Let's hear your hot take FCS opinions. The ones you know in your heart of hearts are right, but for some reason aren't embraced by the FCS community (or particular fanbases) en masse!

Could be controversial (the Ivy League very well might be the best FCS conference on the East Coast), unpopular but you know is true (Sam Houston was at least as good a team as JMU from 2011 through the "2020" season), or even somewhat popular but still liable to rankle some folks (the Walter Payton award should go to the "best" offensive player, not just the offensive player with the best stat line because they played a weak schedule).

Sorted by controversial for maximum spiciness

Rules

• Keep it somewhat relevant to the FCS

• Takes are welcome whether they're looking back historically or in reference to current games/rankings/polls/etc.

• Try to keep it civil (basic /r/CFB and /r/FCS rules still apply)

2026 Week 9 /r/FCS HBCU Poll Results

Also available in image form!

Dropped from the Top 10: Delaware State

Others receiving votes: UAPB (7), Delaware State (6)

The full list of responses can be found here. Congratulations to /u/bakonydraco for having the Top 25 submission that best correlated with the final /r/FCS poll this week!

As a reminder, the /r/FCS poll is also now part of the Massey College Football Ranking Composite. Results of this poll will update under the column with header 'RDT'.

FBS wins are always impressive for FCS programs, but not all FBS teams are created equal. Some wins over FBS teams are significantly more impressive than others, yet that distinction can get overlooked when evaluating FCS resumes.

In this post, I'll compare every FBS team that has lost to an FCS opponent with an FCS team of similar strength according to Sagarin. For fun, I'll also show where the FBS team would rate within a local FCS conference.

Tarleton State defeats Bowling Green 20-13

Beating Bowling Green (#147) is most comparable to beating 4-4 Abilene Christian. If Bowling Green was in the Missouri Valley, they'd be the 8th rated team in the conference out of 10.

The Citadel defeats Charlotte 43-41

Beating Charlotte (#174) is most comparable to beating 4-4 Villanova. If Charlotte was in the SoCon, they'd be the 6th rated team out of 11.

Idaho State defeats Utah State 29-17

Beating Utah State (#103) is most comparable to beating 6-3 North Dakota. If Utah State was in the Big Sky, they'd be the 2nd rated team out of 13.

Illinois State defeats Northern Illinois 28-24

Beating Northern Illinois (#182) is most comparable to beating 4-4 Colgate. If Northern Illinois was in the Missouri Valley, they'd be the 9th ranked team out of 10.

Montana State defeats Nevada 20-7

Beating Nevada (#114) is most comparable to beating 6-2 Illinois State. If Nevada was in the Big Sky, they'd be the 2nd rated team out of 13.

Southeastern defeats UL Monroe 38-35

Beating UL Monroe (#167) is most comparable to beating 3-5 Western Carolina. If UL Monroe was in the Southland, they'd be the 4th rated team out of 11.

2026 Week 9 /r/FCS Poll Results

Also available in image form!

Dropped from the Top 25: Northern Iowa, Princeton, Southeastern

Others receiving votes: Abilene Christian (26), Alabama A&M (22), Stony Brook (19), Southeast Missouri (17), Princeton (12), South Carolina State (11), Wofford (11), Southeastern (9), Dayton (9), Idaho (7)

The full list of responses can be found here. Congratulations to /u/ThatEmpireGuy for having the Top 25 submission that best correlated with the final /r/FCS poll this week!

Breakdown of Rankings by Conference

As a reminder, the /r/FCS poll is also now part of the Massey College Football Ranking Composite. Results of this poll will update under the column with header 'RDT'.

Originally, this was a rivalry between Idaho and Eastern Washington established in 1984. During Idaho's tenure at the FBS level, the rivalry was inherited by Montana who holds the lead in the trophy series at 16-9 if Wikipedia can be trusted.

While the game was highly competitive last decade, the Griz have won 4 in a row

Who wins, and by how much?

No matter what happened, it's not all bad. Say something nice about your team or their performance.

Ill be honest definitely saw this coming and I'm not saying I'm happy but I'm not saying I'm sad either.

Makes sense with some of the coaches being fired on the FBS level.

Credit to u/2Pollaski2Furious for the idea. Same sets of rules from the original FBS series apply here for the FCS teams. This is an award for FCS teams that humiliate themselves, whether it's a choke job, a crushing blow with everything to prove, or they have no business losing the match-up.

