The FCS Playoffs start this weekend, and it doesn’t seem many people are noticing. I might be wrong on that. The number of people noticing might be higher than normal, and I’m sure fans of the particular teams in action know and care. But personally, as someone who generally knows what’s going on around the FCS most years and will watch the occasional FCS playoff game…I’ve not followed this season’s action.
It’s possible I’m an anomaly. It’s possible I’m unusual in that I’m something of a casual FCS fan. But I’d imagine I’m not the only person who usually follows college football closely as a whole and follows FCS at a distance as part of that.
If this is the case—if the FCS spring season flopped, at least at drawing new eyes or holding onto casual eyes—then a legitimate question is going to be whether this all was worth it. On some teams, players will have played two consecutive partial seasons (I’m thinking of Jacksonville State, in particular, who played four games in October, has played seven games so far this spring, and is slated to play between one and four more games, still) in the fall and spring and will return to a full one in the fall. That doesn’t allow a ton of time for recovery. Now, I don’t know how important recovery is—I’m not a trainer, or a doctor, or a coach, or a player—but I’d also imagine that’s something a lot of trainers, and doctors, and coaches, and players don’t know definitively. And the possibility that it is important is concerning.
Of course, the upside to a spring season wasn’t just the attempt to draw new eyes, or to bring casual eyes into closer contact with the game. There was upside with maintaining relationships with existing devoted fans, and upside for the players getting to play, and maybe financial upside, though I’d guess this last one differs school to school and situation to situation.
And for whatever it’s worth, I’ll admit to some curiosity about the upcoming playoff. I’m curious if North Dakota State can get back on its feet after a rough regular season (by its standards) and win its ninth of the last ten championships. I’m curious if…well, that’s actually it, really. South Dakota State or Sam Houston State or Weber State or Jacksonville State or anyone else winning would be awesome for those guys, but my interest has kind of fallen to the level of North Dakota State vs. the world, knowing that this year will be a national championship factually, but that I’ll at least personally remember it as a weird one, one in which the best player sat out the whole spring season to prepare for the NFL draft and some teams played three regular season games while others played eight and fall games counted but that didn’t seem clear at the time as I remember it, etc. etc. etc. I don’t know if more devoted FCS fans will view the champion “with an asterisk.” I don’t know if it matters. But I wonder how powers that be are feeling about the decision to play a spring season now, looking back on how it went. And I wonder how they’ll feel when it’s said and done, both once this playoff is done and once next year’s is over and whatever reaping is done for the injury risks the odd schedule sowed. And I’m a little bummed for the FCS, because I was hoping it’d have a little moment, and while I may have just missed it, it really doesn’t seem that happened. At least not yet.
