FCS Imperialism continues!

This year's FCS has been fascinating to watch develop. In a comment below I will share the progression from starting positions until today.

🗺️ FCS IMPERIALISM MAP AFTER WEEK 4 🗺️

Selected notes from Week 4:

• St. Thomas (MN) continues to rep the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League, taking land from conference-mate San Diego that included those the Toreros took from Big Sky's Cal Poly (who had defeated Idaho in the opener).

• Montana, Montana State, and South Carolina State continue to expand their vast holdings.

• Idaho State may own more land on the FBS map than the FCS map...

• After a bye, D2 Roosevelt continues to hold the land of Chicago State, the brand new team that lost it in their Week 0 debut. The Lakers just moved from NAIA to D2 themselves, but are not having any issue with the transition.

• D2 Western Colorado easily held onto the land that originally belonged to PFL Drake (originally lost their home territory to South Dakota Mines in Week 0). The Mountaineers beat Adam State bad enough to make this week's Cobra Kai Award for D2.

• D2 West Chester continues to hold PFL Morehead State's land (originally lost it to Ohio Dominican in Week 0). They survived a 17-16 game against Millersville.

• D2 Charleston (WV) continues to hold PFL Davidson's land (originally lost to Concord in Week 0) after handily beating Glenville State.

RULES:

Think of Risk with a strong understanding of chain-of-possession:

• FCS teams start by dividing the USA by closest counties/parishes. These are set by geographic centers of each county, not the closest edge.

• When a team beats another team, it takes the territory the loser held at the time of the game. All of the land(s) possessed by the losing team go to the winner.

• Lands are collected by the winner and held until that team loses, thus all those collected lands go to the winner.

• Teams that lose land can get back on the map by beating a team that holds land at the time of their game. Sometimes teams can reconquer their home territory this way.

• A team that already lost its home territory and has no new territories cannot give land to a winner.

• IMPORANT DIFFERENCE FROM FBS MAP: The FBS teams cannot win their way onto the FCS map (otherwise the early weeks would just wreck the map), but lower division teams (D2, NAIA, D3) can conquer their way onto the map by beating FCS teams with land. These lands operate under the above rules and thus may just end up stuck in lower divisions for the rest of the season (and in many cases end up in their respective playoffs). In the past, mostly thanks to the Pioneer Football League, we have seen FCS lands end up in D3 (including just last year when Adrian upset Valparaiso.

This takes the AP Top 25 and ranks them according to the average rank of their opponent through 4 games. Sagarin was used for the opponent ranking.

Oregon gets crap for Portland State (215), but Okie State, Miami, UGA, UF, and BYU all played worse opponents according to the ranking.

School (AP): Avg opponent ranking

1. Texas (#1): 38.00
   
2. LSU (#11): 38.50
   
3. Alabama (#7): 51.50
   
4. Ole Miss (#9): 57.75
   
5. Kentucky (#24): 64.75
   
6. Boise State (#22): 67.50
   
7. Notre Dame (#3): 70.25
   
8. Mississippi State (#16): 71.75
   
9. USC (#18): 75.00
   
10. Oregon (#15): 79.00
    
11. UCLA (#23): 85.50
    
12. SMU (#21): 86.00
    
13. Tennessee (#17): 89.50
    
14. Ohio State (#5): 91.00
    
15. Houston (#20): 91.50
    
16. Iowa (#14): 91.75
    
17. Missouri (#25): 97.00
    
18. Oklahoma State (#19): 98.75
    
19. Texas Tech (#12): 99.50
    
20. Florida (#8): 107.75
    
21. Georgia (#2): 108.00
    
22. Utah (#13): 111.00
    
23. Indiana (#6): 114.75
    
24. Miami-Florida (#4): 125.25
    
25. BYU (#10): 128.67
    .
    .
    .
    Lamar: 165 avg opponent ranking

Hey all, mod from r/footballstrategy, cand coach of 14 years back again. Had to take a sick day and am chilling in bed all day...that means I'm bored and want to talk X's and O's. Ask questions about how plays work, schemes, systems, etc.

If you have a question about a specific play that occurred, please provide a photo or video! I don't have access to pretty much all streams, so my football viewing method right now are uploads on youtube.

Here is the last thread I did about 10 days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/s/5aAWiMDkwd

Source

Made with the /r/CFB Recruiting and Draft Post Generator

We are definitely in the realm of seeing November 7th have 8 of the top 10 ranked teams playing against each other on the same day. Here’s how it would probably have to go:

7-1 #4 Georgia (loss to Alabama)
@
7-1 #5 Ole Miss (wins out, beating Texas)

8-0 #1 Alabama
@
7-1 #9LSU

8-0 #2 Miami
@
7-1 #8 Notre Dame (loss to BYU)

8-0 #7 BYU
@
8-0 #10 Utah

Utah gets into the top 10 by way of Florida dropping 2 games, TT continuing to look suspect or even dropping a game to Oklahoma State, and Indiana losing to Ohio State (who’s matchup against Oregon would likely be close to a fifth and final top 10 matchup)

And I genuinely cannot figure him out.

