Weekend Recap

September 4, 2018 by Dave Congrove

The 2018 season opened in earnest over the Labor Day weekend. But weather edited the schedule, and even shortened it by 2 games.

Akron at Nebraska was suspended right after Akron kicked off and was ultimately canceled. South Dakota State and Iowa State played for less than 5 minutes before weather halted the action. Neither game will be rescheduled.

East Carolina's home game with North Carolina A&T had been scheduled to kick-off Saturday night at 6pm, but a series of lightning events forced the postponement to Sunday at 3:30. When the game was finally played, the Pirates fell 28-23 to become the 5th FBS victim of an FCS school over the holiday weekend.

The weather wreaked havoc from the Rockies, to the Plains, to the Midwest and mid-Atlantic.

Among the games that faced delayed kick-offs or in-game interruptions were were Stony Brook at Air Force, Akron at Nebraska, Oregon State at Ohio State, Middle Tennessee at Vanderbilt, Texas-Maryland at Landover, and West Virginia-Tennessee at Charlotte.

Under NCAA guidelines, any lightning strike within 8 miles automatically triggers a 30-minute delay.

An 86-game schedule has became an 84-game slate with 41 of those matching FBS teams against FCS schools.

From Thursday to Saturday, four of the 'lower tier' programs prevailed.

Villanova upended Temple.19-17 on Saturday in the battle of Philadelphia schools. It was 'Nova's first win in the series since 2009 and ended the Owls' 4-game winning streak over the Wildcats. The series is now tied 16-16-2.

Also on Saturday, Nicholls State handed Kansas a 26-23 loss in overtime, and Northern Arizona took a 30-10 win at UTEP. It was the first loss for UTEP versus a FCS team since 2003, and the first win over a FBS team for Northern Arizona since knocking off Arizona in 2013. UTEP has now lost 13 straight games overall.

On Thursday night, UC Davis downed San Jose State 44-31.

Kansas State was trailing South Dakota for much of its game, but took the lead halfway through the 4th quarter. South Dakota missed a 51-yard FG as time expired and the Wildcats prevailed 27-24.

Last year, there were 4 wins posted by FCS teams on Labor Day weekend, one of which was Liberty's 48-45 victory at Baylor. Yesterday, Liberty played its first game as a FBS member and clobbered Old Dominion 52-10, though they entered the game as a 4.5-point underdog.

Two stories everyone was watching as we headed into the weekend involved a pair of Big Ten teams that opened the year without their head coach on the sideline. Urban Meyer was suspended by Ohio State for 3 games, and D.,J. Durkin was still awaiting his fate with Maryland.

Both schools wound up victorious under the guidance of their offensive coordinator. Ryan Day was the interim head coach for the Buckeyes and his offense went nuts in a 77-31 win over Oregon State. Maryland pulled off a second straight win over Texas, 34-29, with Matt Canada taking on the interim duties.

Oregon State's loss to Ohio State came in the head coaching debut game for Jonathan Smith. Smith is the Oregon State grad to serve in that capacity. The walk-on wound up starting 38 games at quarterback and, in 2000, led the Beavers to an 11-1 season that culminated with a 41-9 rout of Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. It is the school's greatest season since joining the PAC-8/PAC-10/PAC-12 in 1968.

Meanwhile, one of the weekend's biggest games saw Notre Dame protect its home turf with a 24-17 win over Michigan.

Some of the most surprising results came elsewhere from the Big Ten where Penn State needed overtime to shake off Appalachian State, while Michigan State and Northwestern, the computer's projected divisional favorites, eked out wins.

Northwestern can be forgiven for a narrow 31-27 over Purdue as that game was played on the road against a Boilermaker program that has improved dramatically under Jeff Brohm as head coach. But I am hoping Michigan State's 38-31 win at home over Utah State, where the Spartans were roughly 4-TD favorites, isn't a harbinger of things to come. After all, the computer hasn't fared well when picking Michigan State to be great. In 2009, a 12-0 forecast became a 6-6 reality. In 2016, another 12-0 projection became a 3-9 nightmare. The Spartans were the computer's preseason pick to win the national title this year.

Appalachian State had the late lead in Happy Valley, but the Nittany Lions rallied for a touchdown inside the final minute of regulation, then won 45-38 in overtime. It was 11 years to the day that the Boone, North Carolina Mountaineers went to the "Big House" and beat Michigan to shock the football world. And though they've come close several times since then to upsetting other Power 5 schools, they have now dropped 11 straight to such programs.

Another Big Ten school, Illinois, almost lost at home to Kent State. The Fighting Illini rallied for a 31-24. Lovie Smith's team was a 24-point computer favorites, well over the 15-point Vegas line.

Cincinnati's 26-17 win at UCLA had to be a downer for the Bruin faithful that thought Chip Kelly would quickly turn around the program. The Bearcats, just 4-8 a year ago, were 16.5-point Vegas dogs in this game and the computer favored UCLA by 25.86.

