Greetings oh great and wonderful college football fans! It’s been about six months since my last post and I missed the entire spring season. We were dealing with some personal issues and I just couldn’t keep up with the weekly changes with everything on my plate. Apologies to my readers and although New Mexico St was the only FBS team to play in the spring (they went 1-1 vs new FCS teams Tarleton and Dixie St), I wanted to track the data. What’s past is past. Now, we are facing a “normal” year again, but there are some significant changes in conference alignment on the FCS side of the equation – it’s only fair that they are the primary focus of the first blog of this season.
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First, let’s get the FBS out of the way: the only conference change in the FBS world is a technical one, at best. Notre Dame, which temporarily joined the ACC for football in the pandemic season, moves back to their beloved yet archaic independent status. I don’t know about anyone else, but I am still hopeful that 2020 has an impact on the administration for the Irish to join a conference – the 1/2 season thing is like walking down the middle of the road: it’s not good for anybody. But that’s all I’ve got to say about the FBS this trip.
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The biggest conference news in the FCS is the creation of the AQ7 (Automatic Qualifier 7, seriously) Conference. It was created by teams in the Ohio Valley and Southland Conferences (both have their champion as a, you guessed it, automatic qualifier), in order to create a new automatic qualifier. I can’t make this stuff up, folks. Five of the teams shifted from the Southland to the AQ7 including the Abilene Christian Wildcats, C Arkansas Bears, Lamar Cardinals, Sam Houston Bearcats, and Steph F Austin Lumberjacks. They are joined by ex-Ohio Valley members E Kentucky Colonels and Jacksonville St Gamecocks. Probably the second biggest piece of news is that there are no independents in the FCS this year despite a new university joining the league. Welcome to the St Thomas Tommies (again, can’t make this stuff up) out of St Paul, Minnesota who will be joining the Presbyterian Blue Hose (again) of Clinton, SC to grow the Pioneer League to 11. The Tarleton Texans and Dixie St Trailblazers, who were independents in 2020 along with the Blue Hose, re-started the WAC for a 2-team conference – we’ll see where that goes next year.
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The Big South continued to adjust their roster by adding the Robert Morris Colonels, previously in the Northeast Conference and the NC A&T Aggies, late of the MEAC. Speaking of the MEAC, the Bethune Cookman Wildcats and the Florida A&M Rattlers moved to the SWAC East Division creating an imbalance that shifted the Alcorn St Braves to the West. By my count, that’s 16 total changes out of 128 teams. Gotta love it! I’ve already posted the alignment in the Conference section on the main page for reference.
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The 2021 schedule is nearly complete (there are 8 FCS schools with 1 less game than usual). Normally, I would be getting ready for the schedule comparison blog. I will still do it but with an unusual caveat: I’m ignoring 2020 fall and spring seasons as input which means, granted not a whole lot, except the data is a little more stale than normal. It will still be fun (teaser for the day: the top 10 schedules are dominated by one conference, one Power 5 conferences has none, and the most difficult schedule is in another). I’m going to give the 8 FCS schools another week to finalize their respective slates (not that I’m expecting them to have an impact on the pre-season SOS comparison at all) for completeness and accuracy. Look for something next weekend and see where your favorite (or least favorite) team lands.
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Welcome back to you and me. Let’s get ready for some football!!! G