Previous Winners

Week 0: Villanova Wildcats (against William & Mary, 35-32)

Week 1: Western Carolina Catamounts (against Campbell, 28-19)

Week 2: Maine Black Bears (against Merrimack, 23-14)

Week 3: Rhode Island Rams (against Stony Brook, 56-24)

Week 4: Illinois State Redbirds (against Northern Iowa, 28-21)

Week 5: Montana State Bobcats (against Idaho, 35-34)

Week 6: North Dakota Fighting Hawks (against Northern Iowa, 24-17)

Week 7: Montana Grizzlies (against Idaho, 42-35)

LAST WEEK: Easily taking it is yet another top ten upset by Idaho, and this time they went to Missoula to get their second ever win of the year and the Little Brown Stein. Montana needed to lick their wounds after a rough outing in Flagstaff, so surely a down rival at home would be just what the doctor ordered, right? They just did not have a defensive answer for Josh Wood's offense in spite of Ah Yat's efforts, and now they lost two straight conference games and will need help to keep contender hopes up.

And now for a few special mentions:

• Bryant now joins a rather crowded 3-1 position in a rather top-heavy CAA after falling at home to Stony Brook. It'll be hard to catch up to Campbell and Monmouth now.
• Columbia had three consecutive fourth quarter drives get picked off in their loss against Dartmouth.
• Idaho nearly grabbed defeat - or at least a forced overtime - from the jaws of victory from that godawful pass coverage, but they successfully got themselves into a 53-yard FG that just cleared the uprights.
• Illinois State did beat Indiana State, but they had a first quarter deficit and were uncomfortably close.
• North Dakota played in the wrong dome, but did manage to force overtime. They fell just short as South Dakota scores a touchdown on them.
• Northwestern State managed to take a lead over Nicholls at a couple occasions but still fell and remained winless.
• Princeton received a nasty beating in Cambridge, and now Harvard remains the only Ivy with an undefeated conference record.
• I would never have guessed that Valparaiso would be 4-4 right now, but here they are.
• Wagner had a real shot at avoiding NEC futility while visiting Duquesne. The Dukes proceeded to crush those dreams in the fourth quarter in a 35-point clinic, including a pick-six and a scoop-and-score.

CAL POLY MUSTANGS (against Utah Tech, 43-26)

... who the fuck loses to Utah Tech? With lousy ball security? At home?!

COLGATE RAIDERS (against Richmond, 13-6)

Went from Patriot League contender to likely out of postseason talk after a pretty bad offensive display with three interceptions. And also critically, there was a fumbled punt return towards the end of the first half which led to Richmond scoring a go-ahead field goal, after which neither team did much.

CORNELL BIG RED (against Brown, 38-31 OT)

I've been asking this question multiple times, but can any Ivy League team hold a goddamn lead? Cornell had a rather productive middle two quarters, amassing a 14-point lead before allowing two cross-field heroics to force overtime at the last possible second. Brown then instantly scored a touchdown in their first play as Cornell did jackshit to close the game.

FURMAN PALADINS (against Samford, 13-6)

This isn't quite a SoCon cellar fight since it'll be a while before we see the Citadel face VMI, but this is pretty close, and it's odd that Furman beat Mercer this past year the way things are going. They did slowly come back with a 6-6 draw in the fourth quarter, but then they fumbled into their own red zone, something that Samford capitalized on. Furman's two interceptions did not help either.

JACKSON STATE TIGERS (against Bethune-Cookman, 24-21)

It is now a crowded East Division for the SWAC after the Tigers drop their second straight road game. After a bad first quarter, they did at least slowly claw their way back and took a 21-17 lead with less than three minutes to go. Bethune-Cookman then put up the most complete offense in a while and got a touchdown of their own.

LEHIGH MOUNTAIN HAWKS (against Villanova, 24-18)

It seems like Lehigh needed Hayden Johnson pretty badly as they lose to Nova in the second straight year after a bad first half. They did have a chance to come back and perhaps win, reaching the Nova 2, but Derek Morgan threw two incompletions and got wrapped up as time expired. And just like that the Patriot League title race is opened up.

MORGAN STATE BEARS (against Howard, 26-20 OT)

The early season held promise, but now Morgan State's hopes of contending for the MEAC is in jeopardy. They were leading 20-6 in the fourth quarter and had a 97.6% chance of winning, but then the offense had three consecutive three and outs as the Bison claw their way back to overtime. It didn't take long for the Bison to secure it through a pick six.

