Leatherneck Nation

Saturday's forecast for Normal is starting to sound better. Looks like Friday will be the rainy day.

For Saturday:
High of 67.
Cloudy.
20% chance of showers.
Wind: West at 14 mph.

An article about Saturday's game at Illinois State was in today's Peoria Journal-Star:
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20151020/ ... 130/SPORTS

South Dakota’s Saturday upset of No. 2-ranked North Dakota State sent shockwaves throughout FCS.

And while the Coyotes ended the Bison’s 26-game winning streak at the Fargo Dome, Illinois State is now the FCS national leader in consecutive home victories with 15.

Wouldn't it be great to break that string as well?

I just want redemption for last year's 4th quarter collapse. We should have won that one but our defense completely fell apart in the last quarter (a frequent issue last year). This year, our offense is just as good and our defense is quite a bit better. If we play like we did last year, but minus the 4th quarter shenanigans, we should be able to win this one.

In the conference, over this season and the last two years, we actually have a better record on the road (4-5) than we do at home (4-6) and it was only this year that we got back up the same amount of home wins as road wins (with the 2 conference home wins so far this year), so I don't think playing on the road is that big of a detriment to our team.

The MVFC has seven nationally ranked teams for the first time this season and the ninth time in league history.

In the Sagarin rankings, the Valley is listed as the No. 15 conference in all of college football.

That puts the league ahead of four FBS conferences: Mountain West (East), Conference USA (East), Mid-American (East), and the Sun Belt.

I wonder where the MVFC would rank if we dropped the highest ranked team and the lowest ranked team.

HOME ADVANTAGE=[ 2.66] [ 2.66] [ 2.66] [ 2.66]
70 North Dakota State AA = 68.39 4 2 0 51.89( 148) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 65.74 84 | 68.81 69 | 70.16 66
72 Illinois State AA = 67.87 5 1 0 54.08( 135) 0 0 0 | 0 1 0 | 67.23 74 | 68.07 71 | 68.28 70
73 South Dakota State AA = 67.59 5 1 0 55.07( 132) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 69.09 67 | 67.65 73 | 66.71 78
101 Youngstown State AA = 60.72 3 3 0 55.89( 128) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 62.24 102 | 60.86 100 | 59.82 100
102 Northern Iowa AA = 59.97 2 4 0 62.94( 94) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 59.20 112 | 59.81 102 | 60.46 97
111 Western Illinois AA = 58.23 4 2 0 58.29( 114) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 57.98 116 | 58.64 110 | 58.40 109
117 Southern Illinois AA = 56.88 2 4 0 52.04( 146) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 59.79 110 | 55.77 120 | 55.12 123
129 Indiana State AA = 53.64 4 2 0 48.86( 163) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 52.12 140 | 53.82 128 | 54.58 128
150 South Dakota AA = 50.06 3 3 0 57.40( 118) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 50.88 145 | 49.99 152 | 49.56 154
206 Missouri State AA = 36.53 1 5 0 64.40( 82) 0 0 0 | 0 1 0 | 27.49 229 | 35.47 210 | 40.62 188

RedNeck wrote:I wonder where the MVFC would rank if we dropped the highest ranked team and the lowest ranked team.

Slightly higher. They essentially average the "rating" value for all teams in the conference. Our average would go from 58.86 to 59.37. An improvement, but not enough to overtake the next conference ahead of us (MAC-West at 63.12). We'd improve a bit because the "high" lost from dropping NDSU isn't anywhere close to the "low" we'd remove from dropping MSU. There's a pretty big step down from the second-to-last team (South Dakota) and the last place team.

Preview of Saturday's game as seen on WGEM Sports with Sean Barie:
http://www.wgem.com/story/30330277/2015 ... nois-state

Not quite enough bark or bite against the birds

ISU 52
WIU 13