As the season winds down, but intensity goes up, coaches look forward to the postseason. Some, for the golden opportunity of winning the final game of the season. Others, for the carousel that might take them to their favorite team (or at least to a multi-bid conference). However, one thing we’ve all gotten is clarity in the playoff picture. Thus I’ve taken the liberty of sifting through probable playoff teams and put together some juicy matchups. I won’t include any matchups with my own team, however.

Throw vs. Slow

San Diego vs. Florida A&M -Yes, half of the reason I want to see this occur is for the name alone. “Throw” refers to Zand’s pass-first offense, constantly hurry up, and “Slow” is FAMU’s discord name. This would be a great matchup between teams who haven’t played each other yet but are known for a great high scoring matchup frequently.

Juice Factor: 5.0 – Gotta start somewhere and I’ll use this game as the baseline. Zand beat Dixie State, who beat Florida A&M, and those score lines weren’t close (Zand over Dixie by 4 scores, Dixie over FAMU by 2). However, Zand narrowly beat Jacksonville, a bottom feeder in the ASun, and I’m certain he’d like another shot at toppling an ASuner. Whereas, FAMU would like to pull himself into the discussion of a top tier coach, something that dissipated ever since his undefeated season went under in week 4. Regardless, if this matchup happened, a circle of suck would occur no matter what. With FAMU winning we’d get: FAMU>SD>Dixie>FAMU; with SD winning it would be SD>FAMU>JSU>MSU>SD.

My potential pick: San Diego -My pick to click would be San Diego’s ability to limit mistakes. It’s a pretty easy copout, but in a random number guessing game, I’ll take the teams known to take the fewest mistakes 90% of the time. And while the Rattlers don’t make many, Zand is just among the most experienced coaches in the history of the game. Not to mention Zand has spent more time in the top 11 than not (17 weeks vs. 2 weeks), so he knows how to make it big. And the last little cherry on top I’ll put is this: Zand lost to Butler in the Torrero’s first playoff game. It was a nailbiter where a last-second field goal decided it, and Zand didn’t play it right and regretted it enough that he stayed at SD, turning down his dream job in Kansas to win in the FCS. I don’t think the Big Man Zan will pull any punches a second time around.

MAAC fight back in the Adirondack

Lehigh vs. Marist – Out of all the conferences you’d think could be 3 bid, the conference nearly on par with last year’s America East would not be my first pick. But here we are, week 9 and we have 3 teams from this conference out east that are in committee’s top 10 (#6 Marist, #8 Lehigh, #10 Monmouth), and the winner of the conference will likely get a seed. But that’s just the thing, Marist and Lehigh are in the same division and thus only one of them can have a chance to win the conference. However, not only are they both ranked above Monmouth, but the current leader in the Adirondack is the lower ranked Lehigh. We’ll get to the reason later.

Juice Factor: 7.8 – Just below an 8, it’s a conference matchup and even a divisional matchup so that gives it some extra oomph. They’re also two decently active coaches; in fact, the Big 3 in the MAAC are usually pretty active and usually give each other an earful. I love that, and I’d love these two to get a chance at each other.

My potential pick: Marist – Here’s the skinny: Lehigh and Marist played each other earlier this year, week 3 in fact. That’s the first in-conference game and due to it being so early, Marist wasn’t even the same coach it was the current Cincinnati coach. After that week 3 faceoff Marist got a new head coach, the current one, and he’s gone 6-0 since then with wins over Howard, Stony Brook, Lafayette, Saint Francis (current Penn State), Fordham, and Monmouth. I don’t know if I expect the hot streak to continue, but I know for sure that Mr. Big Nutty would look to show that he’s the real deal by making up for the only loss he wasn’t responsible for. I’m not trying to say Lehigh is bad, in fact, I just gave the edge to SD based on time played, but I can’t argue against a Marist team that’s been nothing short of dominant to date. This pick has a high propensity to shift as the playoffs get more imminent as well, so don’t fret if you’re a Lehigher.

