2025 Path to the Playoffs Week 13 - BRACKETOLOGY PART 2 -TOP 8 SEEDS; 2nd 8 SEEDS; CATS SEEDING – WIN OR LOSE

[89Cat]

Sam Herder has put up his final projections, minus the first round matchups. Cats potential path to Nashville here is UC Davis, Mercer/Villanova, and Griz.

https://herosports.com/fcs-football-202 ... inal-bzbz/

Booooooo.
Just takes away some meaning of regular season other than earning home field. I would hate to get 3 home games and 2 be conference opponents you've already beat.

I agree. We shouldn’t have to beat teams twice to get to the chipper, although I can see them putting the Griz at three setting up a huge showdown in Bozeman. How cool would that be at night?

[GoldstoneCat]

My bracket:

#1 NDSU vs #16 Harvard/CCSU
#8 Rhode Island vs #9 SFA/SE Louisiana
#4 Montana vs #13 UC Davis/Illinois State
#5 Tarleton vs #12 South Dakota/New Hampshire

#2 MSU vs #15 Youngstown State/Drake
#7 Mercer vs #10 Villanova/Yale
#3 Lehigh vs #14 South Dakota State/Monmouth
#6 Tennessee Tech vs #11 Abilene Christian/Lamar

Pretty solid. I'd argue Nova could the the 8. Other than that I think you have it spot on.

The more I think about this, the more I think you're right, Montana won't be the 3. Felt that way because they were ranked 2 and us 3, but that's not how the committee has seen it all season. It's fairly apparent that the committee hates that D2 game on the schedule. It would also be pretty surprising for them to put Lehigh right behind montana at 4, see Lehigh take care of their schedule and montana not, and not flip them. Possible they even end up 5 behind tarleton and Lehigh; that's what Craig Haley has projected. Will be interesting.

I went back and forth on Lehigh vs UM for the 3 and 4 seeds, but ultimately I felt like Lehigh's 12 D-1 wins and one win over a playoff team (Yale) should win out over UM's 10 D-1 wins and zero wins over playoff teams unless UND lucks into the last at-large spot at 7-5.

I think you're going to be proven right, and I'm not so certain tarleton doesn't pass them 11 D1 wins including an FBS. If UND gets in they have Austin Peay's qb to thank, he airmailed a wide open 2pt try in overtime that would have beaten tarleton and put Peay in the field. The griz schedule will be what does drop them a slot or 2 if anything does. It would be a clear signal from the committee to the fcs to quit with the D2 games.

It would be a great example for the committee to show the rest of the FCS that just because you can create a cakewalk of a schedule doesn’t mean it’s the best idea.

Agreed. This was their shot at 12-0 too. The conference schedule gets harder for them next year.

[RyeCat]

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It would be a great example for the committee to show the rest of the FCS that just because you can create a cakewalk of a schedule doesn’t mean it’s the best idea.
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The problem is that for some conferences, like Tarleton’s, their regular season games are largely a cupcake schedule and they ran up the score on many of the teams they played which is great eye candy on paper and probably gets them a higher seed than they deserve as well.