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FCS Weekend Preview - Four Top 25 Battles On Tap

September 21, 2023 by CollegeFootballPoll.com Staff

Four of this week's sixty-two games are matchups of top 25 teams in the Coaches' Poll, including 3rd-ranked Montana State at No. 8 Weber State.

A week after beating Stanford and rising to No. 4 in the Coaches' Poll, Sacramento State jumps right back into the fire by having to travel to No. 10 Idaho. The Vandals beat Nevada earlier this season and had California on the ropes this past Saturday..

Additionally, No. 7 Furman will play host to No. 21 Mercer.

Last, but not least, 12th-ranked New Hampshire visits 16th-ranked Delaware.

Top-ranked South Dakota State and 14th-ranked North Dakota have the week off before meeting in Brookings next week. Also idle are 13th-ranked Southern Illinois and No. 24 Youngstown State.

The weekend slate kicks off on Thursday night with Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Alabama A&M and continues on Friday night with Brown at Harvard.

Some of the more interesting games on Saturday have Abilene Christian at Central Arkansas, Penn at Bucknell, Elon at Campbell, Southeast Missouri at Eastern Kentucky, UC Davis at Eastern Washington, and Rhode Island at Villanova.

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New Rankings

South Dakota State kept the top sot in the Congrove Computer Rankings at CollegeFootballPoll.com after last weekend's games while Montana State remained 2nd. North Dakota State jumped from 6th to 3rd with its win over Central Arkansas while Sacramento State stayed 4th because its win at Stanford was exactly as the computer predicted.

William & Mary slipped to 5th with its narrow win at Charleston Southern, while Youngstown State moved into the Top 10 at No. 9, and Idaho only fell from 8th to 12th with the loss at Cal.

Southern Illinois leapt from 18th to 10th with the win over Southeast Missouri State.

The CAA leads all conferences with 7 members in the top 25, followed by the Big Sky and MVFC with 6 apiece. The SoCon has 3, while the Patriot, Southland and UAC each have one..

FCS vs. FBS

This season has 117 of the 133 FBS schools facing one FCS opponent, and Army playing two such games for a total of 118 FBS-FCS matchups.

Of the 16 FBS schools that do NOT play a FCS program, 7 are in the B1G (Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Purdue, Wisconsin). 6 more are evenly split between the Big 12 (Houston, Oklahoma, Texas) and Pac-12 (Colorado, USC, Washington). The other three are Liberty (CUSA) , UTSA (American), and Virginia Tech (ACC).

FBS schools were 20-1 this past weekend and are 97-4 this year against the FCS schools. Over-all, the FBS is a collective 1,783-152 (.922) since we began tracking this in 2003.

There are only 4 such games this week.

Here are the FCS wins in 2023, so far:
September 9: Idaho 33, Nevada 6
September 9: Southern Illinois 14, Northern Illinois 12
September 9: Fordham 40, Buffalo 37
September 16: Sacramento State 30, Stanford 23

Streaks - Current FCS Longest

SOUTH DAKOTA STATE - Won 17 straight over-all
Last: 70-7 win over Drake at Minneapolis on Saturday, September 16.
Next: Has a bye week before hosting North Dakota on Saturday, September 30.

MONTANA STATE - Won 22 straight home games.
Last: 57-20 home win over Stetson on Saturday, September 16.
Next: Visits Weber State on Saturday, September 23.

SACRAMENTO STATE - Won 18 straight conference games, and 12 straight road games.
Last: 30-23 win at FBS member Stanford (versus former head coach Tory Taylor) on Saturday, September 16.
Next: Visits Idaho on Saturday, September 23.

WESTERN ILLINOIS - Lost 16 straight over-all, and 8 straight home games.
Last: 43-40 home loss to Lindenwood on Saturday, September 16.
Next: Visits Southern Utah on Saturday, September 23.

WAGNER - Had lost 22 straight road games before winning at Sacred Heart on Saturday.
Last: 17-10 win at Sacred Heart on Saturday, September 16.
Next: Hosts Merrimack on Saturday, September 23.

ROBERT MORRIS - Lost 17 straight road games.
Last: 48-28 loss at Youngstown State on Saturday, September 16.
Next: Hosts D2 member VUL (Virginia University-Lynchburg) on Saturday, September 23.