Miami was surprisingly pummeled 33-17 by LSU in Arlington. The favored 'Canes trailed 33-3 after 3 quarters. Miami opened last season with 10 straight wins before losing each of its final 3 games by 10 points or more.

The consensus number 1 team, Alabama, rolled 51-14 over Louisville.

Oklahoma, the computer's predicted opponent for Michigan State in the national title game, had no trouble ending Florida Atlantic's 10-game winning streak with a 63-14 rout in Norman. Kyler Murray, the heir to Baker Mayfield, threw for 200 yards and 2 scores, and the Sooners rushed for 316 yards. The 5 running backs who carried the ball averaged 10.21 yards per carry against the porous FAU defense.

Former Sooner quarterback Josh Heupel had a successful debut as the head coach of Central Florida. Heuple and the Knights picked up where Scott Frost left off, running their winning streak to 14 games with a 56-17 romp at UConn on Thursday.

Auburn and Washington staged a fantastic game in Atlanta, where the officiating crew failed to flag several obvious penalties but managed to call several phantom or iffy penalties. Anyway, the game came down to Auburn scoring last and Washington failing on a couple of 4th quarter possessions. The Tigers take the 21-16 win. Both schools figure to compete for division and conference titles.

Congrats to Ole Miss on their 47-27 rout of Texas Tech in a neutral site game at Houston. The Rebels can only play for pride as they are ineligible for the postseason as part of their NCAA probation.The Red Raiders were slight favorites in the contest, but instead, Matt Luke got his first win as the 'official' head coach of the Rebels. Luke guided Ole Miss to a 6-6 record as the interim head coach in 2017.

Running back Bryce Love of Stanford was held to just 29 yards rushing on 18 carries by the San Diego State defense, but K.J. Costello and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside teamed up for 226 yards and 3 TD's on just 6 catches in a 31-10 Cardinal triumph.

Meanwhile, Clemson had no problem with FCS Furman in a 48-7 win on Saturday, and Wisconsin methodically disposed of Western Kentucky 34-3 on Friday.

Herm Edwards' debut as Arizona State's new head coach was a success as the Sun Devils rolled 49-7 over UTSA. Not so for Kevin Sumlin's debut at Arizona as the Wildcats fell 28-23 at home to BYU.

Hawaii is 2-0 after drubbing Navy 59-41 on the Big Island. The Warriors also started last year 2-0 before finishing 3-9 so we'll see where this goes, but they certainly seem to be on an upward trajectory.

The weekend ended with Virginia Tech winning 24-3 over Florida State for its first victory in Tallahassee since 1974, having dropped the last 6.

FBS vs. FCS

Due to the cancellation of the South Dakota St. game at Iowa State, 107 FBS teams will play 110 games vs. FCS members this year, which is still a sharp increase from last year's totals of  98 FBS teams playing 98 games vs. FCS members. However, it's not as many as the all-time high of 2016 when 110 FBS schools played 113 games vs. FCS squads.

Last year. FBS teams finished 89-9 (.908) vs. the FCS.

These were the FCS victories in 2017:
September 23: Western Illinois 52, Coastal Carolina 10
September 16: North Carolina A&T 35, Charlotte 31
September 16: Idaho State 30, Nevada 28
September 9: South Dakota 35. Bowling Green 27
September 9: New Hampshire 22, Georgia Southern 12
September 2: Liberty 48, Baylor 45
September 2: Howard 43, UNLV 40
September 2: James Madison 34, East Carolina 14
August 31: Tennessee State 17, Georgia State 10.

There were 41 FBS vs. FCS games this week and there were 5 FCS upset wins.
August 30: UC Davis 44, San Jose State 31
September 1: Villanova 19, Temple 17
September 1: Northern Arizona 30, UTEP 10
September 1: Nicholls State 26, Kansas 23 (OT)
September 2: North Carolina A&T 28, East Carolina 23

The FBS was 36-5 vs. FCS schools over the weekend, and 2-0 the previous week, to make the FBS 38-5 for the season (.884). Since 2003 (when we began tracking it), the FBS is 1,257-122 (.912) vs. the FCS.

Streaks

UCF - Won 14 straight overall (FBS longest), Won 10 straight conference games (FBS longest). Won 56-17 at UConn on Thursday.

FAU - Won 9 straight conference games (tied for FBS longest). Had 10-game overall winning streak snapped in 59-14 loss at Oklahoma on Saturday.

Alabama - Won 19 straight home games (FBS longest). Won 51-14 over Louisville in Orlando on Saturday.

Oklahoma - Won 16 straight road games (FBS longest). Won 59-14 at home vs. FAU on Saturday.

UTEP - Lost 13 straight overall (FBS longest). Lost 30-10 at home to FCS Northern Arizona on Saturday.

Ball State - Lost 13 straight conference games (FBS longest). Won 42-6 vs. FCS Central Connecticut State on Thursday.

Kansas - Lost 46 straight road games (FBS longest). Lost 26-23 in overtime at home to FCS Nicholls State on Saturday.