Happy Sunday, oh great and wonderful college football fans. Today we are going to explore the FCS and figure out which conferences were the best (one has to give the initial nod to the Missouri Valley Conference who had both teams in the finals, but we’ll see what the data show). The next post will be the Group of 5 and then the Power 5. Pretty soon after that, we’ll talk about the teams changing conferences outright (24 of those) and conferences merging together (4 to 2 of those). Then in the summer, we’ll start talking about the pre-season strength of schedule by conference that is the closest I come to pre-season predictions. Once that’s done, we will (finally) be ready for the 2023 season. But first, the FCS conference comparison and analysis.
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There were 15 conferences this past season ranging from 6 teams (ASUN, Big South, MEAC, and WAC), the minimum to be a viable FCS conference, to 13 teams (Colonial). Most teams play an 11-game schedule (notably not the IVY which plays a 10-game, 7-conference game schedule) with 24 teams of the 130 making the playoffs. The Ivy League does not participate in the post-season at all. The SWAC (Southwestern Athletic) and MEAC (Mid-Eastern Athletic) don’t participate in the playoffs, but their conference champions meet in the Celebration Bowl in December each year (NC Central took out previously undefeated Jackson St 41-34 in OT). The remaining 104 vie for the 24 spots. Conference champions (for the most part) earn a spot. The exception, due to size of conference, the Big South and Ohio Valley conferences shared an automatic bid as well as the ASUN and the WAC. Next year, those pairs will combine officially to create two new conferences of roughly 10 teams each. The remaining spots are given at-large, by committee, with a minimum win requirement of 7.
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Some FCS teams play non-division-I teams to round out their schedules similar to FBS teams playing FCS teams. More games are played up (against FBS teams which are great ways for these smaller schools to get money for their athletic programs) than down (to non-D1 which costs them money). Most of the games against the FBS result in losses, many of them by blowout, but 8 times last year the FCS team prevailed: William & Mary beat Charlotte 41-24, Delaware topped Navy 14-7, E Kentucky squeaked out a 7-OT victory over Bowling Green 59-57, Holy Cross edged Buffalo 37-31, Incarnate Word bested Nevada 55-41, Weber St dominated Utah St 35-7, S Illinois surprised Northwestern 31-24, and Sacramento St stunned Colorado St 41-10 – out of the more than 100 games this year. As a result, FCS teams averaged a winning percentage of .452 in non-conference games. Similarly, the percentage of teams with a winning percentage of at least .500 is .454, so most teams had losing records. In the table below, I show the average wins/losses per team within each conference because the totals are not comparable (6 teams vs 13 teams). I also show the non-conference winning pcts for each conference and how many “good” teams (.500 or better). That is followed by the highest GCR ranked team in the conference. Remember, there are 261 teams in D1 with 130 of them in the FCS. If a team is ranked higher than 131 (really about 141ish), it means they were better than some FBS teams. If we assume an expected ranking that all FCS schools are ranked between 132 and 261, the average would be 196.5. That number can be used as a comparison not only for a different definition of “good” team, but also for the average conference rankings and SOS rankings.
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Enough with the set-up, here are all 15 conferences, sorted weakest to strongest by average conference ranking. Enjoy and we’ll be back in a few days with a similar analysis for the FBS. Thank you for reading and sharing with others, G.
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| Rank | Conference | Avg Record | NC Pct | .500 Teams | Best Team | Average Ranking | Average SOS (Rank) |
| 15 | Patriot (7) | 5.00 – 6.43 | .368 | 1 (.143) | Holy Cross (12-1/107) | 213.86 | 215.29 (12) |
| 14 | Northeast (8) | 4.63 – 6.25 | .290 | 2 (.250) | St Francis (9-3/149) | 207.25 | 227.75 (14T) |
| 13 | Southland (8) | 5.00 – 6.63 | .430 | 2 (.250) | Incarnate Word (12-2/119) | 202.25 | 207.75 (11) |
| 12 | MEAC (6) | 4.83 – 6.33 | .378 | 1 (.167) | NC Central (10-2/138) | 203.33 | 203.17 (10) |
| 11 | Big South (6) | 4.17 – 7.00 | .271 | 2 (.333) | NC A&T (7-4/170) | 203.17 | 178.00 (2) |
| 10 | Pioneer (11) | 5.18 – 5.82 | .400 | 5 (.455) | St Thomas (10-1/123) | 199.91 | 216.18 (13) |
| 9 | Ohio Valley (7) | 5.00 – 6.00 | .415 | 3 (.429) | SEMO (9-3/150) | 199.29 | 200.57 (9) |
| 8 | SWAC (12) | 5.33 – 5.92 | .400 | 5 (.417) | Jackson St (12-1/104) | 196.75 | 185.58 (7) |
| 7 | Colonial (13) | 6.15 – 5.54 | .583 | 8 (.615) | William & Mary (11-2/134) | 192.92 | 197.69 (8) |
| 6 | SoCon (9) | 5.78 – 5.67 | .516 | 5 (.556) | Samford (11-2/133) | 190.11 | 179.44 (4) |
| 5 | WAC (6) | 5.50 – 5.17 | .533 | 4 (.667) | Abilene Christian (7-4/167) | 187.67 | 187.33 (6) |
| 4 | Big Sky (12) | 5.92 – 5.92 | .500 | 6 (.500) | Sacramento St (12-1/115) | 187.58 | 180.58 (5) |
| 3 | ASUN (6) | 5.67 -5.50 | .513 | 3 (.500) | Jacksonville St (9-2/141) | 183.00 | 169.67 (1) |
| 2 | IVY (8) | 5.88 – 4.13 | .792 | 6 (.667) | Yale (8-2/147) | 187.25 | 227.75 (14T) |
| 1 | Missouri Valley (11) | 6.09 – 5.73 | .550 | 6 (.545) | South Dakota St (14-1/108) | 181.45 | 178.18 (3) |
