2020 FCS Season: Inside The Box Score for Week 4

Week four of the college football season has been completed. FCS teams played five games this past weekend with three against FBS foes and two all-FCS matchups. Below is a look back on trends from week four.

Date	Away	Home	Score
9/26	Campbell	Appalachian State	21-52
9/26	Eastern Kentucky	The Citadel	14-37
9/26	Houston Baptist	Louisiana Tech	38-66
9/26	Stephen F. Austin	SMU	7-50
9/26	Missouri State	Central Arkansas	20-27

FCS Versus FBS Points and Yardage

We will keep track of points and yardage for each FCS versus FBS game this season. Listed below are the FCS team, points scored by each FCS team, points given up, offensive yards gained by each FCS team, and yards given up by each FCS team. Totals and averages since week one are also provided.

To date, 18 FCS versus FBS games have been played. Both charts and tables are provided to show the change over the course of the season. The number of games played in each week is listed in parentheses.

FCS Team	Points	Opp. Points	Off. Yards	Def. Yards
Campbell	21	52	305	535
Houston Baptist	38	66	501	542
Stephen F. Austin	7	50	216	432
Week 4 Totals	66	168	1,022	1,509
Week 4 Averages	22	56	340.7	503
Week 3 Totals	64	188	1,509	2,183
Week 3 Averages	12.8	37.6	301.8	436.6
Week 2 Totals	75	248	1,734	3,062
Week 2 Averages	12.5	41.3	289	510.3
Week 1 Totals	80	185	1,258	2,171
Week 1 Averages	20	46.3	314.5	542.8
YTD Totals	285	789	5,523	8,925
YTD Averages	15.8	43.8	306.8	495.8

The historical scoring average through 2019 of FCS versus FBS games since the Division I split in 1978 was 15 points for FCS teams and 37 points for FBS squads. In 2019, FCS teams averaged 13.9 points per game against FBS teams while FCS teams gave up 43 points per game on defense.

FCS Versus FBS Conference and Team Records

Below are the records for each conference for FCS versus FBS games. A running total will be kept throughout the season and updated weekly. Historical team records can be found here and historical conference records can be found here.

Team	2020 vs. FBS	All-Time Record	Last FBS Win
Campbell	0-3	0-6	Never
Houston Baptist	0-3	0-8	Never
Stephen F. Austin	0-3	2-25	2003

Conference	Weekly Record	2020 Record
ACC (FBS)	0-0	2-0
American Athletic (FBS)	1-0	3-0
Big 12 (FBS)	0-0	3-0
Big South (FCS)	0-1	0-3
Conference USA (FBS)	1-0	7-0
MVFC (FCS)	0-0	0-1
Ohio Valley (FCS)	0-0	0-4
SoCon (FCS)	0-0	0-2
Southland (FCS)	0-2	0-8
Sun Belt (FBS)	1-0	3-0

FCS School Trends Versus FBS Teams

Campbell’s 2020 fall campaign continued with another loss to an FBS program from the Sun Belt. The Camels lost to Appalachian State 52-21 and all six losses against FBS foes have been to teams from the Sun Belt. The average margin of defeat has been 31 points but that has been deceiving. The Camels have been competitive in the first half all three games and nearly pulled the upset against Georgia Southern.

Houston Baptist lost another shootout this season with the latest loss coming against Louisiana Tech. While the Huskies are 0-8 all-time against FBS opponents, their best results have come over the last two seasons. Offensively, it’s no surprise that the best results have been the last two season with Bailey Zappe at the reigns. The Huskies averaged 12.8 points per game in their first four games against FBS foes. In the last 4? They have averaged 34 points per game and all four have seen the offense put up at least 30 points.

Stephen F. Austin suffered a Lone Star State blow out with a 50-7 loss against SMU after playing UTEP and UTSA relatively close to start the 2020 season. The Lumberjacks are now 0-4 all-time against SMU and the last three games have been all been decided by 40 points or more.

Field Goal and Extra Point Trends

After a terrible week one for field goals, FCS kickers have had three straight weeks of stable results. After opening the season with back-to-back weekends without a miss on extra points, kickers have missed at least one extra point in each of the last three weeks.

Kicking and special teams issues are unsurprising given the lack of a full spring and summer practice for some programs. Overall, week one is looking more and more like an aberration. A table and chart are shown below. The number of games played in each week is listed in parentheses.

Week	Field Goals	Extra Points
Week 0	4/4	3/3
Week 1	1/7	11/11
Week 2	5/8	6/7
Week 3	6/8	4/5
Week 4	4/6	16/19
2020 Totals	16/27 (60%)	24/26 (92%)

What’s Ahead

21 FCS games are in the books and 35 are still scheduled to be played as of this writing. The full FCS schedule for 2020 can be found here.

Seven games are scheduled for week five including the season debut for Jacksonville State, North Alabama, and FCS superpower North Dakota State. The Bison’s game at home against Central Arkansas is their lone game this fall. It will be a smorgasbord of games featuring the FCS against fellow FCS, FBS, and Division II opponents.

Date	Away	Home	Time (ET)	TV
10/2	Campbell	Wake Forest	7 PM	ACCN
10/3	North Alabama	Liberty	1 PM	ESPN3
10/3	Abilene Christian	Army	1:30 PM	CBSSN
10/3	Houston Baptist	Eastern Kentucky	3 PM	ESPN+
10/3	Central Arkansas	North Dakota State	3:30 PM	ESPN+
10/3	Jacksonville State	Florida State	4 PM	ACC RSN
10/3	West Texas A&M	Stephen F. Austin	5 PM

Photo courtesy of Campbell University Athletics.