S137 Playoffs Begin!
It's that time and for those that made it, your real season is about to begin!
We start this year off with a full tournament of human coaches! With over 60 of us in this world, only 32 were good enough to make it in.
Here is a list of the top ten core ranked teams as of today.
#1. Northern Michigan (13-1) 67 Core, 13 Seniors
#2. Texas A&M-Comm (14-0) 67 Core, 9 Seniors
#3. Cheyney (13-1) 66 Core, 9 Seniors
#4 Presbyterian (13-1) 65 Core, 14 Seniors
#5 Winona St. (13-1) 65 Core, 6 Seniors
#8 Virginia State (14-0) 65 Core, 10 Seniors
#9. Humboldt St. (13-1) 64 Core, 16 Seniors
#10 Saginaw Valley St. (11-2) 64 Core, 13 Seniors
Northern Michigan lost to Ferris St. by 21 last meeting.
Texas A&M-Comm has not played anyone on the list.
Cheyney lost to Ferris St. by 3 points.
Presbyterian lost to Bloomsburg by 7. Winona St. lost to Hillsdale by 3 in OT.
W. Chester lost to Edinboro by 1 and Bloomsburg by 9.
Ferris St. lost to Northern Michigan by 3 points in OT.
Virginia St. beat Humboldt St by 6 in OT.
Humboldt St. lost to Virginia St. by 6 in OT.
Saginaw Valley lost to NMU by 8 and Ferris St. by 43.
As you can see the core rating isn't as crucial to who wins and losses this season. The hottest team coming into this tournament has to be Ferris State who did split a game of Northern Michigan but their last meeting they won convincingly by 21 points.
Texas A&M Commerce is somewhat unproven they have played a fairly easy schedule but has performed well in previous tournaments and comes in with one of the highest score ratings.
Cheney and Virginia state are the other two teams to really keep an eye on and even though Cheney lost to Ferris State, that game could have went either way and they could be just as good this year.
Virginia state is the sleeper of the tournament and while they've made a name for themselves and reach the quarter-finals last year, they slipped past Humboldt State and seem to come up big in tournament play based on previous performance. They have a receiver named Michael Dixon who has a huge playmaker and is caught the ball 405 times for 6218 yards in 59 touchdowns. Is that some kind of record? He catches the ball 71% of the time that it's thrown to him which is insane.
NORTH BRACKET
Starting in the North Division I think out of all the good teams that are listed in this bracket, Virginia State, Long Island in St Joseph's really stands out from the crowd.
We already talked about Virginia state, but Long Island has bigpoppa85 who has plenty of experience in winning National Championship's and St. Joseph's has Fla_Dave who has returned to bring his team back to their former glory. The sleeper team has to be Bloomsburg and Jms245 who has played his tail off this year and deserves all the credit. Not only did they win their division and beat a very good West Chester team, but they also took down a very good Presbyterian team and their coach has vast experience in the playoffs.
If I had to predict I think Virginia state, Tusculum, Bloomsburg and Long Island move on. I think Long Island can handle the challenge versus Bloomsburg and Virginia state could possibly take Tusculum. Out of those two I think Virginia state has a magical season and pulls it through for the northern bracket.
SOUTHERN BRACKET
Over in the South, we've got Cheney and they are probably the clear favorite to win this bracket. However, Valdosta State and West Chester are going to see if they have anything to say about it.
Presbyterian was in the quarterfinals last year and with their second half performance versus Shepherd maybe they found a scheme that's going to produce quite a bit of points going forward. Pace could be a sleeper in this bracket with their convincing performance versus Long Island that boasted two returns for touchdowns! If they get that kind of love in the playoffs that will go a long ways.
For the first round I can see Cheney, West Chester, Winona State and Presbyterian moving forward. I think Cheney proves too much for Westchester and Presbyterian pulls it together to take down Winona State leaving Cheney with a victory over Presbyterian to clinch the South.
EASTERN BRACKET
Welcome to the east bracket which is going to find one of the tournament favorites out of it by the second round and that's a guarantee. Northern Michigan is probably the slight favorite out of the East followed by Texas A&M Commerce second and then Northern Alabama.
The real sleeper is going to be Western New Mexico who comes in as a 4 seed and will be playing against Southern Connecticut. They boast a really good defense and elite style running backs to do damage. I really think they could give Northern Alabama fits in the second round.
So I'm going to predict the northern Alabama moves forward to face Western New Mexico and Northern Michigan will move on to face Texas A&M Commerce. It's really tough to go against Northern Alabama because Fazbear05 can game plan with the best of them and they beat teams like Tusculum and Valdosta State earlier in the season. But for some reason I think Western New Mexico can stand the test and move on to the quarterfinals.
Between Northern Michigan and Texas A&M Commerce I'm going to have to give the nod to Northern Michigan as they're running back Daniel Murphy with almost a 79 core rating is going to prove to be too much of a handful to contain.
Between Northern Michigan and Western New Mexico it's going to be Northern Michigan moving on to the Final Four. It will be a great season for W. New Mexico but NMU is going to smell blood for a NC repeat.
WESTERN BRACKET
Finally, we visit the Western bracket that features the hottest team in the tournament and that is Ferris State. 21 point win over Northern Michigan is a crazy performance and that film will probably be analyzed for days to come.
Edinboro gets a really tough matchup against the super low seed Midwestern State. And Humboldt State is going to be tested against a very solid Saginaw Valley State in the first round.
Ferris State is just too hot and they're going to pass through Mesa state without any issues. Edinboro finds an early exit as Midwestern State is one of those low seed dangerous teams who returns to form and relies on their defense to pull this through. Morehouse gets an easy victory over Missouri-Rolla and will face a Humboldt State team that manages to squeak by Saginaw Valley State to reach the second round.
I think that Ferris State can handle Midwestern State in the second round and Humboldt State slips past Morehouse to meet up with Ferris State in the quarterfinals. Morehouse will finish with an outstanding season and their CC trophy. Ferris State pulls off another amazing victory and finds themselves in the final four.
THE FINAL FOUR
From there we find Virginia State versus Cheney and on the other side of the bracket is Northern Michigan vs Ferris State and their third meeting of the season. I think Cheney pulls off a very close win over Virginia State to advance and Ferris State still has NMU's number to move on.
This would be bring us back to one of the first meetings when these two coaches joined the world and we would see Ferris St. versus Cheyney in the National Championship.
Predicting the future is a tough job and for my own personal greedy sake, I hope I'm very wrong! Go TAMC! To all the coaches, good luck tonight and going forward.
I would be very interested to hear who your picks are the final four, feel free to post them after you read this article!