ursus arctos horribilis
August 27th, 2021, 11:58 AM
FCS HEADLINES
FCS ALL IN -- “FCS ALL IN” is a weekly news program dedicated to promoting all FCS 15 conferences. Content will be provided by each participating conference, and the program will be distributed via a YouTube channel (//YouTube.com/c/FCSALLIN) and launched each Saturday at 10 a.m. ET. In addition to providing an overview of FCS games, each episode will include interviews with special guests and national media correspondents.
WEEK ZERO – A total of five FCS schools are in action this weekend. Southern Utah takes on San Jose State in an FCS-FBS matchup. North Carolina Central and Alcorn face one another in a MEAC/SWAC Challenge, while Eastern Illinois and Indiana State -- separated by just 45 miles -- will take on one another in Terre Haute, Ind.
Announced this week, the Bill Schwanke Award will be awarded annually to an FCS play-by-play radio broadcaster. The voting committee will include select broadcasters, including FOX Sports’ Tim Brando, and a play-by-play broadcaster from each of the FCS conferences. The award will be announced the week before the FCS title game. Kevin Marshall, who hosts the national weekly radio show FCS Nation spearheaded the award’s inception.
ESPN’s “College GameDay” will begin its 35th season at the annual season-opening matchup between the two HBCU conferences in FCS college football. It marks the 10th time the iconic ESPN show has traveled to an FCS site.
#FearTheFCS -- This fall, there are 117 matchups between the FCS and FBS, beginning with Saturday’s Southern Utah-San Jose State game.
The 2021 season marks the debut of two new FCS conferences. The ASUN has three members this season: Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, and Central Arkansas. The WAC has four post-season eligible teams in the fall: Abilene Christian, Lamar, Sam Houston, and SFA. The two leagues have agreed on a one-year scheduling alliance for this fall.
Despite low draft numbers this spring (6) and last (6 in 2019), the number of FCS players on NFL rosters has not altered much --- with more than 210 FCS players on NFL Opening Day rosters in each of the past 3 seasons. The Southland (1) and MVFC (5) were the only two FCS leagues represented in this year’s draft.
ASUN -- The ASUN Conference begins its first year of sponsoring football in 2021 after agreeing on a one-year scheduling alliance with the Western Athletic Conference that will allow for the seven institutions to be eligible for an automatic qualification into the 2021 NCAA FCS Playoffs. The alliance will feature Abilene Christian, Lamar University, Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin from the WAC and Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville State from the ASUN. The seven institutions, termed the AQ7, will play a single round-robin with each institution having three home and three road contests.
A pair of ASUN teams are ranked in the preseason polls as the conference begins its first year sponsoring the sport. In the coaches poll, Jacksonville State checks in at No. 8 while Central Arkansas is listed at No. 13. The Gamecocks are No. 10 while the Bears rank No. 14 in the Stats Perform Preseason Poll. UCA wide receiver Tyler Hudson and JSU defensive back Nicario Harper were named the first Preseason Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, respectively.
BIG SKY -- Southern Utah and San Jose State will kick things off on Saturday, Aug. 28, at 8:00 p.m. MT. The game will be televised on CBS Sports Network. Southern Utah will be the first team from the Big Sky to play a Week 0 matchup since 2017. Cal Poly dropped a narrow contest to Colgate, 20-14, while Portland State lost a hard-fought 20-6 decision to BYU to open the 2017 season.
The Thunderbirds have dropped their last 10 FBS contests, with their last victory coming in 2013 over South Alabama. Southern Utah won the game on a last-second field goal to claim the 22-21 road victory. The last FBS win for the Big Sky came in 2018, when Northern Arizona blew past UTEP, 30-10. UC Davis opened the season with a 44-38 victory over San Jose State, giving the league two FBS wins for the year.
Southern Utah lost four games last season by a combined seven points. Overall, the Thunderbirds were outscored by a combined 15 points in their five losses this past spring.
BIG SOUTH -- The Big South is celebrating its 20th season of sponsoring football in 2021, and the league membership is at an all-time high of nine members. New Big South full member North Carolina A&T begins its affiliation this fall, while associate member Robert Morris will play its first full Big South schedule this season after competing during the league’s abbreviated 2021 Spring campaign.
