FCS PLAYOFFS

[FUBeAR]

FUBear- not to argue but if no one else has won the league or made the playoffs since 2015 and one team won 39 in a row would you not consider that league to be a one team league? Thats like saying the ACC is not a one team league because someone besides Clempson won it in 2015. BTW during SD’s 39 game regular season winning streak they wrre 0-8 against other FCS teams during the regular seasons.

Nope - Davidson almost knocked them off in 2018 & did so this year. The Toreros also lost to Valpo, a perennial PFL bottom-dweller, this season. They only beat Drake & PC each by 3 this year.

And I don’t care if SD was 0-12 vs. the spread on Tuesday’s in months with an R in them.

The PFL has won 2 Playoff games against highly ranked Teams from a supposed FCS “power conference,” on the road. Their League Champion belongs in the FCS Playoffs just as much as any other FCS League Champion...and almost 40% of the time, their AQ Team has NOT been San Diego.

[The Jackal]

The playoffs should be 16 teams. The Pioneer League and the Northeast Conference should not have bids.

8 autobids. 4 seeds. 8 at large.

[FUBeAR]

The playoffs should be 16 teams. The Pioneer League and the Northeast Conference should not have bids.

8 autobids. 4 seeds. 8 at large.

Yes & March Madness should go back to 1974 when only Conference Champions & Independents were eligible.

...and get off Jackal’s lawn!

[Furmanoid]

These data make me suspect that the nonscholarship pfl isn’t all that nonscholarship.

Sorry. I do not see why that would be.

Well, generally really good players are offered scholarships. Most parents would pretty much insist their kid take the scholarship to Wofford or Furman rather than have to fork out $70k for Davidson or even a mere $40k for PC. So everybody else’ guys should be way, way better than PFL guys. So you would expect their playoff games to always be blowout losses.

I’m suspecting that many of their good players are on some type of scholarship. They just pretend it isn’t an athletic scholarship.

As you admit, that is a generalization. I would say there would be many exceptions. And most parents would not necessarily insist anything if the kid can go to a really, really good school, get a really, really good education, and have a good time enjoying playing football. And I would say everybody else's players being way, way better would be an exaggeration. Also, maybe most playoff games would be losses, but not necessarily blowout losses. Keep in mind that Furman has suffered a number of blowout losses or at least a large number of disappointing losses in playoffs. Having scholarships does not necessarily prevent that. Most of the players being on some type of scholarship - that's fine. Bring in good students, good citizens, who can play and maybe want to play football. Perhaps my main argument is that ROI on football, scholarship football even at the FCS level, is possibly too low to be sustainable by a school as small as Furman. Other basically all the other scholarship sports are more sustainable because they involve fewer scholarship that can be balanced in regard to Title IX, either with a women's team in the same sport (even baseball with softball). We can still have football. We can be satisfactorily competitive at our level. We can do it like Pioneer Football League does it. (Wofford ought to be smart enough to go along with us on such a move, but if they are not smart enough, I would be surprised but I would not really care, because I believe they would be wrong.)

A good many exceptions isn’t enough. You have to find at least 30 really good players. You have to fish them out of a tiny pond of really booksmart (more so than at FU), independently wealthy kids or really booksmart poor kids who will go for free based on need. Out here in the real world of high school kids, those are really, really rare. And those kids have to have a level of snobbery that causes them to turn up their noses at scholarships from other schools just because US News deems them to have less prestige. In my county of 7 high schools (Aiken) I doubt there is one such kid.

So I’m guessing the schools fake it somewhat. And sure, it’s great to give out citizenship scholarships to corner backs as long as you aren’t the 4.0 Eagle Scout who got overlooked for that same scholarship. This is policed somehow kinda in DIII, but I’m not so sure about the PFL. I could be wrong.

I agree with you that FCS football loses money. I’m just not sure the PFL model really saves as much as it’s supposed to because I’m thinking most everybody is still on scholarship. I’d like to see the real numbers somehow. And it’s not like losing a couple million a year is gonna bankrupt FU (well, maybe in about 200 years).

I will, however, eagerly join the PFL camp when I start hearing FU players complain about being exploited by a system that gives them athletic scholarships. At that point I’ll happily say FU to them and support the nonscholarship model. But our guys aren’t doing that.

