Fear The FCS 2026 Week 8 Media Ballot

In 2025, I was invited to vote in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 for the first time. I was beyond thrilled to accept the invitation, and like many others, I take the opportunity seriously. I am a returning voter in 2026 and, as part of the weekly process, I will provide some thoughts, reasoning, and transparency for my top 25 ballot. Below is the Stats Perform Top 25 poll submitted after the Week 8 games. The Week 7 submission can be found here.

General Thoughts

There were not as many upsets this week, but there was still movement in the lower half. Four teams were on a bye, including my top choice from last week, Youngstown State. Despite Tarleton State‘s 49-6 win over West Georgia, I’m keeping YSU on top. The Penguins’ 47-28 win over South Dakota at the end of September looks even better after USD defeated North Dakota. It’s hard to look at the Tarleton State win over a 1-7 team and act as if that was enough to flip the teams this week, especially after they struggled defensively against Central Arkansas (2-6) last week. South Dakota remains in 3rd after a 26-23 overtime victory against North Dakota. It was a strong first half, a bad second half, and an OT escape.

Montana State remains in fourth after a hard-fought 38-33 win at home versus Weber State. The Bobcats trailed 27-17 at the break and then had an excellent second half to take the lead and control. A late TD from Weber flattered the scoreline. The big worry for the Bobcats is that they struggled on defense in the first half again. I know Weber has a good offense, but this is a recurring pattern for Montana State. Stephen F. Austin remains in 5th after trouncing Southeastern Louisiana, who was previously ranked. Despite the blowout final score, the game was only 21-17 in favor of SFA midway through the third quarter.

Northern Arizona had a bye and remains in 6th, followed by South Dakota State. SDSU throttled Murray State 42-9 after last week’s poor performance against North Dakota. Harvard moves from 10th to 8th after a 35-7 win over Princeton at home. It was the second straight solid effort by the defense, which had been a concern earlier this season. Austin Peay remains in 9th after winning a close 27-21 game against North Alabama. Neither team led by more than a touchdown, with the Govs scoring a touchdown late in the 3rd quarter to take a 24-21 lead.

North Dakota is down three spots to 10th after losing 26-23 in overtime at South Dakota. I know UND has the win over SDSU, but they also have lost two out of the last three, including that ugly loss at Northern Iowa. Based on the season to date, UND hasn’t been as good a team as SDSU. They’ve no-showed for significant portions against Murray State (first quarter), Northern Iowa (all game), and South Dakota (first half). I feel it’s justified to place them behind SDSU, who had one bad game on the road against a fellow top-10 team.

East Tennessee State remains in 11th after a 38-0 road victory over VMI. Tennessee Tech stays in 12th after a 28-13 road win over The Citadel. Campbell also stays in place at 13th, following a slow start to defeat Maine 35-6 on the road. Mercer jumps two spots to 14th despite the bye week. They move ahead of Illinois State, which dropped one spot to 15th. The Redbirds struggled mightily on offense in the 17-10 win over Indiana State. If not for the pick-six midway through the second quarter by Key Crowell, Illinois State would have needed to find some sort of offense to win this game. Before moving on to the final 10 spots, let’s talk about Campbell’s ranking behind ETSU.

Campbell defeated East Tennessee State 49-37 on the road in Week 0, but recent games haven’t been impressive. Over the last 3 weeks, Campbell defeated North Carolina Central 38-31 (2-3 entering the game, now 3-4), Towson 24-20 (0-7 entering the game, now 0-8), and Maine 35-6 (1-6 entering the game, now 1-7). They blew a 17-point lead against NCCU, struggled to beat winless Towson, and started slow against Maine before a big second half. Almost everybody else will have Campbell ahead of ETSU solely because of the head-to-head win. That’s completely valid, but I also think recent performances should be factored in. Campbell has struggled in two and a half games over the last 3 weeks, while ETSU has looked far better in the same time. One common refrain is that voters should not be anchored to their preseason expectations, but the same should be true for early season games as more games are played. If we’re basing this solely on head-to-head, then Northern Iowa should be in the top 10 ahead of North Dakota and Idaho should be in the top 5 ahead of Montana State. Head-to-head is just one factor that should be considered for the Top 25. The good thing for Campbell is they can move up in my ballot in the coming weeks with wins against Albany, Stony Brook, Elon, and Monmouth to end the season.

Lamar moves up three spots from 19th to 16th after posting a 35-10 win over Houston Christian at home. Weber State only drops two spots from 15th to 17th after losing to Montana State 38-33 on the road. It was a very good first half, but the last 30 minutes show that some improvement is needed. I’m higher on Weber State than most, and my opinion didn’t change after watching the Wildcats play a good game against a top-5 team. Monmouth moves up 7 spots from 25th to 18th after defeating Hampton 49-13. No, I wasn’t so impressed by a 36-point win over a one-win team that I felt they should move way up. Monmouth’s wins over Albany (now ranked) and Dartmouth look better this week. Also, the Hawks look like a top 20 team right now.

Montana moves up three spots from 22nd to 19th after the bye. Albany pops into the top 25 at #20 thanks to a 38-21 win over Rhode Island. It was the third straight win for Albany and the second straight CAA road victory. I talk a bit more about Albany in the Notables section, alongside the reasoning for Princeton‘s drop. Southeastern Louisiana falls from 18th to 21st after the 45-24 loss at Stephen F. Austin. SELA played well for the opening two and a half quarters, but the defense gave up 21 points in the final 4:18 of the third quarter to effectively give the game to SFA. UC Davis moves up one spot from 23rd to 22nd after a 33-6 win at home versus Northern Colorado.