For the first time in Big South history, the league has three teams ranked in the two major national Preseason Top 25 polls. The Stats Perform Preseason Top 25 ranking has Monmouth (13th), Kennesaw State (19th) and new member North Carolina A&T (25th) rated among the top programs in the country. The AFCA Coaches Preseason Top 25 features Monmouth at No. 12, Kennesaw State at No. 20 and North Carolina A&T at No. 24.
Kennesaw State’s appearance in the Preseason Top 25 marks the Owls’ 46th consecutive week as a nationally-ranked program -- breaking the Big South record for most consecutive weeks ranked in the Top 25 by one school. Former member Coastal Carolina held the previous record of 45 weeks. The 2021 Preseason Top 25 rankings gives the Big South a Top 25 program in 129 of the last 133 polling weeks, and a current streak of 46 consecutive weeks.
CAA FOOTBALL -- No CAA Football teams will be in action on Week 0, but the season kicks off with a pair of conference games on Thursday, September 2. New Hampshire travels to Stony Brook and Maine hosts 5th-ranked Delaware.
James Madison kicker Ethan Ratke enters the season with 72 career made field goals, which is just thee shy of the FCS record. His 392 career points are the most ever by a kicker in the CAA.
New Hampshire head coach Sean McDonnell has 98 career victories against conference foes. He needs two more to join Villanova’s Andy Talley (142) and William & Mary’s Jimmye Laycock (112) as the only coaches in league history with 100 conference wins.
IVY LEAGUE -- Princeton was selected as the League favorite in the 2021 Ivy League Football Preseason Media Poll, which was voted on by a panel of 16 media members from across the league. The Tigers, who claimed a share of the Ivy crown in 2016 and won it outright in 2018, received eight first-place votes and accumulated 113 total points. Yale ranked second with a total of 104 points in the poll to go along with six first-place votes. The Bulldogs went 9-1 in 2019 on their way to claiming their 16th Ivy League title.
Princeton LB Jeremiah Tyler was tabbed to the Buck Buchanan Award watch list. In 2019, he led the league and was 25th in the nation with 14.5 tackles for a loss. His 62 total tackles ranked ninth in the Ivy League. Brown QB EJ Perry was named to the Walter Payton Award watch list. He led the nation in total offense with 367.8 yards per game as a sophomore in 2019. His 3678 yards of total offense marked an Ivy League record, topping Princeton’s Chad Kanoff’s record (3,553), which was set in 2017.
MEAC -- North Carolina Central University will carry the banner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) this weekend, as the Eagles battle the Alcorn State University Braves in the 16th annual Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge Kickoff in Atlanta, Ga. on Saturday.
The ESPN-televised contest, slated for 7 p.m. at Center Parc Stadium, will mark the opening of the college football season for both the MEAC and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). The MEAC will be looking to extend its dominance in the inter-conference matchup, currently holding a 10-4 record against SWAC teams in the game.
For NCCU, it has been 644 days since its last football game back in 2019, when the Eagles went 4-8 overall and 3-5 in the conference. Following the postponement of the 2020 fall season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the cancellation of the MEAC’s spring season, NCCU opted to not compete in the spring.
MISSOURI VALLEY --Indiana State, which last played a contest on Nov. 23, 2019, faces Eastern Illinois in a “Week Zero” game on Saturday, Aug. 28. The game will air on ESPN+. It’s the fourth Week Zero game for the MVFC (2-1 in previous games).
The Missouri Valley Football Conference continues to dominate the Top 25 rankings, with six teams in the Stats Perform preseason Top 25 rankings. Four teams are ranked in the Top 8 in that poll, led by 2020-21 national runnerup South Dakota State (3rd).
The Missouri Valley Football Conference matched an all-time high with five bids in last spring’s field. Only three times previously in FCS playoff history has one conference sent as many as five teams in a 16-team field (CAA had five bids in both 2007 and 2008, and the CAA holds the all-time record with six berths during the 2018 tournament.)