ASun Alum vs. ASun Stud

Bethune-Cookman vs. Penn – Alternate names include: Young Stud vs. Old Blood, and Smart Cookie Bowl. There’s no secret reason why I want these two to matchup other than the fact that coach Pelo and coach Joks haven’t seen each other yet and they’re both good. Joks, the current Penn coach, used to coach at Bethune-Cookman from week 8 of last season until the second round of the playoffs. During that stretch, Joks only garnered one regular-season loss (1pt loss to Mercer) and the postseason loss was to #3 Princeton in triple overtime. Suffice to say, Joks was and continues to be good. Pelo hit the ground running with that and started 8-0 and became the gold standard in the Atlantic Sun Conference. Poor Jacksonville State.

Juice Factor: 7.1 – It’d be a fun power conference matchup with some history behind it. 2 coaches who are very nice but would throw everything and the kitchen sink at this to win. Pelo smacked around Mercer this year, this matchup could not only establish which ASun “class” is better but also Joks could revenge that early-career Mercer L.

My potential pick: Us – Yeah, that’s right, I’d split it straight down the middle. I couldn’t pick either easily but I know that it would be a super fun game to watch no matter what! The fans of either team win when they go head to head. If I had to pick, I think I’d take Penn in this one. For fairness’ sake, I’ll bold it, here: Penn. Alright but the reason I take Penn is simply for this week alone. Pelo has finally bled and is definitely vincible. Also, Penn blew the goddamn fucking doors off of FAMU, and Bethune-Cookman just lost a close game to him. It wasn’t that long ago either that FAMU played those games; Slowlow definitely learned more in that span but it doesn’t explain the giant margin. Even tacking on the “FAMU revenge” similar to the Mercer revenge, it doesn’t make up the entirety of the gap. So while my pick is Penn, I’d put much more money down on the underdog to cover if the spread is more than a couple points.

Conference Nightmare Bowl

Youngstown State vs. Kennesaw State – The worst conference teammate imaginable is one that wins all of their conference games but adds nothing by losing all of their OOC games. These teams come from a relatively less publicized conference (the Colonial Atheltic Association) and one of the most publicized (the Atlantic Sun) respectively. Both teams went winless/nearly winless in out of conference matchups (0-3 and 1-3) but are undefeated (or close thereto) in conference play (5-0 and 4-1). It’s not a very likely scenario, but they could see each other in the playoffs. I don’t figure either will qualify for an at large if they lose the conference but they both lead their respective divisions. To play each other they’d need to make it far in the playoffs as I think both would get low conference bids and those teams don’t frequently matchup, but I digress.

Juice Factor: 4.2 – Both teams have little to do with each other and don’t have great records overall. It’s sort of the point of this matchup that they suck (so far) but I can’t justify bumping the juice up any more than it’s at. It would be definitely interesting given where the teams have been at in the season, and definitely worth tuning into.

My potential pick: Kennesaw State – The beautiful thing about the OOC schedule is that, while it does move OOC games back, you still have a bevy of conference games to churn through at the end of the season. Kennesaw plays in a good ASun conference but when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Since losing to Delaware State in week 5, the Owls haven’t lost since. That’s a 4 game win streak, including OOC Albany. I pick them to take it here because I respect the game he’s playing right now, as a chronic fumbler myself. In the last 2 games KSU has turned it over 7 times, a -5 TO margin, but the rest of the stats: 2 wins, 16:47 ToP avg, 300+ yards in both games, 55 points. Now this isn’t to say YSU is bad, in fact since the new coach took over they’re 3-1 with wins over Towson and top 10 Villanova. As a committee member, I tend to like teams that have better statement wins, and while the Villanova W > the FAMU W in my book, I’ll still give it to KSU because in a win-or-go-home game it doesn’t matter much. KSU is hotter, with more experience, and more help too (which really matters in these big games, you often need or want help from your conference mates), so I give them the slight edge.

That wraps it up for me here, I hope you all have good luck in the season and in the playoffs so we can see some of these. This is certainly going to be a crazy finish to the regular season so no matter what happens, at least stop to appreciate it. I can’t thank everyone enough for the awesome season we’ve had so far! I patiently await the awesome storylines to follow!