Georgia- Ohio State and Michigan-TCU are not the only championship games in college football. The NCAA has championship tournaments in all divisions, including FCS (formally 1-AA), Division II and III.
Champions have already been crowned in Division II – Ferris State of Michigan defeated Colorado School of Mines 41-14 – and Division III – North Central of Illinois defeated 13-time champion Mount Union of Ohio 28-21.
South Dakota State and North Dakota will make a long trip south to play for the FCS championship January 8 at Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. North Dakota State will be going for its 10th championship in 12 years, but the Bison will be the underdog after a 23-21 loss to the Jackrabbits during the regular season. South Dakota State has won 13 in a row since an opening game 7-3 defeat to Iowa.
The first three rounds of the FCS playoffs were held in December and broadcast by ESPN networks. After the FBS conference championship games, the FCS quarterfinals and semifinals had the field pretty much all to themselves, unless you count some of the early bowl games between 6-6 teams with thousands of empty seats. I don’t.
There were some must see games, most notably Incarnate Word’s 66-63 victory over Sacramento State in the quarterfinals. The teams combining for more than 1,300 yards and 57 fourth-quarter points. After Sacramento State went ahead 63-59 on a touchdown with 1:43 left, Incarnate Word won the game when Lindsey Scott Jr. threw a TD pass to Taylor Grimes with 27 seconds left.
The semifinal with North Dakota State was almost as exciting, the Bison winning 35-32.
In this era of wide open spread offenses, North Dakota is a throwback. The Bison competed only one pass for five years against Incarnate Word, but ran for 329 yards.
Football fans are used to seeing North Dakota State games at the FARGODOME (all caps) this time of the year. Hopefully North Dakota State will resist the temptation to move up to FBS, remaining a very big fish in a medium sized pond.
The exposure North Dakota State has received is why players like Carson Wentz and Trey Lance decided to matriculate in Fargo.
There was a time when Georgia Southern was in the kingpin of 1-AA with six national championships and two runnerup finishes between 1985 and 2000. Then the team moved up to 1-A and like the little boy who runs away from home, has not been heard from since.
The University of Incarnate Word is a private Catholic school in San Antonio that burst upon the national state this year, leading the nation in scoring at 51.5 points per game.
The main reason was Scott, who ran and passed for 5,398 yards and accounted for an all-division record 71 touchdowns, 60 passing and 11 rushing. Scott has played for seven years at five schools.
One of those schools was East Mississippi Community College, which he led to the 2017 junior college national championship. His next step should be the NFL.
