FCS even further downgraded by ESPN. Use to be you could find a way to navigate to JMU's football page but now they're not hotspotting FCS school names anywhere, and if you go to the "Teams" page FCS schools are no longer listed.

From a technical perspective, it's easy as sh!t for those mfers to hotspot those names.

Yep no more team pages for FCS. Wild. Just more space for Hero Sports and the like to grow into.

yep. I noticed this yesterday as well. sent them a complaint. not that it will do anything.

Yeah. I hope Hero Sports can develop an online product comparable to what ESPN used to have and I'll never have to bother going back to their site again. I'm shocked they're even bothering to air any FCS games on any platforms anymore.

Most of FCS now has to pay $5/month for ESPN+ when it used to be free on ESPN3 (if you had cable or an ISP).

(09-18-2018 02:55 PM)DirtyDukes Wrote:  Yep no more team pages for FCS. Wild. Just more space for Hero Sports and the like to grow into.

I like Brian and all, but why do they have us ranked at #5? They have great FCS articles you won't find in mainstream media but there's just a convenience we lose with ESPN (linking while checking scores, historical data, accessing AP articles, etc). I can still access JMU's football page via my "favorites" but that won't matter if they're going down the path of no longer supporting those pages at all.

Worse, my big fear is the next step will be no more real-time gamecasts.

(09-18-2018 03:19 PM)2Buck Wrote:  

(09-18-2018 02:55 PM)DirtyDukes Wrote:  Yep no more team pages for FCS. Wild. Just more space for Hero Sports and the like to grow into.

I like Brian and all, but why do they have us ranked at #5?

They use a computer model-thing. I'd guess it isn't adjusted for that NSU game only being one quarter, so it thinks we beat a terrible team by just 17 points.

(09-18-2018 03:31 PM)jmuwyhamhgawd Wrote:  They use a computer model-thing. I'd guess it isn't adjusted for that NSU game only being one quarter, so it thinks we beat a terrible team by just 17 points.

I think it also weights SOS and future SOS way too much. MVFC teams are probably stacked at the top simply for being a MVFC team.

I give them credit though, they do have lots of good statistics. Ben seems to be doing pretty well so far.

(09-18-2018 03:31 PM)jmuwyhamhgawd Wrote:  

(09-18-2018 03:19 PM)2Buck Wrote:  

(09-18-2018 02:55 PM)DirtyDukes Wrote:  Yep no more team pages for FCS. Wild. Just more space for Hero Sports and the like to grow into.

I like Brian and all, but why do they have us ranked at #5?

They use a computer model-thing. I'd guess it isn't adjusted for that NSU game only being one quarter, so it thinks we beat a terrible team by just 17 points.

Shouldn’t there be a way to adjust that for only one quarter being played?

Yet another cutback at what has always been the mother ship. That sucks. They had the easiest interface that I knew of to look at schedules and game results. It looks like a new interface altogether so maybe they just haven't gotten the FCS teams integrated yet but I kind of doubt it.

I went to the "Contact Us" part and I couldn't find any place where you could even comment about the website. It shows different categories (Espn+, insider, fantasy, etc) but nowhere in regards to the regular content.
It just means they'll get less traffic. HERO sports is way better anyway.

What exactly is different now? FCS teams have never been hyperlinked on ESPN.com from box scores or standings.

Team pages are still there: http://www.espn.com/college-football/team/_/id/256

Easiest way to access is to just start typing a school name in the search in the top right.

(09-19-2018 09:22 AM)Pitz Wrote:  What exactly is different now? FCS teams have never been hyperlinked on ESPN.com from box scores or standings.

Team pages are still there: http://www.espn.com/college-football/team/_/id/256

Easiest way to access is to just start typing a school name in the search in the top right.

At the home page, go to NCAAF, then Teams. The next page shows all the FBS teams and you can sort by division. There is no FCS option and there are no FCS divisions there. There used to be and that's generally where I went for each team. Each team was hyperlinked.
As for the standings page, I don't ever recall the teams not being hyperlinked. Division II teams and lower there weren't hyperlinks, but I'm pretty sure they were hyperlinked for FCS.
I'm pretty sure on the scores page each team had the option to be clicked on and taken to their page. I know that was not the case for D-II or lower.
Good to know they didn't eliminate the team pages altogether. However, on the team page when you check the schedules, you used to be able to click on the matchup and go to the other team's page. That is no longer the case. Now that option only exists for FBS teams. NC State's page is accessible from our game, but no other team on our schedule are you able to do that.
They've made it much more difficult for followers of FCS to check in on the rest of FCS. It's really hard to gain more interest when they do things to take away accessibility. That's the part that pisses me off about it.

(09-19-2018 09:22 AM)Pitz Wrote:  What exactly is different now? FCS teams have never been hyperlinked on ESPN.com from box scores or standings.

Team pages are still there: http://www.espn.com/college-football/team/_/id/256

Easiest way to access is to just start typing a school name in the search in the top right.

Absolutely they were hyperlinked it's how I've always gotten to the team page. Also they removed the FCS Conferences from the dropdown box on the team list page.

(09-19-2018 09:44 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  

(09-19-2018 09:22 AM)Pitz Wrote:  What exactly is different now? FCS teams have never been hyperlinked on ESPN.com from box scores or standings.

Team pages are still there: http://www.espn.com/college-football/team/_/id/256

Easiest way to access is to just start typing a school name in the search in the top right.

At the home page, go to NCAAF, then Teams. The next page shows all the FBS teams and you can sort by division. There is no FCS option and there are no FCS divisions there. There used to be and that's generally where I went for each team. Each team was hyperlinked.
As for the standings page, I don't ever recall the teams not being hyperlinked. Division II teams and lower there weren't hyperlinks, but I'm pretty sure they were hyperlinked for FCS.
I'm pretty sure on the scores page each team had the option to be clicked on and taken to their page. I know that was not the case for D-II or lower.
Good to know they didn't eliminate the team pages altogether. However, on the team page when you check the schedules, you used to be able to click on the matchup and go to the other team's page. That is no longer the case. Now that option only exists for FBS teams. NC State's page is accessible from our game, but no other team on our schedule are you able to do that.
They've made it much more difficult for followers of FCS to check in on the rest of FCS. It's really hard to gain more interest when they do things to take away accessibility. That's the part that pisses me off about it.

Yep exactly this

The site is considerably less accessible now. It took time for them to turn off the hyperlinks to pages that were already linked. Someone consciously chose to do so and it's spitting in the face of fans who just want to access their teams or other team's information.

They may as well just drop FCS everything and be done with it. They're choosing the slow, year by year, taking something away for FCS fans. It's only a matter of time. One year they won't have any FCS team info at all.

I noticed this earlier in the season as well and thought it was a complete bummer. I get that college sports are increasingly commercial, but you can't call yourself the worldwide leader if you're not even covering all of Division I. Not a great move, imo

They've been messing with I-AA for about 2 years now. I used to always use their standings pages to bounce between the teams when I type up my playoff updates. Around 2 years ago, I found I couldn't do that anymore and had to find other resources.

Looks like FCS team links are up and operating in a number of places...