According to both Massey and Sagarin, Samford, a bubble team that squeaked into the playoffs, would be ranked 7/11 in the MVFC, and only that high because of an explosive offense. The Samford D is ranked in the bottom 3 of every major defensive category of the SoCon.
Three of our final four conference games were against the bottom three teams in the MVFC. The one team we played in the last five weeks that was anywhere close to worthy of a seed was NDSU, who defeated us by three scores. Our conference schedule was very top heavy.
I don't understand how the sports announcers and coaches can say, "we are peaking" now, or feel that they can extrapolate the results of MSU or Samford to playing JSU. The only team like JSU we've recently played is NDSU. If the Browns win their first game against Hubbard, will they claim they are peaking?
With Moss and Wright back, I think the defense can overcome deficiencies elsewhere....I hope.