NORTHEAST -- Spring champion Sacred Heart, led by consensus First Team All-American RB Julius Chestnut, has been tabbed as the 2021 NEC Preseason Favorite. The SHU Pioneers return 21 of 22 starters from the team that earned the No. 22 ranking in the final Stats Perform Top 25. Spring runner-up Duquesne and 2019 champion Central Connecticut also garnered first-place votes in the conference’s annual preseason coaches’ poll.
Sacred Heart RB Julius Chestnut and Merrimack DB Darion McKenzie were named to the official Reese’s Senior Bowl Watch List. Chestnut, a top-three Walter Payton Award finalist, rushed for 855 yards over five spring games. McKenzie recorded an interception and made three appearances for Merrimack in March.
Beginning with a September 11 matchup between Sacred Heart and Bryant, the NEC will feature eight games on ESPN3 and the ESPN app this season. All other NEC home games can be seen (for free) via NECFrontRow.com or the NEC On The Run app.
OHIO VALLEY -- This year marks the 74th season of OVC football. This year the League consists of seven football-playing schools who will play a six-game Conference schedule; additionally, some OVC schools will play other OVC opponents in designated matchups that will not count in the Conference standings (four games total). Since its beginning, 15 of the 18 total schools that have played football in the league have claimed at least one championship.
Eastern Illinois will be the first OVC team to play, challenging Indiana State in Week Zero. OVC teams are 1-2 all-time in Week Zero games (having played games in 2017, 2018 and 2020).
This year’s FCS Playoffs will include 24 teams and the field will be announced on Sunday, November 21. The OVC has placed multiple teams in the FCS Playoffs seven times in the past 11 years; OVC teams have 12 playoff wins since 2013, including five Quarterfinal appearances and one National Championship game appearance.
PATRIOT -- Bucknell’s Rick Mottram was tabbed by the Football Championship Subdivision Athletics Directors Association as one of its two Scholar-Athletes of the Year. Mottram and South Dakota State’s Preston Tetzlaff were selected out of a field of nine finalists and 54 FCS ADA Academic All-Star Team members to receive a $5,000 postgraduate scholarship. After his graduation from Bucknell this May, Mottram began work as a systems engineer for Lockheed Martin Space. He is also pursuing his master’s in space systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University in their Engineering for Professionals program.
Two-time defending Patriot League champion Holy Cross finished atop the preseason poll when the League office announced preseason football honors on Tuesday Fordham swept the major awards with senior quarterback Tim DeMorat and senior linebacker Ryan Greenhagen receiving Preseason Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year, respectively.
PFL -- University of Dayton captains Brandon Easterling and Jake Chisholm have been named to the Stats Perform FCS Preseason All-America Team. Easterling was named as a defensive back, while Chisholm was named as an all-purpose back. Both were named to the Stats Perform Third Team.
Defending Pioneer Football League champion Davidson College is the choice to win the league’s 2021 title in the league’s Preseason Coaches’ Poll, voted by each of the league’s head coaches. Davidson, which won its first PFL title last season, received eight of the 11 first-place votes and received both a second-place and third-place vote. San Diego, the preseason pick each of the past nine preseason coaches’ polls, received the three remaining first-place votes and was picked second on each of the other seven ballots.
SOUTHERN -- The 2021 campaign is the 100th season of Southern Conference football. Founded in 1921, the SoCon has been celebrating 100 years in 2021 and will do so throughout the season. The league is the fifth-oldest Division I conference.
VMI won its first Southern Conference championship since 1977 last season. They Keydets enter the 2021 season looking for back-to-back crowns for the first time since winning the 1959 and 1960 SoCon titles. Preseason SoCon favorite Chattanooga returns 72 of 76 lettermen and all 25 starters from last season. ETSU, which finished last season ranked in the top 25 nationally, returns all 50 of its lettermen and every starter.
The Southern Conference has been among the best in the FCS at recruiting dynamic new talent in the last five seasons. Since 2016, six SoCon freshmen have finished in the top five of the voting for the Jerry Rice Award, presented annually to the top freshman in the FCS. The Missouri Valley Football Conference is second with four over that span, while the Colonial, Big South and Southland have had three each.
