With the FCS Playoffs beginning shortly, here’s where our model has the situation:
| Team | Reach 2R | Reach QF | Reach SF | Reach Chmp | National Champions |
| South Dakota State | 100.0% | 97.1% | 90.4% | 81.9% | 57.5% |
| Montana | 100.0% | 88.0% | 71.5% | 41.9% | 15.4% |
| Montana State | 100.0% | 57.3% | 42.9% | 24.3% | 9.9% |
| North Dakota State | 99.6% | 42.7% | 32.2% | 18.2% | 7.7% |
| Idaho | 100.0% | 66.8% | 48.0% | 7.4% | 2.4% |
| South Dakota | 100.0% | 64.5% | 19.0% | 6.7% | 1.5% |
| Furman | 100.0% | 66.6% | 16.7% | 4.6% | 1.1% |
| Villanova | 100.0% | 68.8% | 6.2% | 3.2% | 1.1% |
| Southern Illinois | 78.9% | 29.2% | 16.8% | 2.5% | 0.9% |
| Albany | 100.0% | 59.3% | 20.3% | 2.1% | 0.6% |
| Richmond | 79.7% | 35.4% | 12.5% | 1.4% | 0.5% |
| Youngstown State | 91.4% | 30.6% | 2.3% | 1.0% | 0.4% |
| Austin Peay | 64.2% | 22.3% | 4.8% | 1.3% | 0.3% |
| Delaware | 79.3% | 10.9% | 5.0% | 1.1% | 0.3% |
| North Dakota | 61.9% | 22.3% | 3.9% | 1.1% | 0.3% |
| Sacramento State | 38.1% | 13.2% | 2.0% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
| Mercer | 63.0% | 2.1% | 0.9% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
| Chattanooga | 35.8% | 11.1% | 1.8% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
| Nicholls | 21.1% | 4.1% | 1.6% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| Gardner-Webb | 37.0% | 0.9% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| North Carolina Central | 20.3% | 5.3% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| Lafayette | 20.7% | 1.1% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Duquesne | 8.6% | 0.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Drake | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Observations, thoughts:
- South Dakota State isn’t an overwhelming favorite. They’re less than 3-in-5 likely, per our model, to win it all. In the context of a 24-team, single-elimination tournament, that’s very high, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that the Jacks will win this title again. What’s much closer to a foregone conclusion is that the Jacks will at least reach the national championship. Part of this is how good they are (we’d have them favored by about ten points right now over each of Montana, Montana State, and North Dakota State), but part is that they got a great draw. We’d have each of Montana, MSU, and NDSU favored by eight right now over Idaho and by ten over Villanova and SIU, meaning SDSU would be an 18-point favorite, right now, over every other team on their side of the bracket (this will change, and because teams outperforming expectations tend to win, there’s a good chance SDSU is less than an 18-point favorite at some point, but…18 points). This is what happens when you’re a 1-seed, but it’s also what happens when you get a little lucky regarding the placement of Montana State and NDSU.
- Most of today’s games should be competitive, with the only one where an upset would be totally unfathomable coming in Fargo, where North Dakota State welcomes Drake, champions of the non-scholarship Pioneer League.
- Sticking with the Bison: The quadrant of the bracket which includes South Dakota, Montana State, North Dakota State, North Dakota, and Sacramento State is the closest thing you get in a bracket to a “group of death.” North Dakota and Sacramento State each spent time this year within the top ten, and they’re far and away likely to produce the worst second-round team in those two games.
- Our model’s a little higher on markets than Furman, signaling it either perceives some disrespect for the SoCon or that people are making more than our model of Furman flubbing that game against Wofford. It’s not notably high or low on the CAA, which is interesting because I believe it was low on that league last year.
- Judging by how close our model is to the betting markets, the Stats Perform Top 25 (the FCS’s poll of record, which is voted on and to my knowledge has nothing to do with stats) is even further from ranking teams by ability than the FBS’s AP Poll is. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I’d be curious how FCS voters define the job they do. Those polls are always a little dumb (best team vs. best résumé vs. best recent results), but the formality of the Power Five/Group of Five structure in the FBS can sometimes help at least shape the AP Poll. The FCS poll is the wild west. With the FBS shaping itself more like the FCS in the upcoming years (less of that defined conference hierarchy, a larger playoff), the AP Poll might be heading even more in the direction of chaos.
- It’s notable that the home team is favored in every game, and by more than three points (by both our model and the markets). This would imply the committee prioritized giving good teams home games this year, though perhaps the better teams’ bids just happened to be stronger, by the committee’s rubric.