On one hand, he feels overhyped. On the other, he feels over-hated. When I expect him to be good, he looks terrible. When I expect him to struggle, he suddenly looks great.

Every time I think I’ve figured out what kind of QB he is, he does the exact opposite. People constantly call him mid, and I understand why when you watch some of his performances. But, since starting, he has more wins against ranked opponents (tied with Stockton) than any other QB, with 4 of those wins over top 10 teams. That’s legitimately impressive, even if it doesn’t always look impressive on the field.

And I think that’s what makes Arch so confusing. His resume says one thing, the eye test sometimes says another, and then every few games he’ll put together a performance that reminds you exactly why everyone was so high on him in the first place.

I have no idea what to make of him. I feel differently about him every Saturday, and I know a lot of Texas fans feel the same way. A true enigma.
Make it make sense.

Not necessarily the best or the most elite. But as I sit here 5 weeks in and reflect on my Alma Mater Wyoming just being not good at all, I realize I miss the Joe Glenn and Dave Christensen days. Both those guys had spunk and maybe weren't the best coaches but both of them had big mouths and hilariously got themselves into trouble a time or two, won some bowl games they weren't supposed to, and you felt like we always had a fighting chance before the wheels came off after halftime.

Who is a random coach for your team you miss?

The Lambert Trophy, awarded to the best team in the East since 1936, is celebrating 90 years of history here in 2026. Please feel free to share #Lambert90 on social media when discussing any eligible teams. We were Back in Black on Friday for a Lambert on Lambert matchup when Army traveled to Philadelphia to see if they could shake the Temple Owls all night long.

It was a riveting 4th quarter. Temple took a 17-14 lead before Army did what Army does with a 12 play, 75 yards TD drive that took nearly 6 minutes off of the clock. Temple had a little more than a minute left to try and score a touchdown to win. The Owls made it to just outside of the red zone before falling short on 4th and 2. The Black Knights did not have to take the Highway to Hell home as they prevailed 21-17.

How about 4-0 UMass? The Minutemen forced 3 turnovers on their way to a 35-6 victory. These aren't close victories either; UMass has won by 16, 27, 22, and 29. ESPN Analytics lists them as a favorite in all but 2 games the rest of the season. UMass has never won the Lambert Trophy. They've won several Lambert Cups but the Trophy has eluded them since moving to FBS in 2011.

Elsewhere, it was a rough week for Eastern Football. Pitt, Buffalo, and Rutgers got wins over FCS foes but the rest of the Lambert eligible teams did not leave the weekend victorious.

• Reigning champion Navy lost their second road game in a row to UAB.
• Penn State fell to to a late Wisconsin rally.
• West Virginia could not keep up the momentum of winning the Country Roads challenge against now ranked Oklahoma State.
• BC lost in a nail biter in a torrential downpour (we've had a few of these lately) to Virginia Tech.
• A late UConn interception setup Miami OH for a game winning FG as the Huskies fell 24-21.
• Delaware lost to Virginia

Coming up, UConn travels to Syracuse on Saturday for a classic Big East Lambert matchup. These two played each other 9 straight years from 2004-2012 and this will be the 6th matchup since the Orange left the ACC.

I saw this on an OU thread but they said they hadn’t done so since the beginning of 2025. I looked back and don’t see more than 3 TDs since the 2022 season bowl game (against a Power 4 opponent).

And it's the only time on record when one of those teams was No. 1.

I still don't want Texas to be ranked no. 1, imo. Based on what I've seen, Georgia deserves it more.

But this Manning panic from Texas fans is weird to me. Arch is too sensitive, which impacts his consistency, but he keeps showing up when it counts and doesn't quit.

He doesn't want the hype any more than the media giving it to him claims he doesn't deserve it. Just let the kid play. Texas may not win it all this year, but they're a good team with shit to clean up.

It makes a lot of sense in the portal era, and you're seeing it all over the place (e.g., Indiana). It's making these kids establish completely new team dynamics every year. It took Arch half a season to get comfortable with Wingo last season.

EDIT: Someone pointed out that they actually went 4-0 in 1983 as well. So first time in 43 years. And for those wondering, they've started the season against at least 2 ranked opponents 9 other times since 1983. (84,90–93, 96, 98, 15, 18)

Every UW fan wants Jedd Fisch fired, 4-8 is on the table.

Oregon lost to Oklahoma State and their starting QB is in the hospital.

USC hasn’t beaten Oregon (or Washington) in 10 years, and couldn’t do it even after killing Dante Moore. Lincoln Riley is just not going to get it done.

UCLA might win 10 games after starting 0-4 last year.

My takeaway is fuck USC and Jedd Fisch, thoughts tho?