WEBER STATE WILDCATS (against Montana State, 38-33)

The Wildcats had a great first half in a bid to make a statement in the Big Sky conference race, having a tidy 27-17 lead after capitalizing on Montana State's kickoff return fumble. And then they made two fumbles of their own - one of which costly - and struggled to stop a furious 21-point response from the Bobcats that they tried to come back within two minutes... and couldn't recover the onside.

WILLIAM & MARY TRIBE (against Georgetown, 28-27)

It was a rough Homecoming, and their first season in the Patriot League had their high hopes dashed. They did pull up ahead by six in the fourth quarter and had a 96% chance of winning to likely stop the Hoyas comeback. That final touchdown with 38 seconds to go broke their hearts, and the three picks Winston Watkins threw did not help.

YALE BULLDOGS (against Penn, 24-21)

It's yet another example of the habit of an Ivy not holding on to their lead. Penn was in fact struggling for good parts of the game, but fortunes start to turn around when Yale threw a third of four picks which led to a field goal to start the fourth quarter. And then Yale wasn't able to provide sufficient offense as they allow a final touchdown.

And as always, don't forget to mark your vote in brackets for visibility, <like so>. I also appreciate entries I might have passed over, so feel free to nominate, and I might edit it here.

Link to graph: https://imgur.com/a/lIdQHy2

Vent here. This is a friendly place.

Another week, another edition of your mother's ex-girlfriend's sister's favorite show. We begin with something new.

The Good

• Ladies and Gentlemen... we just had our first ever FCS TANK BOWL!! Cues up 'Roundball Rock' This game had two 1-6 teams square off as the Stetson Hatters faced the Morehead State Eagles. Both teams haven't beat anyone at the FCS level yet, so something had to give. What gave was the defense - both teams had over 400 yards of offense. In the end, only one team knew the rules of Tank Bowl... You must lose, and that loser was Stetson. The Eagles won 38-31, giving them their first win over an FCS team this season. Meanwhile, the Hatters may have to wait for their first FCS win in two weeks against Davidson.

• Time for another edition of the Ivy League Dinner Date and this time, Penn wanted something quick and greasy. Yale was willing to oblige and the place was chosen - Burger King. Fortunately for the Quakers, Yale was happy to give them apple turnovers in the form of four interceptions from Dante Reno. My man... what happened? You threw 9 touchdowns to 1 interception to start the season. Now? 6 touchdowns to 5 interceptions. This is the kind of fall off that makes people wonder if you were a one hit wonder. Either way, Penn takes the win and leaves Yale to do the dishes.

• Time for a trip into the Pioneer League Knife Fight and... Oh no, Marist! They got popped in the nose by St. Thomas, giving the Red Foxes their first conference loss of the year. There's now four teams tied on top at 3-1: The aforementioned two teams here, Dayton and Butler. There are a few catches here - Dayton doesn't play either St. Thomas or Marist and Butler is the only one to get all three teams. The conference title may come to head on November 7th when Butler and St. Thomas meet.

In other 'Good' News: Utah Tech escapes winless hell; Monmouth and Campbell keep moving closer to season ending clash of titans; Will Burns goes 'one man army' against the Fighting Potatoes, but come up short.

The Bad

• Uh, Lehigh. You guys okay? I knew the Cornell loss could have been a fluke, but this? You lost to a team in Villanova who keeps flaunting the conference rules by starting Pat McQuaide and now have won two in a row against you guys after last season's upset in the playoffs. Now you guys are deadlocked with a pretty good Richmond team on top the Patriot League and you have to go there on November 14th. All of a sudden, the Mountain Hawks might be in danger of missing the playoffs.

• The Dome Hex strikes again and it went southward to Vermillion, South Dakota where the Fighting Hawks and Coyotes squared off in a battle of ranked powers. In the end, the Dome Hex took down another ranked team in the form of North Dakota. This went into overtime OVERTIME?!? Yeah! and the Coyotes threw a game winning touchdown to beat their rivals and continue the Dome Hex.

• Time for the Chuck Norris Award for Biggest Ass Kicking and it goes to the new number one team in the land. Tarleton State finally reached the top of the mountain and then proceeded to absolutely devastate West Georgia 49-6 in a showcase of why the Texans are the scariest team in the nation. Runner ups this week include East Tennessee State (38-0 victory over VMI) and Monmouth (49-13 curb stomp of Hampton).

In other 'Bad' News: Colgate loses, makes me sad; Rhode Island reaches fraud status after losing to Albany; Presbyterian loses to Valparaiso, falls in Pioneer League Knife Fight; Cornell falls in overtime after biggest win in generations.