[The Jackal]

I realize that many just want more teams = more games = more football = great, but the 24 team field just doesn't do it for me.

I would wager roughly half the teams in the post season have no business playing for a national championship. They just aren't good enough.

I don't get excited about watching the third best Southeastern Conference team playing against the third best CAA team, both barely in the top 20, for a chance to go get shellacked by an actual title contender.

I loved the 16 team bracket - when the title contenders would come out of the gate against one another instead of the current model where we have to wait three weeks to see two legitimate heavyweights play.

[FUBeAR]

These data make me suspect that the nonscholarship pfl isn’t all that nonscholarship.

Sorry. I do not see why that would be.

Well, generally really good players are offered scholarships. Most parents would pretty much insist their kid take the scholarship to Wofford or Furman rather than have to fork out $70k for Davidson or even a mere $40k for PC. So everybody else’ guys should be way, way better than PFL guys. So you would expect their playoff games to always be blowout losses.

I’m suspecting that many of their good players are on some type of scholarship. They just pretend it isn’t an athletic scholarship.

As you admit, that is a generalization. I would say there would be many exceptions. And most parents would not necessarily insist anything if the kid can go to a really, really good school, get a really, really good education, and have a good time enjoying playing football. And I would say everybody else's players being way, way better would be an exaggeration. Also, maybe most playoff games would be losses, but not necessarily blowout losses. Keep in mind that Furman has suffered a number of blowout losses or at least a large number of disappointing losses in playoffs. Having scholarships does not necessarily prevent that. Most of the players being on some type of scholarship - that's fine. Bring in good students, good citizens, who can play and maybe want to play football. Perhaps my main argument is that ROI on football, scholarship football even at the FCS level, is possibly too low to be sustainable by a school as small as Furman. Other basically all the other scholarship sports are more sustainable because they involve fewer scholarship that can be balanced in regard to Title IX, either with a women's team in the same sport (even baseball with softball). We can still have football. We can be satisfactorily competitive at our level. We can do it like Pioneer Football League does it. (Wofford ought to be smart enough to go along with us on such a move, but if they are not smart enough, I would be surprised but I would not really care, because I believe they would be wrong.)

A good many exceptions isn’t enough. You have to find at least 30 really good players. You have to fish them out of a tiny pond of really booksmart (more so than at FU), independently wealthy kids or really booksmart poor kids who will go for free based on need. Out here in the real world of high school kids, those are really, really rare. And those kids have to have a level of snobbery that causes them to turn up their noses at scholarships from other schools just because US News deems them to have less prestige. In my county of 7 high schools (Aiken) I doubt there is one such kid.

So I’m guessing the schools fake it somewhat. And sure, it’s great to give out citizenship scholarships to corner backs as long as you aren’t the 4.0 Eagle Scout who got overlooked for that same scholarship. This is policed somehow kinda in DIII, but I’m not so sure about the PFL. I could be wrong.

I agree with you that FCS football loses money. I’m just not sure the PFL model really saves as much as it’s supposed to because I’m thinking most everybody is still on scholarship. I’d like to see the real numbers somehow. And it’s not like losing a couple million a year is gonna bankrupt FU (well, maybe in about 200 years).

I will, however, eagerly join the PFL camp when I start hearing FU players complain about being exploited by a system that gives them athletic scholarships. At that point I’ll happily say FU to them and support the nonscholarship model. But our guys aren’t doing that.

A couple of disclaimers...
1) FUBeAR does not support, in any way, Furman moving to the PFL or a PFL-model
2) FUBeAR likes the PFL & their model. Having have had my DNA Recruited by several of the PFL schools coming out of HS & playing in the PFL for a year, I have, perhaps, a bit more PFL exposure than many/most posters here.

PFL Recruiting is hard & exactly as described - with the exception of, perhaps, Morehead State, all of the schools can only recruit high-academics kids...and the richer or poorer those kids’ families are, the better ‘targets’ they are. Nope, they don’t often get the Top Athletes...but there are several PFL Alums with NFL experience, so they can ‘mine’ talent.

PFL schools work very hard to cobble together financial aid for their Football Recruits...they are like your grandma eating a the meat off of a neck bone when they do it. Who knew Davidson has an endowed scholarship for male descendants of Dutch immigrants from the State of Georgia with brown hair under 6-4? Just kidding, but it’s like that - they will uncover every legitimate $ they can find to package an offer for their Recruits.

