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Struggling against FCS

awd4cy

awd4cy

Well-Known Member
Dec 29, 2010
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Central Iowa
Been thinking of past teams that lost or barely beat an FCS school early and went on to have a great season.

2009: Iowa 17 UNI 16
Iowa needed 2 blocked fgs to seal win. Iowa went on to win Orange Bowl.
UNI finished 7-4.

2010: Virginia Tech 16 James Madison 21
A Tyrod Taylor let VT team loses to JM and goes on to win 11 games in a row and win the ACC Championship. Lost in Orange Bowl.
James Madison finished 6-5.

2011: Kansas State 10 Eastern Kentucky 7
KSU went on to win 10 games and play in Cotton Bowl.
Eastern KY finished 7-5.

2012: Wisconsin 26 UNI 21
Wisconsin needed a late 4th and 1 stop to seal the victory. Went on to win Big 10 Championship and played in Rose Bowl.
UNI finished 5-6.

These are all examples to help ease the we can’t be any good if we can’t dominate an FCS team thinking. Any others?
 
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awd4cy said:
Been thinking of past teams that lost or barely beat an FCS school early and went on to have a great season.

2009: Iowa 17 UNI 16
Iowa needed 2 blocked fgs to seal win. Iowa went on to win Orange Bowl.
UNI finished 7-4.

2010: Virginia Tech 16 James Madison 21
A Tyrod Taylor let VT team loses to JM and goes on to win 11 games in a row and win the ACC Championship. Lost in Orange Bowl.
James Madison finished 6-5.

2011: Kansas State 10 Eastern Kentucky 7
KSU went on to win 10 games and play in Cotton Bowl.
Eastern KY finished 7-5.

2012: Wisconsin 26 UNI 21
Wisconsin needed a late 4th and 1 stop to seal the victory. Went on to win Big 10 Championship and played in Rose Bowl.
UNI finished 5-6.

These are all examples to help ease the we can’t be any good if we can’t dominate an FCS team thinking. Any others?
Click to expand...

There are a lot more example of FBS teams who struggle against FCS teams and they end up having a terrible season.
 
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The talent gap between top level FCS and most FBS teams isn’t that large. Most FCS guys are either late bloomers or were over looked due to size. Good example was McElvain yesterday. If he’s 6’2 not 5’11 he’s probably playing P5 football.

Good FCS programs have winning cultures built and aren’t scared of playing anyone. UNI is a tougher first game test than if we played a crappy team from another P5 conference. They are used to winning and come in with nothing to lose.
 
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Iowa got owned by Central Michigan, what last year or before?
 
gocy444 said:
The talent gap between top level FCS and most FBS teams isn’t that large. Most FCS guys are either late bloomers or were over looked due to size. Good example was McElvain yesterday. If he’s 6’2 not 5’11 he’s probably playing P5 football.

Good FCS programs have winning cultures built and aren’t scared of playing anyone. UNI is a tougher first game test than if we played a crappy team from another P5 conference. They are used to winning and come in with nothing to lose.
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Yeah, especially in this corner of the country. If we had a sun belt or CUSA equivalent, it would have pulled some of the top FCS schools like UNI or NDSU up into it's ranks here.

Part of how the SEC gets some easy scheduling. They almost always play a very weak FCS team and then a recently-FCS team from the sun belt as part of their 4 OOC games, effectively playing 2 FCS level teams a year.
 
I can't believe people are still flogging themselves over this. You got the win. Lighten up.

You can't infer much about the season from any one game, especially the way the coaches called this one so close to the vest.

If you need a blowout win to justify your trash talk with other fans that's a you problem.

ISU is 1-0 and that's all the team cares about.
 
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gocy444 said:
The talent gap between top level FCS and most FBS teams isn’t that large. Most FCS guys are either late bloomers or were over looked due to size. Good example was McElvain yesterday. If he’s 6’2 not 5’11 he’s probably playing P5 football.
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Or maybe he just had his Jantz moment.
 
jameswalden said:
In 2016 UNI beat Iowa State 25-20. ISU ended up 3-9 and UNI was 5-6
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Close, but those were losses. Iowa State won yesterday. The score indicated a struggle, but a rewatch reveals the struggle was with itself.

Two major concerns:
-Losing the starting center in OT because we ****** around
-signs that this staff still hasn’t figured out the nuances of being the ball-control, conservative offense they desire
 
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Die4Cy said:
I can't believe people are still flogging themselves over this. You got the win. Lighten up.

You can't infer much about the season from any one game, especially the way the coaches called this one so close to the vest.

If you need a blowout win to justify your trash talk with other fans that's a you problem.

ISU is 1-0 and that's all the team cares about.
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It’s you that needs to lighten up. One game represents a significant portion of the short football season, and when that game is a disappointing 3OT win flagging the next morning is normal enjoyment of a year.

Wanting to modulate other fans normal discussion less than 24 hours after a game sounds like a you problem. Perhaps you should try just checking in at the end of the season? Everyone will have sufficient data then.
 
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Cyclone06 said:
Lol. Lots of examples of teams struggling to beat fcs teams and then not being very good.

That game was a turd, hard to polish it.
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If you didn't see the clear difference in talent, size and speed yesterday and think ISU can't still have a nice season I'd recommend taking the season off.

This wasn't 2013 when the clearly best player on the field was from UNI (Johnson).

ISU was picked as a 7-8 win team by many and it's still a real possibility.

Coping skills around here are lacking.
 
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I think everyone should just relax. That game was really odd. So many coin flips went to UNI. That's not to take away from them, they played a valiant game. Also, I know people get tired of the refs complaints but that game was ugly from the zebras. It's one thing if it's consistent but there were so many holds not called against UNI it got hard to watch.

In the end we had 4.6 ypcarry, 5.4 ypplay, 9.6 ypcatch. Those are respectable numbers and we have nowhere to go but up after that game.

Conversely our defense looked great. 1.1 ypc is domination. Lima was a monster out there.

Two weeks to prepare, add wrinkles to the offense, and plenty of bulletin board material will be coming from all the talking heads.

Biggest concern oline and RB. Receivers have the bodies to get there.
 
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