Abilene Christian makes it into the poll at #23. The Wildcats didn’t play this week, but the wins against Idaho, Central Arkansas, and North Alabama look a lot better in the last few weeks. Idaho State returns to the top 25, landing at 24th after a 38-8 win over Portland State. The Bengals ended the three-game losing streak and will need to continue improving for the final four games against Utah Tech, Montana State, Montana, and Idaho to push for a potential home game in the FCS Playoffs. Alabama A&M gets the final spot in this week’s poll. The Bulldogs were on a bye, but sit at 6-2 overall with wins over Bethune-Cookman (5-3) and Grambling State (4-3) in the last two weeks.

Teams That Dropped Out and Other Notables

Four teams dropped out of the poll: #17 Northern Iowa, #20 Cornell, #21 Lehigh, and #24 Princeton. UNI lost 20-17 on the road at Southern Illinois to drop to 3-4 overall, and they still don’t have a road victory. They do have 2 top-15 victories based on my top 25, but they simply haven’t looked like a top-25 team the last two weeks. Cornell lost 38-31 in overtime at Brown, relinquishing a 14-point lead in the process. Also working against Cornell is that their wins over Yale and Lehigh have suffered the last two weeks. I’ll go out of order for the paragraph and focus on #24 Princeton dropping out before returning to #21 Lehigh to talk about them and Richmond.

Princeton also drops out after losing 35-7 to Harvard. Normally, this would also keep out a team like Albany, which Princeton defeated 22-0 earlier this season. Princeton has wins over Albany (5-3), Columbia (4-2), Wagner (1-7), and Brown (3-3). The two losses are against Bryant (5-3) and Harvard (6-0). For Albany, they have wins over New Hampshire (2-7), Long Island (3-6), Delaware State (4-4), Stony Brook (5-3), and Rhode Island (4-4). The losses came against Buffalo (FBS), Monmouth (6-2), and Princeton (4-2). I think both teams have similar resumes, but Albany’s been playing very well since the loss. The timing of Princeton’s loss this week shouldn’t be the reason why I keep Albany unranked, even if I normally would have Princeton ranked above them with similar resumes.

Likely to be controversial, but I dropped Lehigh from the poll. Last week, I dropped Lehigh from 8th to 21st. Lehigh lost 24-18 at Villanova (4-4) this week. Hayden Johnson did not play again, but the defense was better than last game. However… it was against a Villanova team that has been mediocre this season. Furthermore, the Cornell (3-3) loss looks even worse because they lost to Brown and fell out of my top 25. For the record, Holy Cross is now 3-5, Georgetown is 3-4, William & Mary is 3-5, Dartmouth is 3-3, Penn is 3-3, and Fordham is 2-7. The best win is probably Dartmouth, which has wins over Penn, Merrimack, and Columbia, with losses against Lehigh, Monmouth, and Yale. Still, Lehigh has no wins against teams with a winning record at this point. Here’s what I said last week for reference:

Lehigh plummets from 8th to 21st after losing 48-38 to Cornell. I haven’t been as high on Lehigh as most other voters, largely because Hayden Johnson continues to be out. Lehigh’s strength was its defense, but it got absolutely torched by Cornell, giving up 600 yards and allowing 8 of 12 on third down. A 13-spot drop may seem harsh, but what does Lehigh have left to lean on? The offense was already noticeably weaker without Johnson, and now the defense has been exposed. I’m not even sure what their best win is: Holy Cross is 2-5, Georgetown is 2-4, William & Mary is 3-4, Dartmouth is 2-3, Penn is 2-3, and Fordham is 2-6. That’s a very average 6-win resume.

Staying with the Patriot League, let’s look at Richmond‘s resume. The Spiders have defeated Bucknell (1-7), Howard (4-4), Georgetown (3-4), Furman (2-6), Lafayette (3-4), and Colgate (4-4). The losses have been against NC State (FBS) and Fordham (2-7). Both teams have pretty similar results, except Lehigh’s losses are not as bad as Richmond’s loss to a 2-7 team. I just can’t get past that loss when comparing Richmond to other teams, especially a team in the same conference that won their game against Fordham 34-0. Since I don’t have Lehigh ranked, I can’t rank Richmond this week either.

Teams that were considered for this week’s top 25 include: Chattanooga, Lehigh, Northern Iowa, Princeton, Richmond, and Stony Brook.

Thoughts on the Committee’s Top 10

The Football Championship Committee announced the first in-season top 10 rankings on Tuesday before this week’s games, with Montana State taking the top spot. Tarleton State, Youngstown State, Stephen F. Austin, and South Dakota State round out the top 5. North Dakota, Northern Arizona, South Dakota, Austin Peay, and Harvard were ranked 6 through 10. Illinois State, Lehigh, and Tennessee Tech also received votes. I don’t have any strong opinions on these rankings, and I think they’re justifiable. There’s been so much chaos this season that I’m not sure there are any real problems, especially with another month of games left to be played. It’s a top-10 ranking and not worth getting upset over. It does give us another data point to use when considering our own rankings.

Photo Credit to Princeton University Athletics