Happy Saturday, oh great and wonderful college football fans. Today we are just 11 weeks and 19 conferences away from the opening weekend (August 24th). You can check out every past blog at http://bit.ly/2019GCR. We are roughly halfway through the FCS and are still on schedule! This week we are looking at the #19 in terms of difficulty (out of 25), the 7-team Patriot League. I’ve been watching these teams for a while now and a few years ago they were awful! The best team (Holy Cross) at 6-5 in the regular season was the only team above .500 only making the playoffs because of the automatic bid (note: to qualify for the FCS playoffs a team must have 7 wins. In 2022 Holy Cross won double digits and last year Lafayette took the reins and won 9. They have really turned it around.
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By the way, I did some analysis on the records last season. FCS teams had a combined record of 682-752 (.476) which is reflective of the near 1-game per team average vs FBS opponents. The Group of 5 (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt, and non-Notre Dame Independents) went 397-418 (.487) and the Power 5 (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC, and Notre Dame) went 509-378 (.574). The FBS was 906-796 (.532). Overall, Division I teams combined for a 1588-1548 (.506) record which is reflective of the FCS vs non-Division I opponents.
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Back to the Patriot League. In the table below (4) indicates a game against a Core 4 opponent (last year’s Power 5 but the dismantling of the Pac-12 changed the nickname), (G) indicates a Group of 5 opponent, (F) indicates a non-conference FCS opponent. There are no neutral site games nor non-D1 games scheduled. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the 2024 Patriot League:
| Team | 2023 Record (Rank) | 2024 PS SOS (Rank) | Home Games | Away/Neutral Games | Opp 2023 Rec |
| Holy Cross Crusaders (1) | 7-4 (158) | 3.09 (171) | (25-29/.463) New Hampshire (F), Yale (F), Fordham, Lehigh, Bucknell | (38-31/.551) Syracuse (4), Rhode Island (F), Bryant (F), Colgate, Lafayette, Georgetown | 63-60 (.512) |
| Lehigh Mountain Hawks (2) | 2-9 (248) | 2.89 (182) | (28-27/.509) Wagner (F), Princeton (F), Lafayette, Fordham, Colgate, Bucknell | (29-26/.527) Army (G), Long Island (F), Yale (F), Georgetown, Holy Cross | 57-53 (.518) |
| Fordham Rams (3) | 6-5 (184) | 2.67 (195) | (25-30/.455) Stony Brook (F), Merrimack (F), Lafayette, Colgate, Georgetown | (33-45/.423) Bowling Green (G), C Connecticut (F), Dartmouth (F), Monmouth (F), Holy Cross, Lehigh, Bucknell | 58-75 (.436) |
| Bucknell Bison (4) | 4-7 (213) | 2.64 (197) | (33-33/.500) Merrimack (F), Marist (F), Cornell (F), Lafayette, Fordham, Colgate | (30-3/.455) Navy (G), VMI (F), Penn (F), Lehigh, Georgetown, Holy Cross | 63-69 (.477) |
| Colgate Raiders (5) | 6-5 (182) | 2.43 (209) | (34-23/.596) Villanova (F), Cornell (F), Holy Cross, Georgetown, Lafayette | (27-30/.351) Akron (G), Maine (F), Penn (F), Merrimack (F), Fordham, Lehigh, Bucknell | 61-73 (.455) |
| Georgetown Hoyas (6) | 5-6 (221) | 2.06 (241) | (28-36/.438) Davidson (F), Brown (F), Columbia (F), Bucknell, Lehigh, Holy Cross | (27-28/.491) Marist (F), Sacred Heart (F), Lafayette, Colgate, Fordham | 55-64 (.462) |
| Lafayette Leopards (7) | 9-3 (145) | 1.96 (253) | (23-31/.426) Marist (F), Sacred Heart (F), Stonehill (F), Georgetown, Holy Cross | (28-49/.364) Buffalo (G), Monmouth (F), Columbia (F), Fordham, Bucknell, Colgate, Lehigh | 51-80 (.389) |
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That’s it for today. Next time we’ll jump into the 18th most difficult conference and a last-minute conference change that gave me the…opportunity to spend some time recoding the schedules after the preseason SOS began. The FCS can be a crazy League. Thank you as always for reading and especially for sharing with others. Let me know your thoughts, concerns, issues, complaints, recommendations in the comments. Until next time, G
