How did Ball St and San Jose become average after returning all their starters and both having great years last year

Been thinking this all season coaching is the same. What happened to these 2 teams.

You cannot predict the teams from the worst FCS conferences year to year, I gave up trying. The better teams in stronger conferences have depth at every position. So when the injuries start to mount, and they do for every team, these teams take a much bigger hit. Take out one dominant linebacker along with a couple of dependable O linemen and suddenly the team goes from good to below average. What also happens with the new transfer rules is these really good players transfer to better programs. Do you want to play in front of 3000 fans at Ball State or 80,000? Do you want to walk or do you want a nice new leased car that a car dealer that just loves his team lends you free of charge. Wouldn’t you prefer a coffee cup full of hundreds handed to you after every start, or do you want to be a very broke college kid at some second rate college.

 Last year was an outlier. The situation with covid saw some teams depleted, others not, either week to week or for the whole season.

SJSU lost couple of stud WR's from last season...also Starkel was hurt half the season...

You can put Iowa State in that category as well.  WTF?

You can put Iowa State in that category as well.  WTF?

@LonghornHoosier

 i expected a lot of isu too. purdy was not the same this season. the thing that really surprised me tho was the d getting beat so much. they had a great run for a couple of seasons...but i think they may slip back down to average. i see ostate and kstate ruling the new big 12...tho i think houston may become a monster pretty quick.