And, of course, they police it. How can you say they don’t when both San Diego & Jacksonville in recent years were ‘busted’ and penalized severely for violating the no athletics scholarships for Football Players rules?

Here’s another interesting thing. I watched PC play 2x this year and I would say they were much better than they were when they were a Scholarship program. Maybe there’s something to having kids on your Team that really want to be there instead of kids who take the PC offer because it’s their only D1 offer...which I think is what they had previously.

...and I can’t believe Jackal hates Golden Retrievers...

“During the 2018 NCAA Tournament, UMBC became the first No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA men's tournament, beating the Virginia Cavaliers 74–54.”

[tim]

These data make me suspect that the nonscholarship pfl isn’t all that nonscholarship.

Sorry. I do not see why that would be.

Well, generally really good players are offered scholarships. Most parents would pretty much insist their kid take the scholarship to Wofford or Furman rather than have to fork out $70k for Davidson or even a mere $40k for PC. So everybody else’ guys should be way, way better than PFL guys. So you would expect their playoff games to always be blowout losses.

I’m suspecting that many of their good players are on some type of scholarship. They just pretend it isn’t an athletic scholarship.

As you admit, that is a generalization. I would say there would be many exceptions. And most parents would not necessarily insist anything if the kid can go to a really, really good school, get a really, really good education, and have a good time enjoying playing football. And I would say everybody else's players being way, way better would be an exaggeration. Also, maybe most playoff games would be losses, but not necessarily blowout losses. Keep in mind that Furman has suffered a number of blowout losses or at least a large number of disappointing losses in playoffs. Having scholarships does not necessarily prevent that. Most of the players being on some type of scholarship - that's fine. Bring in good students, good citizens, who can play and maybe want to play football. Perhaps my main argument is that ROI on football, scholarship football even at the FCS level, is possibly too low to be sustainable by a school as small as Furman. Other basically all the other scholarship sports are more sustainable because they involve fewer scholarship that can be balanced in regard to Title IX, either with a women's team in the same sport (even baseball with softball). We can still have football. We can be satisfactorily competitive at our level. We can do it like Pioneer Football League does it. (Wofford ought to be smart enough to go along with us on such a move, but if they are not smart enough, I would be surprised but I would not really care, because I believe they would be wrong.)

A good many exceptions isn’t enough. You have to find at least 30 really good players. You have to fish them out of a tiny pond of really booksmart (more so than at FU), independently wealthy kids or really booksmart poor kids who will go for free based on need. Out here in the real world of high school kids, those are really, really rare. And those kids have to have a level of snobbery that causes them to turn up their noses at scholarships from other schools just because US News deems them to have less prestige. In my county of 7 high schools (Aiken) I doubt there is one such kid.

So I’m guessing the schools fake it somewhat. And sure, it’s great to give out citizenship scholarships to corner backs as long as you aren’t the 4.0 Eagle Scout who got overlooked for that same scholarship. This is policed somehow kinda in DIII, but I’m not so sure about the PFL. I could be wrong.

I agree with you that FCS football loses money. I’m just not sure the PFL model really saves as much as it’s supposed to because I’m thinking most everybody is still on scholarship. I’d like to see the real numbers somehow. And it’s not like losing a couple million a year is gonna bankrupt FU (well, maybe in about 200 years).

I will, however, eagerly join the PFL camp when I start hearing FU players complain about being exploited by a system that gives them athletic scholarships. At that point I’ll happily say FU to them and support the nonscholarship model. But our guys aren’t doing that.

In the four years before Davidson improved in 2018, (2013-2017) Davidson football won one game. ONE GAME. That means 3 years when they were winless. Furman's record would be similar if they went that route. Cudos to Davidson, though because it seems to me that their Basketball team has been headed south for a while.

[Furmanoid]

These data make me suspect that the nonscholarship pfl isn’t all that nonscholarship.

Sorry. I do not see why that would be.

Well, generally really good players are offered scholarships. Most parents would pretty much insist their kid take the scholarship to Wofford or Furman rather than have to fork out $70k for Davidson or even a mere $40k for PC. So everybody else’ guys should be way, way better than PFL guys. So you would expect their playoff games to always be blowout losses.

