Ilinois St defense by game:

SELA: 321 yds, 3 points
NDST: 179 yds, 28 points (thought got a punt return TD, Int return TD and an Int return to the 4 that led to a TD)
UC Davis: 533 yds, 31 points
Nova: 300 yds, 14 points

So ISU allowed 1333 yds so far in the playoffs and we accounted for 40 percent of them. They allowed 76 points in the playoffs and we accounted for 40.8 percent of them. If you take out the two return TDs for NDSt, we scored half the points the ISU defense has allowed.

I’m torn. On one hand, if Illinois St wins, then yes we can say we lost to a finalist. But if they win, especially if they win easily, I’m going to be annoyed because I’ll feel like we could have beaten Nova also.

I would say the same but nobody thought Illinois St would hang with NDSt either.

Pretty crazy swings in this game.

20-3 Mont St
20 straight points for Montana
28 straight for Mont St

I was ready to rag on the Montana St coach for not using his timeouts when Montana had 1st and goal with like 1:40 left. Could have ensured they got the ball back in the 1st half while also getting the ball to start the 2nd half. Didn’t end up mattering though.

For sure. Don't want it to sound like I thought we deserved to win or should have won the game based on how both teams played. On another day we could have. But on that day, the right team won.

I think our defense got whipped and our offense made a couple bad plays at the wrong time.

4th and 7 from the 13 fake FG came up a foot short
4th and 2 at the 3, went for it and lost a yard (thought this was a bad play call)
65 yard pass play that ends in a fumble
2nd and goal from the 2 and we throw a pick

At that point it's 35-17. Let's say instead of those outcomes, on those four drives they kick a FG, still go for it and don't convert, get a FG (he would have been down at the ISU 20) and get a TD. That's relatively conservative. That's 13 extra points and it's 35-30. Sometimes the score can be a bit deceiving. I didn't think we were 32 points better than ISU last year despite what the score ended up at.

ISU was the better team on Saturday, but I think we were fairly even overall.

-The old adages that "Defense Wins Championships" and "You Must Run to Win" still hold true. Illinois State did both of those things very effectively, and won. We didn't. That's the ballgame. — Pacifico2

I'm going to quibble a bit that Illinois St played good defense. They didn't. We put up 533 yards and 31 points. Now, were 14 of those points scored in garbage time when the game was over? Sure. But the yards weren't. Our offense had 11 drives, had 1 3 and out and only punted 1 time (which were the same drive). Of the other 10 drives, we gained at least 47 yards on 8 of them. The other two we gained 21 yards turning it over on downs and had a 25 yard TD drive.

They made a couple big stops when it mattered when we turned it over on downs and held us to a couple FGs. And credit to them for that. But coming up big on a couple plays doesn't mean your defense was good. Can't believe NDSt couldn't move the ball on them a week ago.

I highly doubt our team was looking ahead. They might not have even known Villanova won when they took the field. Sometimes mistakes happen and against good teams, it’s going to cost you.

I’m not sure they are definitively the better team. They were better today for sure but I think we were fairly even. Defense just wasn’t good enough and the offense had costly turnovers at bad times. Last year we were better. We were better than Rhode Island too. But I think these two teams were fairly even.

But that was a missed opportunity today to host a semifinal. And man it hurts. I get that going into the playoffs, every one of us would have been content with a QF loss knowing it likely would have come at the hands of NDSt. But the bracket really opened up with Tarleton losing too.

Just not good enough on either side of the ball today.

Would have liked either a play action or a rollout where the QB could run it.

If our defense wants to start playing that would be great.

That was crazy close on that play in the end zone.

Nova takes the lead.

Tarleton has 80 yards on the one play and 45 the rest of the half.

14-9 all of a sudden. We might have a good game on our hands.

Nova got cute on a punt attempt and it gets blocked. Not a great start for them.

Nova drives down but their QB decides it’s smart to try a backhanded throw into the end zone that gets picked off. First play for Tarleton is an 80 yard TD pass.

They’ve probably been the third best team in FCS behind the two Dakota St’s over the past 5-6 years so they probably deserve a title at some point.

Well might be out of reach now. 34-14 late third.

MSU has scored on 6 of 8 drives so far. And one of the two, the QB made an awful decision to throw the ball on third down and it got picked off. They would have had a short FG if he just threw it away.