The Princeton

• In what was supposed to be a king maker game in the Ivy League, the Tigers were less Shere Khan and more like Tigger. Harvard took them to the woodshed in a 35-7 victory that left no doubt as to who runs the Ivy League. For that showing, Princeton is getting the Mushu Treatment: Dishonor on your team, dishonor on your school, dishonor on your performance this weekend and dishonor to your fans who had to suffer through this.

• The race to go 0-12 and earn the Wooden Spoon is now down to three teams: Northwestern State, Towson and VMI. The Demons and Keydets played this weekend and had varying results... Northwestern State lost by 4 to Nicholls State while VMI got splattered all over their home field by East Tennessee State. Towson had the week off (which is a godsend for them). The race for the Wooden Spoon continues next week as all three teams play, headlined by Tank Bowl II - Hampton at Towson.

• Bryant had a chance to be in the race for the Coastal Clusterfuck, but Stony Brook had other ideas. A 27-17 win means the Seawolves have the all important head-to-head tiebreaker. While the Bulldogs don't get Campbell this season, they can still throw a massive monkey wrench into things next week against Monmouth.

In other 'Ugly' News: West Florida lands hard in loss to Eastern Kentucky; Montana State wins, MDA members celebrate by hugging their drywall; FloSports - Still the weaker choice of streaming services (Unless you're in the Coastal, in which... it's your only choice).

With that, the floor is open.

Click here to vote for Week 9 in the /r/FCS Poll.

After signing in, click the link that says Current /r/FCS Poll. The poll will remain open until 12 pm (noon) Central Time on Tuesday, October 27^th. The results will be posted later on /r/FCS.

Note: Like last week, we're trying out a new voting method. You may now select "I have a computerized ranking and would like to vote by copy-and-paste." This will make it faster for voters to vote with those systems compared to the dropdown menus. The team naming convention follows the /r/CFB inline flair system with only the school name, not the mascot (e.g. Abilene Christian, not Abilene Christian Wildcats). Because this method makes it harder to check for duplicates and introduces the possibility of typos or inconsistent names for teams, please only use this voting option if you have a computerized ranking that will automatically avoid those issues.

Optional D1 HBCU Top Ten Poll

You now have the option to vote just for the HBCU Top 10 if you so choose! At the end of your FCS Top 25 (or Top 10) submission, you'll be given the opportunity to also submit a vote for your ranking of the top 10 HBCUs in the subdivision. This is optional and meant to be an additional fanbase voice within the Black College National Championship conversation.

Note: this does not prevent you from ranking the HBCUs in your standard FCS ranking submission.

As a reminder, the /r/FCS poll is now part of the Massey Ratings Composite. As such, we highly recommend submitting a full top 25 vote if you think you can put one together. But we're leaving the option to submit just a top 10 for those who’d prefer that route.

• Please check that you didn't vote for the same team twice. Ballots with a duplicated team that are not fixed by the due date will be discarded.

• Joke votes will be thrown out at the moderators' discretion. Diversity of opinions is good; trolling is not.

• If you make a mistake on your ballot or would like to change it for any reason, please re-submit a corrected ballot. Your old one will be discarded automatically, and only your newest ballot will count. You can resubmit as many times as necessary until the deadline.

• If you're unsure if you messed up your ballot, please leave a comment and we'll take a look for you and let you know.

Here are some useful links to help you with your submission:

• Massey Composite Ranking

• STATS Poll (Updates on Mondays)

