SLU Climbs to 16th in Stats Perform FCS Poll

[Jon Marley]

It was Saturday around 4:30 p.m. ET. The sun was out, but the air was crisp. My three-person family, as we tend to do on lazy weekend days, was spread out into three different areas of our house. And as I always do when I find myself alone on those such days, I started fiddling with the ESPN App to see what was on.

On this Saturday, as it has been for the past two Saturdays and as it will be until mid-May, what it was, was football. College football. Like, a whole lot of college football. For a moment, lost amid college hoops, baseball, softball and NBA All-Star chatter, I forgot about college football, and I'm betting you did, too.

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That's why I am here now, to remind you that the NCAA's second tier, FCS, is currently playing an abbreviated spring season to make up for its coronavirus-canceled autumn. Some FCS schools played a handful of nonconference contests six months ago, but the entirety of the FCS (OK, everyone except the Ivy League) is playing now. In addition, a handful of Division II teams kicked off last weekend with the majority slated to start their spring seasons over the coming days.

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Is it Ohio State-Michigan? No. But we didn't get Ohio State-Michigan last fall either, did we? Who cares if it's a mix of schools you've heard of (North Dakota State! James Madison!) and schools you've never heard of or schools you've heard of only because they play SEC schools every November (wassup, Mercer!).

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Your mantra for watching the 2021 spring season should be the same as it was during the 2020 fall schedule: just be happy we have games at all. Between overhyped Power 5 spring scrimmages, the USFL, XFL and whatever this fan-driven league thing we have now is (Fan Controlled Football), we the football fans have always wanted to make football work as the flowers bloomed and the creepy mall Easter Bunnies started showing up.

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Finally, we have it! We have HBCUs exchanging smack on social media and smackdowns on Saturdays. We have decades-plus rivalries resumed in classic conferences, such as the Southern, Missouri Valley and Big Sky. We have Eastern Washington QB Eric Barriere slinging it around and creating buzz as a sleeper pick for next month's NFL draft. We have Albany Great Danes QB Jeff Undercuffler, who looks like that one kid in your youth league who looked like he was a 35-year-old man, standing in the pocket at 6-foot-5, 231 pounds. In a division of football that's supposedly one step slower and a few inches shorter than the FBS, he ain't.

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And yeah, his school's mascot is a Great Dane. In FCS, they also have the Blue Hens, Governors, Sycamores, Racers, Lumberjacks, Delta Devils and Fighting Camels. The players who proudly wear those names and colors -- not to mention those woodchips, pitchforks and furry humps -- have worked just as hard to play as the stars you know from the College Football Playoff. They've also been forced to employ more patience than players from those big-time programs because they've had to sit and wait until the spring. Some left, but most stayed. Why? Because they love it. And we should love them for it.

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The 152nd season of college football is six months away, but the second spring dealing with COVID-19 is here. There's light at the end of the scrimmage. Teams are planning on spring practice without interruptions. The NCAA has not intervened. Sure, there might be a stoppage or two, but with the coronavirus vaccines increasing production, we can turn our attention to position battles, new players, new coaches and transfers.

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Starting over: There may not be room at the top, but at least there's hope of new blood. The nation's three most dominant programs all face some degree of rebuild. Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State will use the spring trying to replace a combined nine CBS Sports All-Americans. The Big Three have lost the projected No. 1 overall NFL Draft choice (Clemson's Trevor Lawrence), the Heisman Trophy winner (Alabama's DeVonta Smith), the Davey O'Brien winner (Alabama's Mac Jones), Outland the Trophy winner (Alabama's Alex Leatherwood), the Rimington Trophy winner (Alabama's Landon Dickerson) and the Doak Walker winner (Alabama's Najee Harris). All that said, it will be an upset if the Big Three doesn't all start 2021 in the top five and all make the College Football Playoff. Again. They have combined to win 11 consecutive conference titles.

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No. 1: The Tigers started the offseason No. 1, at least in this corner of the world. If not for the transfer of linebacker Mike Jones Jr., all 11 defenders would return. I've already said it: Sophomore quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei might eventually be better than Lawrence. A bunch of receivers return. If you attend one spring practice (socially distanced, of course), Clemson should be it. This spring kicks off Dabo Swinney's pursuit of a third national title in the last six years.

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There is spring practice and a spring season: Ninety-one Division I teams, most of them FCS, elected to play their 2020 seasons in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the likes of powerhouse North Dakota State, that could mean playing up to 28 games this calendar year (including FCS playoffs). Actually, all those games would be within a 10.5-month period. And we're worried about expansion of the College Football Playoff? Let's talk student-athlete welfare: The average Bison lineman could average 5.92 full-go snaps per day from now until the FCS title game in the second week of January 2022.

The LSU mess: Less than 14 months after winning a national championship, LSU is wrapped in controversy. There is an ongoing investigation into alleged sexual assault that may have happened on the watch of both Ed Orgeron and Les Miles. USA Today sued the school attempting to gain access to documents. There was a report this week that Miles was investigated for harassment in 2013. The biggest football question of LSU's spring -- Myles Brennan or Max Johnson at quarterback? -- kind of pales in comparison.

New coaches: There are 15 of them, a somewhat surprising total given expectations that 2020 was going to be a mulligan season for a lot of coaches due to COVID-19. Not at South Carolina, Auburn and Texas where they ponied up $50 million in combined buyout money to make changes. You know what you can buy with $50 million? Your own private island. Eight Power Five schools made a change. Seven of the 15 are first-time head coaches. Sadly, only two are minorities. Here's the hiring grades.