Last Four In: North Carolina A&T, Incarnate Word, Eastern Kentucky, Montana State
First Four Out: Montana, Abilene Christian, North Dakota, McNeese
This season can be summed up with one word - parity. And parity is very evident in the fact that there is no way to do the bracketology real justice in the amount of time limited to tonight. That’s a serious admission. That’s not to say I’m mailing it in, but there are so many things to go over with each team; good wins, bad losses, strength of schedule, power rankings, record in the last month, point differential. It’s not the main reason I suffer from male-pattern baldness, but it’s a definite contributor.
The bottom of the field underwent a near total upheaval this week. If you look at the FCS Top 25, every team ranked between 20 and 25 were not ranked last week. That’s mayhem only seen in national insurance commercials. There’s not one bracketologist who knows what’s going to happen in The Committee room next weekend. And if they tell you otherwise, they’re a liar.
The Colonial continues to hold at six bids, which at this stage of the season is amazing. However, if you think about it, the top half of the Colonial has completely separated from their bottom. All their teams only have three losses. Which means they’re all going to be no worse than 7-4. The exception is Elon (6-3), who lost a game against William & Mary due to Hurricane Florence. It’ll be interesting if they’re given the benefit of the doubt to have that seen as a probable win, seeing them like a 7-4, if they lose their finale. The Missouri Valley has totally cannibalized itself. The teams after their seeded monsters, NDSU and SDSU, have no more than five Division-I wins. Will more chaos happen this week and one of their teams get in at 6-5?
Five automatic bids have been clinched. A few others are simple to figure, a few might need a protractor and slide rule to decipher. Look for the Bracketology Bonus, coming on Tuesday. Every contender will be ranked and profiled. If you want to make any sense of where teams stand, you’ll want to catch it.
Big Sky (4): *UC-Davis, Weber State, Eastern Washington, Montana State
Big South (1): #Kennesaw State
Colonial (6): *Maine, James Madison, Stony Brook, Towson, Elon, Delaware
Mid-Eastern (1): North Carolina A&T
Missouri Valley (2): #North Dakota State, South Dakota State
Northeast (1): *Duquesne
Ohio Valley (3): #Jacksonville State, Southeast Missouri State, Eastern Kentucky
Patriot (1): #Colgate
Pioneer (1): #San Diego
Southern (2): *East Tennessee State, Wofford
Southland (2): *Nicholls, Incarnate Word
* denotes conference’s projected automatic qualifier
# clinched their conference’s automatic bid
