1st Round Recap, 2nd Round Preview

December 2, 2025·1 hr 6 min·5 clips

Yale trailed 42-14 with under three minutes left in the third quarter — ESPN's win probability peaked at 99.7% for Youngstown State — before Josh Pitsenberger's 56-yard run completed the comeback.

Round one is closed. Sam Herter and Zach McKinnell reset the playoff board with game balls and a flag, then get into a second round that could turn on a bunch of 50-50 games. Illinois State gets real credit here. Winning at Southeastern Louisiana is treated as a hard road test passed, even if it was not a blowout or a style-points performance. The bracket gets tight fast. NDSU and Montana State sound like the safer picks, but the rest of the slate is much less settled. Villanova-Lehigh gets the first real look. That one comes down to a plain football question: can Villanova keep running the ball against Lehigh's number-one FCS rushing defense. Villanova just put up over 300 rushing yards against Harvard, without David Abbott, behind a veteran offensive line. Ragland and Mace matter in that conversation. Their emergence gives Villanova a real ground-game answer while one of the best backs in the FCS has been out. Lehigh brings the counterpunch. The Mountain Hawks are giving up only 73.7 rushing yards per game, and the hosts point to talent at all three defensive levels. The conversation stays in the weeds in a good way. It is not just seed chalk. Line play, hosting, travel, and conference positioning keep coming back up. Mercer-South Dakota carries conference stakes too. Mercer's shot at hosting a Valley team becomes a SoCon measuring stick. Scheduling circles back late, with the hosts arguing that tougher non-conference games can help SoCon teams build resumes strong enough to host, which changes the playoff path before kickoff.

As heard by us

A brisk FCS playoff checkpoint with real football detail and tight matchups.

Playoff talk stays grounded here, with Sam Herter and Zach McKinnell moving from game balls and round-one takeaways into a second round shaped by tight matchups.

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Need a sharp read on the FCS playoff bracket before round two?

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