SOUTHLAND -- Southeastern is favored to win the Southland regular-season championship, receiving 48 total points and eight first-place votes in the preseason poll. The Lions also led the way with 16 preseason all-conference selections.
Preseason All-Americans Cole Kelley (SLU) and Cameron Ward (UIW) return after claiming the Walter Payton Award and Jerry Rice Award last season, respectively.
Nicholls wideout Dai’Jean Dixon, who joined Kelley and Ward on the Walter Payton Award Watch List, enters his final campaign ranked eighth on the Southland’s career leaderboards for receiving yards (2,800) and receiving touchdowns (27).
SWAC -- Executive Director of the Cricket Celebration Bowl, and Cricket SWAC/MEAC Challenge Kickoff John T. Grant announced the future matchups of the annual HBCU football season opener. Following the game this season, Alabama State and Howard will kick off the 2022 season in Atlanta, while in 2023 Jackson State and South Carolina State will meet. The final game announced was in 2024 featuring Florida A&M and Norfolk State.
Harold Carmichael was a walk-on at Southern University and became a tri-sport athlete (basketball, track, football). Earlier in August, Carmichael added the sport’s top honor to his long list of accolades as he joined the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Class of 2020. In 1970 Harold Carmichael was an All-SWAC selection and was drafted the 161st pick overall in the seventh round of the 1971 NFL draft to the Philadelphia Eagles. Carmichael played both tight-end and receiver positions in the NFL.
WAC -- Football returns to the WAC this season after a nine-year absence. In 50 years at the FBS level, the WAC was home to the consensus 1984 national champion (Brigham Young), the winner of the 1990 Heisman Trophy (Ty Detmer, QB, Brigham Young) and the first pick of the 2002 NFL Draft (David Carr, QB, Fresno State). In its first year as an FCS conference, the league is home to defending national champion Sam Houston.
The WAC will team up with the ASUN this season on a unique scheduling format that will earn one team an automatic qualification to the FCS Playoffs. The aptly-named AQ7 will feature three home and three away games for each of the participating teams.
FCS ALL IN -- “FCS ALL IN” is a weekly news program dedicated to promoting all FCS 15 conferences. Content will be provided by each participating conference, and the program will be distributed via a YouTube channel (//YouTube.com/c/FCSALLIN) and launched each Saturday at 10 a.m. ET. In addition to providing an overview of FCS games, each episode will include interviews with special guests and national media correspondents.
WEEK ZERO – A total of five FCS schools are in action this weekend. Southern Utah takes on San Jose State in an FCS-FBS matchup. North Carolina Central and Alcorn face one another in a MEAC/SWAC Challenge, while Eastern Illinois and Indiana State -- separated by just 45 miles -- will take on one another in Terre Haute, Ind.
Announced this week, the Bill Schwanke Award will be awarded annually to an FCS play-by-play radio broadcaster. The voting committee will include select broadcasters, including FOX Sports’ Tim Brando, and a play-by-play broadcaster from each of the FCS conferences. The award will be announced the week before the FCS title game. Kevin Marshall, who hosts the national weekly radio show FCS Nation spearheaded the award’s inception.
ESPN’s “College GameDay” will begin its 35th season at the annual season-opening matchup between the two HBCU conferences in FCS college football. It marks the 10th time the iconic ESPN show has traveled to an FCS site.
#FearTheFCS -- This fall, there are 117 matchups between the FCS and FBS, beginning with Saturday’s Southern Utah-San Jose State game.
The 2021 season marks the debut of two new FCS conferences. The ASUN has three members this season: Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, and Central Arkansas. The WAC has four post-season eligible teams in the fall: Abilene Christian, Lamar, Sam Houston, and SFA. The two leagues have agreed on a one-year scheduling alliance for this fall.
Despite low draft numbers this spring (6) and last (6 in 2019), the number of FCS players on NFL rosters has not altered much --- with more than 210 FCS players on NFL Opening Day rosters in each of the past 3 seasons. The Southland (1) and MVFC (5) were the only two FCS leagues represented in this year’s draft.
