I found a neat site this morning called "In The FCS Huddle" that basically took the playoff scenarios piece by piece. This is a not in depth look at their basic story.
Lehigh gets in because despite their being one of the less powerful leagues, they have an automatic bid, and Lehigh won the league. Appalachian State clinched their auto bid with the win over Wofford, and Robert Morris and Northern Iowa have also got auto bids. Those are the four "for sures".
Delaware, Jacksonville State, Wofford, William and Mary, Montana State, SE Missouri State, and Eastern Washington will all either get their league's auto bid or get an invitation. Call them probable.
Bethune-Cookman gets a bid with a win against Florida A&M; if they lose, A&M gets their auto bid and its questionable that their conference will get 2 teams in. Liberty needs a win or a loss and a Coastal Carolina loss, or else Stony Brook gets their auto bid and their conference also is unlikely to get 2 bids. Stephen F. Austin looks pretty good either way, but a loss to Northwestern State would cost them the auto bid and could put them in trouble. Defending champ Villanova would surely get in with a win in their last game. Unfortunately for them, that last game is against #1 Delaware. Call these teams questionable with extenuating circumstances.
Georgia Southern, Chattanooga, UMass, North Dakota State, Western Illinois, Montana, and Richmond all have either strength of schedule questions, 6 division one wins (when the playoff committee prefers 7), or 4 losses and a game they need to win coming up, along with a limited number of playoff spots not already or soon to be spoken for. Call them questionable.
Jacksonville, Dayton, South Carolina State, Cal Poly (the shoot-myself-in-the-foot kings), Central Arkansas, Sacremento State, and McNeese State have severe strength of schedule concerns without the "Lehigh advantage" combined with some or all of the above. As a group, call them doubtful.
New Hampshire, Bryant, ODU aren't getting any love; and since the Ivy League strangely values academics over athletics, Penn will follow tradition and decline their automatic bid. Call them "sorry charlies".
I have to question a system that bounces the Pioneer league but give Lehigh and Penn automatic bids, but that's the way she stands this morning. tune in next week to find out how it goes.
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