The FCS Playoffs field is down to sixteen teams with five of them out of the Missouri Valley Football Conference. It could have very easily been six, but a stunning defeat by Youngstown State has the Penguins home for the year.

Here are some takeaways from the opening round, which saw attendance suffer again from playing on Thanksgiving weekend.

FIRST DOWN — A victory worth waiting for. That’s the best way to describe Saturday in Youngstown for the Yale Bulldogs. If you looked at the score at halftime or midway through the third quarter yesterday, you wouldn’t be blamed for turning it off thinking it was going to be a big Youngstown State win. The Penguins led 35-7 at halftime and 42-14 midway through the third.

But no one gave the message to Yale that the game was over.

Right after t

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