ASUN -- The ASUN Conference begins its first year of sponsoring football in 2021 after agreeing on a one-year scheduling alliance with the Western Athletic Conference that will allow for the seven institutions to be eligible for an automatic qualification into the 2021 NCAA FCS Playoffs. The alliance will feature Abilene Christian, Lamar University, Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin from the WAC and Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville State from the ASUN. The seven institutions, termed the AQ7, will play a single round-robin with each institution having three home and three road contests.
A pair of ASUN teams are ranked in the preseason polls as the conference begins its first year sponsoring the sport. In the coaches poll, Jacksonville State checks in at No. 8 while Central Arkansas is listed at No. 13. The Gamecocks are No. 10 while the Bears rank No. 14 in the Stats Perform Preseason Poll. UCA wide receiver Tyler Hudson and JSU defensive back Nicario Harper were named the first Preseason Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, respectively.
BIG SKY -- Southern Utah and San Jose State will kick things off on Saturday, Aug. 28, at 8:00 p.m. MT. The game will be televised on CBS Sports Network. Southern Utah will be the first team from the Big Sky to play a Week 0 matchup since 2017. Cal Poly dropped a narrow contest to Colgate, 20-14, while Portland State lost a hard-fought 20-6 decision to BYU to open the 2017 season.
The Thunderbirds have dropped their last 10 FBS contests, with their last victory coming in 2013 over South Alabama. Southern Utah won the game on a last-second field goal to claim the 22-21 road victory. The last FBS win for the Big Sky came in 2018, when Northern Arizona blew past UTEP, 30-10. UC Davis opened the season with a 44-38 victory over San Jose State, giving the league two FBS wins for the year.
Southern Utah lost four games last season by a combined seven points. Overall, the Thunderbirds were outscored by a combined 15 points in their five losses this past spring.
BIG SOUTH -- The Big South is celebrating its 20th season of sponsoring football in 2021, and the league membership is at an all-time high of nine members. New Big South full member North Carolina A&T begins its affiliation this fall, while associate member Robert Morris will play its first full Big South schedule this season after competing during the league’s abbreviated 2021 Spring campaign.
For the first time in Big South history, the league has three teams ranked in the two major national Preseason Top 25 polls. The Stats Perform Preseason Top 25 ranking has Monmouth (13th), Kennesaw State (19th) and new member North Carolina A&T (25th) rated among the top programs in the country. The AFCA Coaches Preseason Top 25 features Monmouth at No. 12, Kennesaw State at No. 20 and North Carolina A&T at No. 24.
Kennesaw State’s appearance in the Preseason Top 25 marks the Owls’ 46th consecutive week as a nationally-ranked program -- breaking the Big South record for most consecutive weeks ranked in the Top 25 by one school. Former member Coastal Carolina held the previous record of 45 weeks. The 2021 Preseason Top 25 rankings gives the Big South a Top 25 program in 129 of the last 133 polling weeks, and a current streak of 46 consecutive weeks.
CAA FOOTBALL -- No CAA Football teams will be in action on Week 0, but the season kicks off with a pair of conference games on Thursday, September 2. New Hampshire travels to Stony Brook and Maine hosts 5th-ranked Delaware.
James Madison kicker Ethan Ratke enters the season with 72 career made field goals, which is just thee shy of the FCS record. His 392 career points are the most ever by a kicker in the CAA.
New Hampshire head coach Sean McDonnell has 98 career victories against conference foes. He needs two more to join Villanova’s Andy Talley (142) and William & Mary’s Jimmye Laycock (112) as the only coaches in league history with 100 conference wins.
IVY LEAGUE -- Princeton was selected as the League favorite in the 2021 Ivy League Football Preseason Media Poll, which was voted on by a panel of 16 media members from across the league. The Tigers, who claimed a share of the Ivy crown in 2016 and won it outright in 2018, received eight first-place votes and accumulated 113 total points. Yale ranked second with a total of 104 points in the poll to go along with six first-place votes. The Bulldogs went 9-1 in 2019 on their way to claiming their 16th Ivy League title.