I’m suspecting that many of their good players are on some type of scholarship. They just pretend it isn’t an athletic scholarship.

As you admit, that is a generalization. I would say there would be many exceptions. And most parents would not necessarily insist anything if the kid can go to a really, really good school, get a really, really good education, and have a good time enjoying playing football. And I would say everybody else's players being way, way better would be an exaggeration. Also, maybe most playoff games would be losses, but not necessarily blowout losses. Keep in mind that Furman has suffered a number of blowout losses or at least a large number of disappointing losses in playoffs. Having scholarships does not necessarily prevent that. Most of the players being on some type of scholarship - that's fine. Bring in good students, good citizens, who can play and maybe want to play football. Perhaps my main argument is that ROI on football, scholarship football even at the FCS level, is possibly too low to be sustainable by a school as small as Furman. Other basically all the other scholarship sports are more sustainable because they involve fewer scholarship that can be balanced in regard to Title IX, either with a women's team in the same sport (even baseball with softball). We can still have football. We can be satisfactorily competitive at our level. We can do it like Pioneer Football League does it. (Wofford ought to be smart enough to go along with us on such a move, but if they are not smart enough, I would be surprised but I would not really care, because I believe they would be wrong.)

A good many exceptions isn’t enough. You have to find at least 30 really good players. You have to fish them out of a tiny pond of really booksmart (more so than at FU), independently wealthy kids or really booksmart poor kids who will go for free based on need. Out here in the real world of high school kids, those are really, really rare. And those kids have to have a level of snobbery that causes them to turn up their noses at scholarships from other schools just because US News deems them to have less prestige. In my county of 7 high schools (Aiken) I doubt there is one such kid.

So I’m guessing the schools fake it somewhat. And sure, it’s great to give out citizenship scholarships to corner backs as long as you aren’t the 4.0 Eagle Scout who got overlooked for that same scholarship. This is policed somehow kinda in DIII, but I’m not so sure about the PFL. I could be wrong.

I agree with you that FCS football loses money. I’m just not sure the PFL model really saves as much as it’s supposed to because I’m thinking most everybody is still on scholarship. I’d like to see the real numbers somehow. And it’s not like losing a couple million a year is gonna bankrupt FU (well, maybe in about 200 years).

I will, however, eagerly join the PFL camp when I start hearing FU players complain about being exploited by a system that gives them athletic scholarships. At that point I’ll happily say FU to them and support the nonscholarship model. But our guys aren’t doing that.

A couple of disclaimers...
1) FUBeAR does not support, in any way, Furman moving to the PFL or a PFL-model
2) FUBeAR likes the PFL & their model. Having have had my DNA Recruited by several of the PFL schools coming out of HS & playing in the PFL for a year, I have, perhaps, a bit more PFL exposure than many/most posters here.

PFL Recruiting is hard & exactly as described - with the exception of, perhaps, Morehead State, all of the schools can only recruit high-academics kids...and the richer or poorer those kids’ families are, the better ‘targets’ they are. Nope, they don’t often get the Top Athletes...but there are several PFL Alums with NFL experience, so they can ‘mine’ talent.

PFL schools work very hard to cobble together financial aid for their Football Recruits...they are like your grandma eating a the meat off of a neck bone when they do it. Who knew Davidson has an endowed scholarship for male descendants of Dutch immigrants from the State of Georgia with brown hair under 6-4? Just kidding, but it’s like that - they will uncover every legitimate $ they can find to package an offer for their Recruits.

And, of course, they police it. How can you say they don’t when both San Diego & Jacksonville in recent years were ‘busted’ and penalized severely for violating the no athletics scholarships for Football Players rules?

Here’s another interesting thing. I watched PC play 2x this year and I would say they were much better than they were when they were a Scholarship program. Maybe there’s something to having kids on your Team that really want to be there instead of kids who take the PC offer because it’s their only D1 offer...which I think is what they had previously.

...and I can’t believe Jackal hates Golden Retrievers...

“During the 2018 NCAA Tournament, UMBC became the first No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA men's tournament, beating the Virginia Cavaliers 74–54.”

