Salutations on a late Friday night blog!! I hope all of you remember your mothers in your life or you will have someone remember you if you are a mom. Earlier this week, I talked about the 3 weakest conferences by 2020 Preseason SOS: Ivy League, FCS Independents, and Patriot. This week we will look at numbers 22-20: Pioneer, Southwestern Athletic (SWAC), and Northeast.
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The 9-team Pioneer League is a truly national conference as you’ll see in the SOS ranking. They are 22nd in difficulty with an SOS score of 3.581. Just a quick reminder: the score provided is the SOS value calculated using opponent’s 2019 win totals, taking into considering Home/Neutral/Away games and playing above or below sub-league (Power 5, Group of 5, FCS, non-division I). All three of the conferences today are in the FCS. The parenthetical number is the teams SOS rank out of the 257 Division I teams.
- Valparaiso (Indiana): 4.450 (159)
- Drake (Iowa): 3.977 (189)
- Dayton (Ohio): 3.773 (206)
- Marist (New York): 3.727 (209)
- Butler (Indiana): 3.585 (219)
- Morehead St (Kentucky): 3.580 (221)
- Davidson (North Carolina): 3.068 (249)
- San Diego (California): 3.045 (252)
- Stetson (Florida): 3.023 (254)
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As I did last week and will for the rest of the FCS, I’ll talk about the strongest and weakest schedules for each conference. For the Pioneer, Valparaiso’s most difficult game is at Central Connecticut (11-2 last year) worth 8.25 points and they also have games at North Dakota (7-5) and Stetson (7-4) worth 5.25 each. Stetson on the other hand starts its season against Ave Maria and Louisiana College, both non-division I teams, then 2 road games vs Butler (3-9) and Presbyterian (2-10) before returning home to battle Valparaiso (1-11). That 5 game stretch averages just 1.400 landing them the least challenged in the conference.
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In 21st position is the only FCS conference with divisions: the SWAC. The 10 team conference average 3.661 Pre-SOS. Here’s the breakdown
- Prairie View: 4.057 (183)
- Arkansas Pine Bluff: 4.034 (185)
- Alcorn St: 4.000 (186)
- Alabama A&M: 3.994 (188)
- Alabama St: 3.847 (197)
- Jackson St: 3.585 (219)
- Mississippi Valley: 3.511 (226)
- Grambling St: 3.420 (230)
- Southern: 3.085 (247)
- Texas Southern: 3.080 (248)
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Prairie View starts out against last year’s worst team: winless Texas Southern before playing at TCU (5-7) worth 7.5 points and at LA Tech (10-3) worth 11.25 points. Those two games are enough to put them just ahead of Ark Pine Bluff. Hapless Texas Southern might win a game this year as they have a tie for most difficult game at a score of 4.5. A neutral game against Southern (8-5) and at Alabama St (5-6).
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Our last conference today is the 9 team Northeast Conference coming in at #20 averaging 3.693.
- Wagner: 4.386 (163)
- Duquesne: 4.216 (172)
- Long Island: 4.159 (175)
- Merrimack: 3.875 (194)
- St Francis: 3.591 (217)
- Bryant: 3477 (228)
- Robert Morris: 3.330 (237)
- Sacred Heart: 3.136 (244)
- Central Connecticut: 3.068 (249)
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Wagner has three tough road games early in the season: Central Connecticut (11-2) worth 8.25, Miami FL (6-7) worth 9, and Monmouth (11-3) worth 8.25. Central Connecticut, on the other hand, may have another big win total. They only have one game with a score above 5.25 at Toledo (6-6) worth 6.75.
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That’s it for today. In a few more days, I’ll talk about the 3 set in this series numbers 19-17.
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Enjoy the weekend and please send comments/questions/issues/complaints since I am always trying to improve the blog. Thanks, G