Princeton LB Jeremiah Tyler was tabbed to the Buck Buchanan Award watch list. In 2019, he led the league and was 25th in the nation with 14.5 tackles for a loss. His 62 total tackles ranked ninth in the Ivy League. Brown QB EJ Perry was named to the Walter Payton Award watch list. He led the nation in total offense with 367.8 yards per game as a sophomore in 2019. His 3678 yards of total offense marked an Ivy League record, topping Princeton’s Chad Kanoff’s record (3,553), which was set in 2017.
MEAC -- North Carolina Central University will carry the banner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) this weekend, as the Eagles battle the Alcorn State University Braves in the 16th annual Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge Kickoff in Atlanta, Ga. on Saturday.
The ESPN-televised contest, slated for 7 p.m. at Center Parc Stadium, will mark the opening of the college football season for both the MEAC and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). The MEAC will be looking to extend its dominance in the inter-conference matchup, currently holding a 10-4 record against SWAC teams in the game.
For NCCU, it has been 644 days since its last football game back in 2019, when the Eagles went 4-8 overall and 3-5 in the conference. Following the postponement of the 2020 fall season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the cancellation of the MEAC’s spring season, NCCU opted to not compete in the spring.
MISSOURI VALLEY --Indiana State, which last played a contest on Nov. 23, 2019, faces Eastern Illinois in a “Week Zero” game on Saturday, Aug. 28. The game will air on ESPN+. It’s the fourth Week Zero game for the MVFC (2-1 in previous games).
The Missouri Valley Football Conference continues to dominate the Top 25 rankings, with six teams in the Stats Perform preseason Top 25 rankings. Four teams are ranked in the Top 8 in that poll, led by 2020-21 national runnerup South Dakota State (3rd).
The Missouri Valley Football Conference matched an all-time high with five bids in last spring’s field. Only three times previously in FCS playoff history has one conference sent as many as five teams in a 16-team field (CAA had five bids in both 2007 and 2008, and the CAA holds the all-time record with six berths during the 2018 tournament.)
NORTHEAST -- Spring champion Sacred Heart, led by consensus First Team All-American RB Julius Chestnut, has been tabbed as the 2021 NEC Preseason Favorite. The SHU Pioneers return 21 of 22 starters from the team that earned the No. 22 ranking in the final Stats Perform Top 25. Spring runner-up Duquesne and 2019 champion Central Connecticut also garnered first-place votes in the conference’s annual preseason coaches’ poll.
Sacred Heart RB Julius Chestnut and Merrimack DB Darion McKenzie were named to the official Reese’s Senior Bowl Watch List. Chestnut, a top-three Walter Payton Award finalist, rushed for 855 yards over five spring games. McKenzie recorded an interception and made three appearances for Merrimack in March.
Beginning with a September 11 matchup between Sacred Heart and Bryant, the NEC will feature eight games on ESPN3 and the ESPN app this season. All other NEC home games can be seen (for free) via NECFrontRow.com or the NEC On The Run app.
OHIO VALLEY -- This year marks the 74th season of OVC football. This year the League consists of seven football-playing schools who will play a six-game Conference schedule; additionally, some OVC schools will play other OVC opponents in designated matchups that will not count in the Conference standings (four games total). Since its beginning, 15 of the 18 total schools that have played football in the league have claimed at least one championship.
Eastern Illinois will be the first OVC team to play, challenging Indiana State in Week Zero. OVC teams are 1-2 all-time in Week Zero games (having played games in 2017, 2018 and 2020).
This year’s FCS Playoffs will include 24 teams and the field will be announced on Sunday, November 21. The OVC has placed multiple teams in the FCS Playoffs seven times in the past 11 years; OVC teams have 12 playoff wins since 2013, including five Quarterfinal appearances and one National Championship game appearance.
PATRIOT -- Bucknell’s Rick Mottram was tabbed by the Football Championship Subdivision Athletics Directors Association as one of its two Scholar-Athletes of the Year. Mottram and South Dakota State’s Preston Tetzlaff were selected out of a field of nine finalists and 54 FCS ADA Academic All-Star Team members to receive a $5,000 postgraduate scholarship. After his graduation from Bucknell this May, Mottram began work as a systems engineer for Lockheed Martin Space. He is also pursuing his master’s in space systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University in their Engineering for Professionals program.
