The Long Climb Back: Teams That Did Not Play in 2020

[DFW HOYA]

Below are the teams that did not play at all in 2020-21. Of these, Northern Colorado. Morgan State, and Georgetown have a very steep hill to climb.

Big Sky:
Montana State (11-4 in 2019, 6-2 in conference)
Northern Colorado (2-10, 2-6)
Sacramento State (9-4, 7-1)


Big South:
Hampton (5-7, 1-5)
North Carolina A&T (9-3, 6-2 in MEAC)


CAA:
Towson (7-5, 4-4)


MEAC:
North Carolina Central (4-8, 3-5)
Morgan State (3-9, 2-6)
Norfolk State (5-7, 4-4)


MVFC:
Indiana State (5-7, 3-5)


Northeast:
Central Connecticut St. (11-1, 7-0)
St Francis PA (6-6, 3-4)


Patriot:
Georgetown (5-6, 1-5)


Pioneer:
Dayton (8-3, 6-2)
Marist (4-7, 4-4)
St. Thomas (8-2, 7-1 in MIAC)


SWAC:
Alcorn St. (9-4, 6-1)
Florida A&M (9-2, 7-1 in MEAC)
Bethune–Cookman (7-4, 5-3)

[Libertine]

Of these, Northern Colorado...


One could argue that NoCo, having hired their new coach in December 2019, might have given themselves an advantage over normal circumstances by not playing in the fall. I don't know what practice restrictions they had in the interim but the pandemic may have given them the time to completely reshape their program. They've almost certainly upgraded at QB with McCaffrey's son, Dylan, transferring in and it seems unlikely that any "dead wood" on the roster would have just hung around this long.

[acbearkat]

Montana State has a new head coach, as Jeff Choate left to go be the inside linebackers coach at Texas under new UT defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowsi.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NY Crusader 2010]

And then you could have a second list of teams that "barely played" in 2020. UNH and Colgate each played one game and were done, I think. A bunch of teams only played 2 or 3 regular season games. Holy Cross' postseason (2 games) was as long as the regular season...

[Daytripper]

As stated earlier, I think it could be a blessing or a curse for teams that didn't play (or played very little) in 2020. I think it's a negative for the better teams because I don't care how much talent you have, if you don't play actual competitive football for 18-20 months it will have an impact. For those who are bad or are in a coaching transition, it gives them extra time to implement their system and change culture. We will see.

[acbearkat]

Montana State will be a fascinating team to watch due to the coaching change.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk