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The likeliest playoff contenders of the moment and expected number of bids by conference:

Big Sky: One or two bids — Montana AND NAU*
CAA: Four or five bids — (North) UNH AND UMass* (South) UR, 'Nova AND W&M (Wild card — UMass; Schedule victim — UD)
MEAC: One bid — SC St.
MVC: Three bids — SIU AND SD St.AND UNI
OVC: One bid — EIU
Patriot: One bid — Holy Cross OR Lafayette
SoCon: Two bids — Elon AND ASU
SLC: Two bids — SFA AND McNeese

The all-but-locked-up bids at this moment — this list accounts for still-murky single-bid conference championship races, auto-bid front-runners with decent at-large resumes in case of slight disasters, likely at-large teams with softer remaining schedules, and teams that virtually cannot play themselves out of the postseason:

Montana
UNH
UR
'Nova
W&M
SC St.
SIU
SD St.
UNI
EIU
Holy Cross OR Lafayette
Elon
SFA

So after this week's casualties and promotions, there are now five teams with a realistic shot at vying for three available at-large playoff spots: NAU, UMass, UD, ASU, and McNeese. This week's teams of note:

• NAU is still in it as of right now, but they probably only have one more loss to give, and three teams remaining (Ole Miss, Weber and EWU) capable of giving them more than that. They're in the clubhouse with their close loss to Montana behind them, but if they end up with an invite they will certainly have earned it.
• Weber may have been dropped from the list of contenders, but they still control their own destiny and have a puncher's chance of getting in as the AQ. However, in order to do so they have to win out against Montana, NAU, and Cal Poly. That's a tough parlay for anybody.
• UMass got dumped by Richmond today and sit rather precariously at 4-3 with precisely zero margin for error, but the remainder of their schedule is favorable enough that I still think they should get in. I think there's a roughly equal chance of NAU dropping one to EWU or Weber plus the presumed Ole Miss loss, and UMass dropping one to the rest of their sked. They should be favored against Hofstra and JMU, and they should be able to win out. But as we all know, "should" doesn't mean shit this year, if in fact it ever did.
• Delaware is still in the hunt, but Navy and 'Nova loom large. One loss to give, two strong teams remaining. Split those two, win the rest and they're in.
• Today was a bad day for the bubble. SDSU's win over UNI made the MVC a probable three-bid league, although now UNI is the team with no margin left to play with. If they don't stumble against Youngstown or sleepwalk against a couple of tomato cans, they're in, but they can't like how their fortunes have changed over the last two weeks. SD St. now has the luxury of dropping two to SIU and Minnesota if need be, but a win against SIU and they're in the mix for a possible seed(?!).
• ASU looked much better today, but they still have Furman and Elon on the horizon. A loss to Furman makes the Elon game a must-win. They have enough leeway to take a loss, but one loss is all the rope the former champs will be given.
• The bubble is still at 8-3 for right now. More teams need to take on additional losses for 7-4 to come back into play. Big Sky bubble teams should be pulling for whoever UMass and UNI are playing from here on out.

Don't like what Magic 8-Ball tells me? Just wait a week and shit will undoubtedly change.

No Liberty at all?

Correction: Weber does not have to win out to earn the Big Sky auto-bid.

Cal Poly is not a Big Sky conference member. Weber needs only beat Montana and Northern Arizona to finish 7-4 and claim sole ownership of the Big Sky conference championship - along with the auto-bid. The biggest trap game for Weber is Cal Poly, but is is irrelevant.

****Duplicate correction of a previous post, so I deleted this post's contents.****

ToTheLeft wrote:No Liberty at all?

No Liberty.. The Flames have only good win (Lafayette) to go along with one bad home loss.. to a very modest (2-5) JMU. Their schedule is weak and doesn't doesn't include any ranked FCS teams.. no playoffs for Liberty.

ToTheLeft wrote:No Liberty at all?

I have to agree with Bench's assessment.

At this point there doesn't appear to be room for a team from a mid-level conference. Too much meat at the top.

And Liberty will have a problem distinquishing itself from other mid-level teams. The JMU loss is killer. Had JMU actually produced this year, I would think Liberty would be knocking. But that's the crappy part of playing without an AQ. You can schedule up all you want, but you cannot control your own destiny. Albany had the same problem with Maine. You figure you beat a playoff team currently ranked in the top 20 and that would be a quality win, right? Well, it doesn't turn out that way sometimes.

Weber State must win in Missoula on Halloween, if they can do it then the whole season comes down to NAU at home. Like Native said. Cal Poly game would not matter if WSU is to beat UM and NAU which is going to be some amazing football to pull that off.

Spot on, Bench. Spot on.

ToTheLeft wrote:No Liberty at all?

Nothing personal against Liberty, buy if you think Liberty should get serious consideration from the selection committee, then you also have to consider Gardner-Webb as an at-large threat, and frankly that's about the strongest case you can make against Liberty's candidacy.

You'll get your chance eventually, but it won't be this year.

bench wrote:

ToTheLeft wrote:No Liberty at all?

Nothing personal against Liberty, buy if you think Liberty should get serious consideration from the selection committee, then you also have to consider Gardner-Webb as an at-large threat, and frankly that's about the strongest case you can make against Liberty's candidacy.

You'll get your chance eventually, but it won't be this year.

Comparing LU against G-W head to head...

9/05 @ West Virginia 0-1 (0-0) L 33-20
9/12 North Carolina Central 1-1 (0-0) W 35-10
9/19 @ Lafayette 2-1 (0-0) W 19-13
9/26 James Madison 2-2 (0-0) L 24-10
10/03 West Virginia Wesleyan 3-2 (0-0) W 45-7
10/17 Coastal Carolina 4-2 (1-0) W 58-13
10/24 @ Charleston Southern 5-2 (2-0) W 20-13

9/05 Mars Hill 1-0 (0-0) W 58-14
9/12 @ Western Carolina 2-0 (0-0) W 27-20
9/19 @ North Carolina State 2-1 (0-0) L 45-14
10/03 @ Virginia Military Institute 3-1 (1-0) W 27-23
10/10 @ Buffalo 3-2 (1-0) L 40-3
10/17 Charleston Southern 4-2 (2-0) W 27-20
10/24 Southern Virginia 5-2 (2-0) W 65-0

LU has: Somewhat decent win over Lafayette, potential playoff team and an "ORV" level ranked team. A respectable loss to WVU. A somewhat bad loss to JMU. Wins over teams it should beat. One sub-DI.

GWU has: No quality wins. No bad losses. Whopped by mid-level MAC team and a bottom feeder ACC team. Wins over teams it should beat. Two sub-DI.

I would say Liberty holds the advantage in that all day. Also, they play each other, which would prove once and for all who would be more worthy, and set them apart to the committee.

ToTheLeft wrote:

bench wrote:
Nothing personal against Liberty, buy if you think Liberty should get serious consideration from the selection committee, then you also have to consider Gardner-Webb as an at-large threat, and frankly that's about the strongest case you can make against Liberty's candidacy.

You'll get your chance eventually, but it won't be this year.

Comparing LU against G-W head to head...

9/05 @ West Virginia 0-1 (0-0) L 33-20
9/12 North Carolina Central 1-1 (0-0) W 35-10
9/19 @ Lafayette 2-1 (0-0) W 19-13
9/26 James Madison 2-2 (0-0) L 24-10
10/03 West Virginia Wesleyan 3-2 (0-0) W 45-7
10/17 Coastal Carolina 4-2 (1-0) W 58-13
10/24 @ Charleston Southern 5-2 (2-0) W 20-13

9/05 Mars Hill 1-0 (0-0) W 58-14
9/12 @ Western Carolina 2-0 (0-0) W 27-20
9/19 @ North Carolina State 2-1 (0-0) L 45-14
10/03 @ Virginia Military Institute 3-1 (1-0) W 27-23
10/10 @ Buffalo 3-2 (1-0) L 40-3
10/17 Charleston Southern 4-2 (2-0) W 27-20
10/24 Southern Virginia 5-2 (2-0) W 65-0

LU has: Somewhat decent win over Lafayette, potential playoff team and an "ORV" level ranked team. A respectable loss to WVU. A somewhat bad loss to JMU. Wins over teams it should beat. One sub-DI.

GWU has: No quality wins. No bad losses. Whopped by mid-level MAC team and a bottom feeder ACC team. Wins over teams it should beat. Two sub-DI.

I would say Liberty holds the advantage in that all day. Also, they play each other, which would prove once and for all who would be more worthy, and set them apart to the committee.

That's what I'm saying. Their profiles right now are pretty similar, which is to say neither team really even has one, neither team has a win they can point to as being worthy of playoff consideration, and absolutely nobody's talking about GW crashing the party. So explain to me again why Liberty should be elevated to the level of legitimate playoff discussion?

If Liberty wins out, and is 8-1 against the FCS with a win over PL champ Lafayette and only FCS loss is to a JMU team that winds up 5-6 or 6-5, and win over SBU and G-W, both on the road... I dunno, I feel like if there aren't enough strong 8 win resumes that LU has a good chance. I would put our chances at like 10-20% but I think we're in the discussion.

ToTheLeft wrote:If Liberty wins out, and is 8-1 against the FCS with a win over PL champ Lafayette and only FCS loss is to a JMU team that winds up 5-6 or 6-5, and win over SBU and G-W, both on the road... I dunno, I feel like if there aren't enough strong 8 win resumes that LU has a good chance. I would put our chances at like 10-20% but I think we're in the discussion.

No disrespect to JMU fans, but that team will be hard pressed to win 5 games. Liberty doesn't belong in the playoffs.

ToTheLeft wrote:If Liberty wins out, and is 8-1 against the FCS with a win over PL champ Lafayette and only FCS loss is to a JMU team that winds up 5-6 or 6-5, and win over SBU and G-W, both on the road... I dunno, I feel like if there aren't enough strong 8 win resumes that LU has a good chance. I would put our chances at like 10-20% but I think we're in the discussion.

So now we're talking about different things.

if there aren't enough 8 win teams from strong conferences then I can see Liberty in the mix. But a lot of things need to happen before that happens. Then I think their will be four 9+ win teams in the mix: Liberty, Albany or Central Ct., FAMU and the PL runner-up.

However, whether one of them gets in will depend entirely on which strong conference team doesn't reach 8 wins. A 7-win CAA team with an FBS win is more likely to get an at-large than even a 9-2 Liberty. See 2007 with UNH in over Norfolk State.