Two-time defending Patriot League champion Holy Cross finished atop the preseason poll when the League office announced preseason football honors on Tuesday Fordham swept the major awards with senior quarterback Tim DeMorat and senior linebacker Ryan Greenhagen receiving Preseason Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year, respectively.
PFL -- University of Dayton captains Brandon Easterling and Jake Chisholm have been named to the Stats Perform FCS Preseason All-America Team. Easterling was named as a defensive back, while Chisholm was named as an all-purpose back. Both were named to the Stats Perform Third Team.
Defending Pioneer Football League champion Davidson College is the choice to win the league’s 2021 title in the league’s Preseason Coaches’ Poll, voted by each of the league’s head coaches. Davidson, which won its first PFL title last season, received eight of the 11 first-place votes and received both a second-place and third-place vote. San Diego, the preseason pick each of the past nine preseason coaches’ polls, received the three remaining first-place votes and was picked second on each of the other seven ballots.
SOUTHERN -- The 2021 campaign is the 100th season of Southern Conference football. Founded in 1921, the SoCon has been celebrating 100 years in 2021 and will do so throughout the season. The league is the fifth-oldest Division I conference.
VMI won its first Southern Conference championship since 1977 last season. They Keydets enter the 2021 season looking for back-to-back crowns for the first time since winning the 1959 and 1960 SoCon titles. Preseason SoCon favorite Chattanooga returns 72 of 76 lettermen and all 25 starters from last season. ETSU, which finished last season ranked in the top 25 nationally, returns all 50 of its lettermen and every starter.
The Southern Conference has been among the best in the FCS at recruiting dynamic new talent in the last five seasons. Since 2016, six SoCon freshmen have finished in the top five of the voting for the Jerry Rice Award, presented annually to the top freshman in the FCS. The Missouri Valley Football Conference is second with four over that span, while the Colonial, Big South and Southland have had three each.
SOUTHLAND -- Southeastern is favored to win the Southland regular-season championship, receiving 48 total points and eight first-place votes in the preseason poll. The Lions also led the way with 16 preseason all-conference selections.
Preseason All-Americans Cole Kelley (SLU) and Cameron Ward (UIW) return after claiming the Walter Payton Award and Jerry Rice Award last season, respectively.
Nicholls wideout Dai’Jean Dixon, who joined Kelley and Ward on the Walter Payton Award Watch List, enters his final campaign ranked eighth on the Southland’s career leaderboards for receiving yards (2,800) and receiving touchdowns (27).
SWAC -- Executive Director of the Cricket Celebration Bowl, and Cricket SWAC/MEAC Challenge Kickoff John T. Grant announced the future matchups of the annual HBCU football season opener. Following the game this season, Alabama State and Howard will kick off the 2022 season in Atlanta, while in 2023 Jackson State and South Carolina State will meet. The final game announced was in 2024 featuring Florida A&M and Norfolk State.
Harold Carmichael was a walk-on at Southern University and became a tri-sport athlete (basketball, track, football). Earlier in August, Carmichael added the sport’s top honor to his long list of accolades as he joined the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Class of 2020. In 1970 Harold Carmichael was an All-SWAC selection and was drafted the 161st pick overall in the seventh round of the 1971 NFL draft to the Philadelphia Eagles. Carmichael played both tight-end and receiver positions in the NFL.
WAC -- Football returns to the WAC this season after a nine-year absence. In 50 years at the FBS level, the WAC was home to the consensus 1984 national champion (Brigham Young), the winner of the 1990 Heisman Trophy (Ty Detmer, QB, Brigham Young) and the first pick of the 2002 NFL Draft (David Carr, QB, Fresno State). In its first year as an FCS conference, the league is home to defending national champion Sam Houston.
The WAC will team up with the ASUN this season on a unique scheduling format that will earn one team an automatic qualification to the FCS Playoffs. The aptly-named AQ7 will feature three home and three away games for each of the participating teams.