What I’m theorizing is that that when 10 brown haired, 6’4” Dutch boys apply for that scholarship, it goes to the one who plays football best. That’s the game. And it is difficult to police. If you win too much (SD) or are just a poorly run mess (J’ville) you are more likely to get busted.

But OK I’m wrong.

The thing is, if Davidson is a playoff team with no FB scholarships and showing no preference to football players, then I really don’t want to hear ever again that our team is hindered because it’s so hard to recruit at Furman. Hell, we should stay in the SoCon and just unilaterally cut out scholarships if recruiting is better without them.

[FUBeAR]

It may be better to recruit without scholarships if most of the Players that you land took your scholarship because no one else offered them one. I believe that was the situation at PC before they moved to non-schollie.

It is not, nor has it even been, the situation at Furman. The 2 are unrelated.

...and did you know that about $3B of available scholarship $’s goes unclaimed each year? If the only 1 Dutch Boy who applies for that little-known scholarship happens to be a football Player - that ain’t the fault of Davidson Athletics.

[Furmanoid]

Not really talking about PC. Davidson recruits the same places we do. They recruited a playoff team their way. We recruited our way and, well, didn’t exactly make the playoffs. That’s apples to apples.

[FUBeAR]

Nope - apples to Algonquins

VMI, ETSU, MERCER, SAMFORD, FURMAN, and THE CITADEL would all have been undefeated, most likely, in the PFL. Well, CIT, actually, may have lost a few when they were way short-handed, mid-season.

Making the Playoffs as a current PFL Member is much easier than making it as a current SoCon Member - doesn’t mean their Champion should get off of Jackal’s lawn, but there’s really no point in trying to compare.

[The Jackal]

Nope - apples to Algonquins

VMI, ETSU, MERCER, SAMFORD, FURMAN, and THE CITADEL would all have been undefeated, most likely, in the PFL. Well, CIT, actually, may have lost a few when they were way short-handed, mid-season.

Making the Playoffs as a current PFL Member is much easier than making it as a current SoCon Member - doesn’t mean their Champion should get off of Jackal’s lawn, but there’s really no point in trying to compare.

Furman could beat Davidson by 100, and Davidson could still make the playoffs as the PFL automatic bid.

Davidson making the post season has virtually (or close to virtually) nothing to do with Furman.

[Furmanoid]

Well a few hours ago I agreed with you. Then another poster made a very good case that the PFL is legit. Then all I said was, “OK, this no athletic scholarship thing seems a little bit hard to believe if they really are so legit on the field”. Then I’m told I’m crazy and it’s no big problem to recruit legit playoff teams without scholarships. Now I’m told all nonscholarship teams suck and a bad Furman team would kill any of them. And I’m told all of this by the same people. Gee whiz.

[FUBeAR]

Well a few hours ago I agreed with you. Then another poster made a very good case that the PFL is legit. Then all I said was, “OK, this no athletic scholarship thing seems a little bit hard to believe if they really are so legit on the field”. Then I’m told I’m crazy and it’s no big problem to recruit legit playoff teams without scholarships. Now I’m told all nonscholarship teams suck and a bad Furman team would kill any of them. And I’m told all of this by the same people. Gee whiz.

jeez - were you and Jackal both Hyperbole of the Absolute majors @ FU?

Furman would not beat Davidson by 100.
Elon beat Davidson by 3.
Top-4 seeded, James Madison, beat Elon by 3.

Furman would beat Davidson 19 of 20 times by 2 to 4 or 5 scores, but that 20th time, the Wildcats might catch lightning in a bottle and make us all very sad. They might find that lightning in Jacksonville, AL this weekend & bottle it up & I sure hope they do.

You both sound like a couple of ig’nant P5 fans when the Paladins show up & take their lunch money.

I’m not going to re-regurgitate what I’ve already written. Try to read the actual pixels that are on your screens & lose the “We’re Kansas. We’re P5. No FCS Team could ever even stay close to us,” filter and you might gain some measure of elucidation on the topic at hand.

[The Jackal]

I didn't say Furman would beat Davidson by 100. They almost assuredly would not.

I said Furman could beat Davidson by 100 and it still wouldn't make a difference as to whether they were selected to the post season as the PFL autobid.

Put differently, Furman's on field performance and Davidson's playoffs chances are mutually exclusive. They do not relate to one another in any meaningful way.