Spring 2021 FCS: Scouting for the next Donald Parham

[MGB01]

SWAC drops hammer (well, about as much as can be expected, needless to say they weren't happy) on Alcorn State:

https://fbschedules.com/swac-issues-sta ... 21-season/

Too short notice to simply reconfigure it to a nine-team conference schedule, and since with no non conference options (i.e. games with the MEAC three as "conference" games) open, this was the only thing they could do with unequal schedules.

[Tank55]

WEEK 2 (UPDATED)

Rankings from Athlon. All times ET.

Friday, February 19
Lincoln University of Missouri (D-II) at #8 Nicholls, 7:00pm
#5 South Dakota State at #3 Northern Iowa, 8:00pm, ESPN+

Saturday, February 20
Morehead State at #4 James Madison, 12:00pm, FloFootball
Mercer at #20 Wofford, 1:00pm, ESPN+
Samford at ETSU, 1:00pm, ESPN+
#13 Southern Illinois at North Dakota, 1:00pm, ESPN+
Davidson at Elon, 1:30pm, FloFootball
Western Carolina at #15 Furman, 2:00pm, ESPN+

Sunday, February 21
Eastern Illinois at UT Martin, 2:00pm, ESPN+
Edward Waters (NAIA) at Jackson State, 2:00pm, ESPN3
#19 Austin Peay at Tennessee Tech, 2:30pm, ESPN+
Youngstown State at #1 North Dakota State, 3:30pm, ESPN+
Tarleton State (0-1) at New Mexico State (FBS), 5:00pm. ESPN+ (played in El Paso)

[MGB01]

And before we forget, UND's long-awaited MVFC opener (played 2018-19 as an independent despite playing a Big Sky schedule)

[Tank55]

It's a pretty sweet lineup. Glad that most everything is on ESPN3/+, especially SDSU-UNI. Also extremely curious to see how the Tarleton-NMSU game goes.

[Tank55]

Good game in Cedar Falls -- Northern Iowa pulls ahead with less than three minutes left and SDSU marches down for the winning TD.

Checking the Nicholls-Lincoln score ... 87-3! Dear god.

[Tank55]

Saturday scores

James Madison 52, Morehead State 0
North Dakota 44, Southern Illinois 21
Elon 26, Davidson 23
Wofford 31, Mercer 14
ETSU 24, Samford 17
Furman 35, Western Carolina 7

Very impressive win for North Dakota against a ranked Southern Illinois. ETSU was also down 14-0 at one point before coming back to win. I'm also surprised Elon, a team expected to compete for an at-large bid, had so much trouble with Davidson.

[MGB01]

UND's long-awaited Valley opener, shouldn't have been much of a surprise. The "Dakota four" are all conference rivals in football for the first time in D1.

Interesting note about ETSU/Samford, they would have had the rare football/basketball double-dip but postponed their basketball game earlier in the week.

VMI/Chattanooga possibly won't be played because the teams don't have a shared open date. Everything else that was postponed this weekend was rescheduled to either late March or mid-April.

Big Sky begins next week.

[MGB01]

Deion, NDSU, and the Tarleton State/NMSU upset watch all headline today

NDSU will be worth keeping an eye on with Trey Lance (and Dillon Radunz) off preparing for the draft. They might only win by 20

[Tank55]

I'm without sound, but I think Tarleton scored on their first play from scrimmage and then again on their second set of downs. 14-0 with less than 4:00 gone.

Literally as I'm typing this, NMSU runs back the kickoff to make it 14-7.

Wild one in El Paso.

[Tank55]

Great finish in Austin Peay @ Tennessee Tech. Down 13, Austin Peay scores on 4th & 13 with 12ish seconds left to cut the lead to 6. They convert a pretty deep onside kick, and then use a hook & lateral & lateral to get the ball inside the Tech 30. Unfortunately, the Hail Mary was thrown out the back of the end zone.

This Tarleton-NMSU game is just a riot. NMSU overthrows (overtosses?) a basic halfback toss and ends up falling on it in their own end zone for a safety. Then Cameron Burston does a pretty great Lamar Jackson impression to scramble for a touchdown to make it 23-7.

I haven't been watching YSU-NDSU closely, but the Bison are only up 18-7 at the start of the 4th. Definitely not invincible.