Big Sky

(3)Montana State 38-33 (21)Weber State

Utah Tech 43-26 Cal Poly

Idaho 31-28 Southern Utah

Idaho State 38-8 Portland State

(24)UC Davis 33-6 Northern Colorado

CAA

Albany 38-21 Rhode Island

New Hampshire 17-24 Merrimack

(13)Campbell 35-6 Maine

Stony Brook 27-17 Bryant

(19)Monmouth 49-13 Hampton

Independent

Merrimack 24-17 Mew Hampshire

Chicago State 9-44 Lindenwood

Ivy League

Pennsylvania 24-21 Yale

Brown 38-31 Cornell

Dartmouth 38-18 Columbia

(10)Harvard 35-7 (22)Princeton

MEAC

North Carolina Central 31-12 Delaware State

South Carolina State 22-7 Norfolk State

Howard 26-20 Morgan State

Missouri Valley

(7)South Dakota 26-23 (6)North Dakota

Southern Illinois 20-17 (20)Northern Iowa

(14)Illinois State 17-10 Indiana State

(5)South Dakota State 42-9 Murray State

NEC

Central Connecticut State 42-20 New Haven

Stonehill 18-14 Long Island

Duquesne 52-21 Wagner

Robert Morris 28-14 Mercyhurst

Ohio Valley

Lindenwood 44-9 Chicago State

Southeast Missouri 20-10 Eastern Illinois

Charleston Southern 20-7 Tennessee State

Western Illinois 55-24 UT Martin

Patriot

Holy Cross 34-3 Bucknell

Lafayette 31-17 Fordham

(23)Richmond 13-6 Colgate

Georgetown 28-27 William & Mary

Villanova 24-18 (11)Lehigh

Pioneer

Dayton 37-32 San Diego

St. Thomas 35-13 Marist

Butler 33-21 Drake

Valparaiso 24-7 Presbyterian

Morehead State 38-31 Stetson

SoCon

(18)East Tennessee State 38-0 VMI

Samford 13-6 Furman

(12)Tennessee Tech 28-13 The Citadel

Chattanooga 41-18 Western Carolina

Southland

Nicholls 31-27 Northwestern State

(16)Lamar 35-10 Houston Christian

UTRGV 30-27 Central Arkansas

Incarnate Word 38-6 McNeese

(2)Stephen F. Austin 45-24 (25)Southeastern Louisiana

East Texas A&M 19-30 Prairie View A&M

SWAC

Bethune-Cookman 24-21 Jackson State

Arkansas-Pine Bluff 31-28 Florida A&M

Texas Southern 24-21 Southern

Prairie View A&M 30-19 East Texas A&M

UAC

(1)Tarleton State 49-6 West Georgia

Eastern Kentucky 16-13 West Florida

Central Arkansas 27-30 UTRGV

(9)Austin Peay 27-21 North Alabama

The Vaqueros played their first ever OT game last night in Conway, AR against the Bears, and it took one offensive play from Broderick “Turbo” Taylor to pull off the win.

The Southland gets another win over the UAC.

Just wanted to say, this community is probably the best sub I am a part of. Love the banter and how everyone can take the digs at eachothers teams. Unlike some forums where’s it’s just a nightmare to read with people constantly bickering.

Keep it up everyone, always fun to read :)

Not a whole lot has changed from the last week; the same four FCS undefeated teams have won this past week's games. Meanwhile, there are two teams that are no longer winless: One is a Pioneer League matchup where somebody had to win, and the other (shockingly) is Utah Tech winning on the road (which means the Big Sky now joins the MVFC in being unrepresented on either list this year).

Undefeated/Technically Undefeated

• Campbell Campbell Camels (7-1; @Florida)
• Harvard Harvard Crimson (6-0)
• Stephen F. Austin Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks (8-0)
• Tarleton Tarleton Texans (8-0)

Division I Winless:

• Chicago State Chicago State Cougars (1-7; Kentucky Christian)
• Hampton Hampton Pirates (1-7; VA Lynchburg)
• Mercyhurst Mercyhurst Lakers (1-7; Glenville State)
• Stetson Stetson Hatters (1-7; Webber International)
• Wagner Wagner Seahawks (1-7; Southern Connecticut State)
• West Georgia West Georgia Wolves (1-7; Fort Valley State)

Winless:

• Northwestern State Northwestern State Demons (0-8)
• Towson Towson Tigers (0-8)
• VMI VMI Keydets (0-8)

No longer winless:

• Morehead State Morehead State Eagles (2-6; Kentucky Christian, Stetson)
• Utah Tech Utah Tech Trailblazers (1-7; @Cal Poly)

What is happening guys?? In Dublin with no vpn so can’t watch.

BOY I DO LOVE BEING IN THE SUBDIVISION THAT CAN FIGURE OUT A 24 TEAM PLAYOFF CORRECTLY!

GRAB YOUR FAVORITE YEAST WATER*, AND LET'S WATCH SOME FOOTBALL!

*OR BEAN WATER, OR FRUIT WATER, OR WATER WATER. IDC, I'M NOT YOUR MOM

Today's Pick 'Em games (all times listed in Central, the heavily disputed best time zone for football) (rankings from the /r/FCS Poll)

You can find the full Week 8 schedule with up-to-the-minute results over at the r/CFB Scoreboard.

Also seriously do not ask for "alternate" streams, because we don't want to deal with takedown notices. Most games have radio broadcasts available for free if you're really desperate.