FCS Football Playoffs

I've been doing weekly bracket projections based on my updated opinion of what the polls will have to say on Monday.  I'm a total nerd when it comes to stats and standings, I updated them for football (college and pro), basketball (college and pro), NHL and the MLB.  Everybody who finds out that I do this asks why I do it and can't you just get all that info online instantly.  And yes you can, but I find it fun, it keeps me in track of who's beating who and by how much.  So I think I know about as much as someone can know about teams that I can't see on TV.  And believe me if it's on TV, I'll have found a way to see it.  I love when I can spend all day Saturday just switching from game to game, which is what I do when I can.  So if you ever watch games with me, I will switch from game to game, so if you don't like that you probably won't like watching games with me.  So 8 weeks into the season the playoff picture starts to be a little clearer and yet it will change for sure before selection Sunday.  I've always wanted to be on the selection committee so I put a lot of thought into my projections.  If the playoffs started today there would be 4 teams from the Big Sky-Eastern Washington, Montana St., Cal Poly(who is still getting undervalued) and Northern Arizona.

Big South- Stony Brook

Colonial Athletic Association- Old Dominion, New Hampshire and James Madison

Mid-Eastern Atlantic- Bethune-Cookman

Missouri Valley- North Dakota St., Illinois St. and Indiana St.

Northeast- Albany

Ohio Valley- Eastern Kentucky

Patriot- Lehigh

Southern- Georgia Southern, Wofford and Applachian St.

Southland- Central Arkansas

Ok so those are the teams, you have 20 teams in the playoffs.  Each of these conferences get one automatic berth for their conference champion, the other 10 teams are at-larges chosen by a committee.  So here's my current bracket.

1st Round		2nd Round
Central Arkansas*		#1 Eastern Washington*
Indiana St.
		James Madison*
		Stony Brook
Appalachian St.*		#4 Montana St.*
Bethune-Cookman
		#5 Sam Houston St.*
		Cal Poly
Northern Arizona*		#3 North Dakota St.*
Eastern Kentucky
		Wofford*
		New Hampshire
		Old Dominion*
		Lehigh
Illinois St.*		#2 Georgia Southern*
Albany

My top seeds are Eastern Washington, Georgia Southern, North Dakota St., Montana St. and Sam Houston St.  The way the playoffs work is the highest seeds hosts each game until the title, which is in Frisco, Texas.  The asterisks are the host teams for the games.  You might wonder so what about the games that there is no seed, I choose the hosts for these games based on highest attendance last year, but the committee uses a bid system, in which schools submit a bid for how much money they can raise by hosting a game.  So I selected the top seeds first, then I determined the other 7 hosts, 4 for the 1st round and 3 for the 2nd.  Then I make sure to avoid schools from the same conference playing each other very soon (they aren't even allowed to in their first game) and then I tried to get geographic appropriate parings which is easier back east where there are more schools.  The committee tries to get as many bus trips as possible.  Hope this was informative and next week I will dig in deeper about specific teams if people want.