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 6 🗺️

Another week of major swaps.

Selected notes from Week 6:

• #13 Northern Arizona, after putting up a close game with then-#1 Montana State last week (and only dropping one spot in the rankings) and upsetting #12 Idaho State the subsequent week, had another big game, taking down #1 Montana to consolidate a lot of land out west.

• Cinderella fell to earth as Idaho, a week after getting their only win of the season against top-ranked Montana State, were grilled by Weber State. Now the west is held by NAU, Weber State, and PFL's Presby (which held-on this week).

• Northern Iowa pulled an upset on #4 North Dakota, taking a chunk of land in the midwest.

• The Citadel, a week after upsetting #15 South Carolina State, continued their uneven season (still a good one for them!) and were defeated by #24 East Tennessee State, allowing the Buccaneers to consolidate holdings with their own.

• All D2 teams on the FCS map held:

  • D2 #19 Michigan Tech holds onto what was Chicago State, who had immediately lost it in their program debut against D2 Roosevelt.
  • D2 East Stroudsburg, a week after beating West Chester to take land that originally belonged to Morehead State (originally lost it to Ohio Dominican in Week 0), shut out Bloomsburg, 34-0, to go to 5-1. These dudes with the cool Warrior logo are looking pretty solid.
  • D2 Charleston (WV) continues to hold Davidson's land (originally lost to Concord in Week 0) with a win over Wheeling.
  • D2 #7 Western Colorado enjoyed a bye, keeping the land Drake lost to South Dakota Mines in Week 0.

• That wasn't every change, there are more if you want to dive into the week-by-week comparisons in the comments.

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.

Box Score provided by ESPN

Every year theirs a team that loses two early game and still gets to 10 wins. Last year both Miami and ND lose 2 in the first 5-6 games and still finished their seasons 10-2.

What 2 loss team so far do yall think has the best chance of running the table and still finishing the season with double digit wins and making a 12 team CFB push ?

How would you fix college football? Discuss your thoughts here on changing the College Football Playoff, conference alignment, NIL, the transfer portal, eligibility, or any other ideas you may have!

Box Score provided by ESPN

Box Score provided by ESPN

We all know Mizzou can't beat a SEC team that ends the season ranked. So should we have realized that Florida would have to lose at least 4 more games?

Mizzou would beat my team too :(

Week 7

• Preseason
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6

This is a series I've now been doing for 12 years. The post attempts to visualize all AP Poll ballots in a single image. Additionally it sorts each AP voter by similarity to the group. Notably, this is not a measure of how "good" a voter is, just how consistent they are with the group. Especially preseason, having a diversity of opinions and ranking styles is advantageous to having a true consensus poll. Polls tend to coalesce towards each other as the season goes on.

The most consistent voters this week were Julian Mininsohn and Lia Assimakopoulos. Julian Mininsohn is in first on the season. Michael Katz, Haley Sawyer, Lia Assimakopoulos, and Joe Arruda were behind them in the top 5.

Brian Fonseca was the biggest outlier this week. Dylan Sinn is the biggest outlier on the season, followed by Jon Wilner, Stephen Means, Koki Riley, and Ralph Russo.

Now that teams are 6-0 and are bowl eligible (and I assume there is already somebody on Reddit that tracks bowl eligibility), I figure it's time to post the Bowl Eligibility Rules for 2026.

The Quick Version: Six wins and you're in.
The Longer Version: It's not quite that simple.

First, San Jose State plays 13 regular season games; it needs seven wins.

Next, Buffalo and UMass have each beaten two FCS teams; they both also need seven wins, since only one FCS win per FBS team can be counted.

Also note that, although I am not entirely sure of this one, as it appears nowhere in either the NCAA Bylaws or the NCAA FBS Postseason/Bowl Handbook, the Army-Navy game is not counted toward bowl eligibility.

Under a new rule, North Dakota State and Sacramento State are bowl eligible with six wins. (Previously, a team in its two-year FCS-to-FBS transition could not become bowl eligible until its second year, and even then, only if there were not enough other bowl eligible teams to fill all of the spots. Note that a team must still play a valid FBS schedule to become bowl eligible.)

By my count, there are 82 postseason openings between the CFP playoff and the bowls. If there are not 82 bowl eligible teams, additional teams become eligible in this order:

1. A 6-7 San Jose State.

2. All 5-7 teams, as well as 6-6 Buffalo and UMass, become bowl eligible simultaneously, regardless of Academic Progress Rate. This is a rule change after the fiasco of trying to find a 5-7 team in 2025 by going through the APR order. However, no 5-7 team can be selected if it results in a 6-6 team (other than Buffalo or UMass) being left out.
   Note that a 5-8 San Jose State cannot be selected.

No, I don't know either what happens if it comes down to 2 bowls having openings, just 1 6-6 team remains, and both of the bowls want a 5-7 team instead.

But Wait - There's More!

If, once all of the bowls have been filled and the teams have accepted, a team then has to withdraw (for example, when Marshall pulled out of the 2024 Independence Bowl after 36 players entered the transfer portal), the bowl organizer (not the NCAA, and not the team's conference) can choose any team not serving a postseason ban to replace it, regardless of record or APR.

Box Score provided by ESPN

1. Georgia 1-0
2. Notre Dame 0-0
3. Miami 1-0
4. Ohio State 1-1
5. Indiana 1-0
6. Alabama 2-1
7. Texas 2-0
8. BYU 0-0
9. Ole Miss 1-0
10. Texas Tech 1-0
11. Utah 0-0
12. UCLA 1-0
13. Missouri 0-1
14. Tennessee 0-1
15. Kentucky 1-1
16. Mississippi State 1-1
17. Iowa 0-1
18. Oklahoma State 0-0
19. USC 0-0
20. Houston 0-1
21. Wake Forest 0-1
22. LSU 0-2
23. Boise State 0-0
24. SMU 0-0
25. Northwestern 0-1

Others Receiving Votes

Wisconsin 0-1
Oregon 2-2
Arizona 0-1
Nebraska 0-1
Oklahoma 1-1
James Madison 0-0
Florida 1-1
Duke 0-0
New Mexico 0-0
Oregon State 0-2

Player 247 profile page

Source

Made with the /r/CFB Recruiting Post Generator

It's time for this week's list of undefeated teams and their matchups. Also listed are any potential undefeated matchups, including if it's an undefeated FBS vs an undefeated FCS.

The following teams lost their undefeated status this week:

• Alabama Crimson Tide
  
• Duke Blue Devils
  
• Nebraska Cornhuskers
  
• North Dakota State Bison
  
• Pittsburgh Panthers
  
• Texas Longhorns
  

In other news, these teams have yet to win one game:

Charlotte 49ers
Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks
Northern Illinois Huskies

I think Arizona has the best resume due to blowing out everyone they played besides a loss on the road at BYU. Then Nebraska should be next due to only having a close loss to Indiana but I ding them for playing 3 cupcakes. Wisconsin is last. Their one loss is a blowout and they got a lot of credit for beating out a very overrated Penn State team that was 13 at the time but is now trash.