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Sacred Heart's FCS Playoff hopes are non-existent, but a win over Villanova could give the Pioneers a last-second boost.
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Stop me if you thought this would be true at the beginning of the season.
Saturday’s season finale between Sacred Heart and Villanova could have playoff implications for both.
Sure, Villanova finished 10-4 and earned a playoff bid last year, but hardly anyone expected much of Sacred Heart entering the season. The Pioneers finished 5-6 as an independent last year and were finishing their second year in FCS purgatory before joining the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) for football next year.
Gradually, Sacred Heart climbed to an 8-3 season entering its game against Villanova. While no one will take an argument for a Sacred Heart at-large berth seriously, that may change if they pull off a miraculous upset against one of the CAA’s top teams.
Sacred Heart may be the worst 8-3 team in FCS. Advanced metrics do not favor the Pioneers at all in the FCS Playoff conversation. In Bill Connelly’s S&P+, the Pioneers ranked 196th last week, behind most legitimate at-large contenders and ahead of just one team with a passable at-large argument: Grambling, which is 5-3 against FCS opponents and has a win over 8-2 Jackson State.
The Sagarin rankings perceive Sacred Heart even worse. The Pioneers are 210 out of 265 Division I schools, ranked below 3-8 Holy Cross and ranked above just four teams with winning records: 7-4 Grambling, 6-5 Georgetown, 6-4 Dayton, and 6-5 Morehead State.
While the metrics do not favor Sacred Heart, it benefits from not having any bad losses and a win over Delaware State, albeit one that benefited from highly questionable officiating. Sacred Heart doesn’t have a bad loss like other FCS Playoff at-large contenders, such as Austin Peay, who lost to 4-7 Eastern Kentucky.
Sacred Heart's losses are a 28-10 loss to 11-0 #4 Lehigh, an overtime loss to the likely NEC champion 7-4 Central Connecticut State, and a 43-21 loss to #3 11-0 Montana, in which the Pioneers were down by just eight with under seven minutes to play. This is impressive in itself, considering Sacred Heart’s previous limitations as an NEC member. The win against 8-3 Delaware State already gives the Pioneers some credibility
Villanova can bolster Sacred Heart’s resume. The Wildcats are 8-1 against FCS competition. The one loss came against 9-2 Monmouth. A win over Villanova would give Sacred Heart a resume comparable to the following at-large contenders listed in Hero Sports and OptaAnalyst’s playoff projections:
It seems unlikely that Sacred Heart will get into the FCS Playoffs after beating Villanova, but the fact that one can make a compelling argument for their at-large candidacy proves that the Pioneers are one of the subdivision’s greatest stories.
