Excellent analysis of all the Big West teams!

I believe we have the talent to match up well with them but I think the Wa-Griz Stadium environment and the emotion that Montana will bring to the field will be a significant factor. They're essentially playing for their post-season lives and they will be sky high at the start of the game.

The Ags are 0-7 historically against the Griz also. I expect this will be a very tough game for the Aggies and it will tell us a lot about just how good we are.

Here is an ESPN page which makes it easy to look up stats, schedules and rosters of all the FCS teams in the country divided up by conference:

EDIT: It's not worth it since it is not up to date at all

http://www.espn.com/college-football/teams/_/group/81

The anygivensaturday poll began around 2005 and one of the members, professor chaos who is a NDSU fan, has compiled some interesting data about which FCS teams have been been ranked in the Top 25 the most since then along with some other data lists like the number of consecutive weeks ranked in the Top 25 etc.

The following list, which shows the FCS teams ranked the most weeks in the Top 25, was very interesting to me since it really illuminates which teams have been consistently the most competitive over the years since the poll began. It should be noted also that, although the members of the AGS forum certainly have their personal biases, the forum is made up of many FCS fans who have been following FCS football closely for long time and many of those who vote are very knowledgeable about FCS football.

One thing that pops out immediately to me is the demise of Cal Poly. I had forgotten just how significant a player in the FCS that Poly had been since they moved up from D2.



More interesting lists here: http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?213469-AGS-Poll-Historical-Data

Nice post, Zander. Many of us who have been following the Aggies for a long time have seen us at the pinnacle and then watched the bottom fall out. I think many of us old timers have forgotten that for many of our younger fans, like you, this is the best you've had. I'm so happy this program is proud again. Take it in and enjoy the ride!

Massy Rankings with the mean, median and standard deviation:

The Massey Rankings average all the various polls and you can go to the website and link to any of the many polls:

https://www.masseyratings.com/cf/compare1aa.htm

Awesome...isn't it!

I don't know about their graduation rates. Quite a few of the players they note in the article went on to play elsewhere. Several to FBS programs where a few have become starters.

Thanks...I need a proofreader! Corrected it.

Weather forecast for Missoula on Saturday:

We are 0-7 lifetime against the Griz and we'll be playing in one of the most difficult venues for opponents in all of the FCS. This is an enormous opportunity for the Aggies.

The FCS coaches continue to rank the Aggies cautiously as the Ags only move up 3 spots from #16 to #13 in the latest Coaches Poll:



https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/fcs/fcs-coaches-poll

Aggies move up to #3 in the anygivenday.com poll:



http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?215962-AGS-Poll-Results-WEEK-8-POLL-2018-SEASON

I think this is the biggest test of the D1 era in terms of overall importance for the Big Sky title and playoff implications so far. An even bigger game looms in the distance against EWU if they continue to win and we win this one and take care of business against NAU in two weeks.

That's getting too far ahead of ourselves though. We need to focus only on Montana. This is the big one at the moment and it will be a very stiff test.

I have no way to determine the validity of the research that went into this article. It does seem to be a very high number of defections but, given that Sac is largely a commuter school with lower academic admission requirements, the number of players leaving the team may not be overly high by comparison to other schools with similar demographics and admission standards.

Some of the players quoted in the article say they felt like Sears "shamed" them and, if it is accurate, then I think Sac has a coaching problem:

“Jody embarrassed me in front of the whole team,” Johnson said. “He pulled up this play and ripped me for it, not really what went wrong, he just said I got dominated and destroyed and that this is film of terrible football and I should be ashamed.”

The next 4 weeks will tell us a lot.

Yes, I saw that he was on their first team Big Sky.

Definitely have to give some props to our O line. They did a great job of pass and run blocking and the D really stepped up. Pretty much a complete game for the Ags outside of the first quarter.