NCAAF Heat Check
College Football Heat Check, Montana State 5-0 in Their Last 5
Published
Form is the story the standings tell slowly and the last ten games tell fast. Right now the fast version of College Football is easy to summarize: Montana State are rolling, Utah Tech are reeling, and the gap between those two feelings is enormous.
Who's hot
Start with Montana State. They have won 5 of their last 5, and they have not been sneaking past anyone: the points margin over that stretch is +113, which breaks down to about 37.6 scored and 15.0 allowed per game. That is the arithmetic of a team winning on merit, not on bounces.
The chase belongs to Lehigh, who have gone 5-0 with a +97 margin of their own.
And do not sleep on South Dakota State, quietly 4-1 across their last 5.
The whole league is averaging 24.3 points a game in this stretch, which makes Montana State outrunning that number by 13.3 per night the loudest stat on the page.
The cold end
Utah Tech are the cold front. They have gone 0-5 over their last 5, and the -167 margin underneath means the losses have not even been close, roughly 33.4 points a game the wrong way.
They have company at the cold end: VMI, 0-5 over the same window.
In between the extremes it gets crowded, Southeast Missouri State at 2-3 and Wofford at 2-3 are basically sharing a seat, and the next series either way will split them.
The board
For the fuller picture, the five best recent records in the league:
| Team | Last 10 | Points +/- |
|---|---|---|
| Montana State | 5-0 (5 gm) | +113 |
| Lehigh | 5-0 (5 gm) | +97 |
| South Dakota State | 4-1 (5 gm) | +132 |
| Austin Peay | 4-1 (5 gm) | +100 |
| Montana | 4-1 (5 gm) | +68 |
The fine print
As always, watch where record and points margin tell different stories about the same club. The margin tends to know first.