The Panthers were poised to be a top-three team in the league in the fall, but were basically playing a pieced-together squad by the end of the spring. Northern Iowa - One of the teams that got crushed by transfers and opt-outs between the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021. Missouri State's spring team was better defensively and Petrino certainly got some better athletes on that side of the ball, but it's hard to forget that the Bears were an FCS non-entity for 30 years prior to the wacky spring season.ĥ. Missouri State - Veteran coach Bobby Petrino turned a better-than-expected spring season into a big contract extension and the Bears are celebrating their league co-championship, but I want to see what the Bears do over the course of an 11-game season when teams like Northern Iowa, Illinois State and North Dakota State have restocked their gutted rosters. Hard to think Illinois State is going to be bad, but just too many questions to put them much higher than this.Ħ. Then came revelations that at least a few players were unhappy with the veteran coach's handling of the spring season and his decision to opt out of ISU-red's final four games. Illinois State - The Redbirds were poised to be a playoff team with an outstanding defense in 2020, with the usual questions at quarterback, before COVID led to opt-outs and transfers devastating Brock Spack's team. But the same problems seem to plague the program year after year - it can't get offensive and defensive linemen to allow USD to compete physically.ħ. South Dakota - The Coyotes under head coach Bob Nielson looked to be on the upswing when they qualified for the playoffs and won a first-round game with Chris Streveler at quarterback in 2017. Long ways to go for Western to return to being a middle of the pack Valley team.Ĩ. The Leathernecks went 1-5 and opted-out of their last two games, to the everlasting chagrin of Southern Illinois and head coach Nick Hill. Western Illinois - Head coach Jared Eliot went heavy on transfers for the spring season and the result was not good. Maybe the Sycs are the eighth-place team. So who really knows what ISU-blue will look like? I'll put them in last place. Sycamores didn't play in the spring and haven't played since 2019 when they went 3-5 in the league and 5-7 overall. Indiana State - Out of sight, out of mind. The actual MVFC preseason poll will come out next week.ġ1. So some of that knowledge was applied here, but does anybody really think Missouri State will be in contention for a league title based on its spring finish? Disclaimer: While I don't think we can draw any sweeping conclusions about teams from the spring, the truncated season did provide a glimpse or two of the talent in the league (example: Otis Weah, UND running back, is really good).
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