on this platform for the first time. That’s 2617 days and just 724 posts – one every 3.61 days, including the offseason (which used to be February to June). This season (and we hope future ones) will have a healthier ratio of less than 1.5 days per post, including the offseason of mid-April to mid-July. Adjusted for the time off, our productivity will fall closer to 1.1 days per post. Of course, this includes double posting days in which we have an Expectation (the games of the day) and an Evaluation (rankings of one of the three leagues). We think all of us can agree that G (who questioned and compiled this data), is on the geeky side of humanity. Ok, very far on that side.
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If anyone is still reading (and we certainly hope you are), we have three games today and each has a major impact on their respective conference (which we promised earlier to prove – here goes). First, at 7:00 (all times Eastern), we have the MEAC’s first game of the week. The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference has 6 football teams who play all of their non-conference games before any in-conference games begin. We know we are approaching the last month of the regular season when the MEAC starts playing each other. That happened last week which gives us just 4 more weeks of the FCS schedule (5 more FBS). Another fun fact about the MEAC is, like the other major HBCU conference (SWAC), do not participate in the 24-team FCS championship tournament. Instead, the winner of each conference face off in the only FCS bowl game, the Celebration Bowl. SC St (6-2/148) is 1-0 in MEAC play after besting Norfolk St (4-4/226) last week. They are facing Morgan St (5-3/195) who dropped a home game, in overtime, to Howard (4-4/243). This SCST/MORG matchup features the only two MEAC teams ranked better than 200 in the GCR’s Top 266. If SCST wins, they have a commanding 2-game lead (out of a 5-game schedule) over the second-best team in the conference. If Morgan St wins, someone else (either Howard or NC Central or both) could take the lead at 2-0, or there could be a six-way 1-1 tie, but Morgan St would have the tiebreaker over the Bulldogs. Vegas has SCST-7.5 and while the GCR agrees with the win, the data is unclear about who will cover the spread. Officially, the GCR predicts MORG for that role, but the test metric has SCST-8.0. We, as always, not only do not encourage betting, but we would also much rather our readers invest those funds for the future. If you do bet, please only use reputable sites and only gamble what you can safely lose. The GCR is always for entertainment purposes only. That said, this game should be interesting and can be found on ESPNU.
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With a 7:30 kickoff, we shift to the Sun Belt where Troy (3-4/117) travels to an angry James Madison (7-1/28) who lost their first game of the season last week, in overtime, at App St (5-2/83). App St now has the tiebreaker over the Dukes and both have one conference loss (along with Ga Southern). JMU is 4-1 while the other two are 2-1, but if APST wins out, they will win the East (the Sun Belt is the only FBS conference that still has divisions). Troy just 1-2 in the conference, but still within striking difference of the West leader La Tech (5-2/65), who is 3-0. Interestingly, LATC is a new arrival to the Sun Belt from Conference USA to replace Texas St who moved to the new Pac 12. A loss by Troy not only all but eliminates them from conference contention but also puts a potential bowl game almost out of reach. JMU has to win (at least unless App St loses to Ga Southern Saturday) or they risk falling the equivalent of 2 games behind the Mountaineers. How many times have we seen a team lose an emotional game only to lose to a lesser team the next week – commonly called losing twice to the first team. Vegas doesn’t see a dropoff for the Dukes with JMU-18.5, a healthy number that the GCR agrees with. Dukes win and cover. Watch this game on ESPN2.
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Our final game, also at 7:30, is critical to the American race. UTSA (7-1/40) and 4-0 in conference has a bye week, so North Texas (5-2/54) and 3-0 in conference has a chance to achieve a tie for the lead when hosting FAU (5-2/74), who is 2-1 in conference (lost to Army). If FAU can win this, they get UTSA next week and could create a tiebreak advantage over both of them. They would still lose the tiebreaker to Army (5-2/66) and 4-1 in conference, but it could be enough to get a rematch in the conference championship. The Mean Green face UTSA on 11/14 with the winner almost ensuring a spot in the title game, assuming North Texas wins tonight. Vegas has NTEX-14.5 at home in a near must win game. The GCR agrees the Mean Green will both win and cover. This game is on ESPN.
| Time (ET) | Games of October 29th | Conference | Vegas | GCR | Cover | TV |
| 7:00 | SC St (6-2/148) at Morgan St (5-3/195) | MEAC | SCST -7.5 | SCST | MORG | ESPNU |
| 7:30 | Troy (3-4/117) at James Madison (7-1/28) | SUN | JMU -18.5 | JMU | JMU | ESPN2 |
| 7:30 | FAU (5-2/74) at North Texas (5-2/54) | AAC | NTEX -14.5 | NTEX | FAU | ESPN |
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That’s it for today. Tune in tomorrow for a 4-game set which features our first Core 4 game of the week. Thank you for reading. We know you are busy, have a million things to do, and are inundated with distractions. Thank you for making us one of those distractions you keep. Thank you for comments and suggestions. We do occasionally come up with a new metric or something on our own, but most of the improvements to our content and how it’s presented came from readers. We cannot thank you enough. Thank you for sharing with others. Our readership has grown tremendously (6x since this time last year) and is attributable only to our existing readers. When you like what you read, please share with as many people as you can. If you don’t, please send us a comment. We will try to make it better. The GCR is free to read and share and always ad-free. We will keep it that way. Thank you for taking this journey with us, JoJo and G.
