FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[bashgiant]

I think my comment after the Witt loss was borne out.   We didn't get the miracle. 

You need to educate yourself on the process before you start talking about what Wabash needs or doesn't need.  It was simply a matter of preference...an either/or choice and they didn't choose Wabash.  They could have, but they didn't.  It wasn't wing and a prayer stuff.  No miracles.  Wheaton needed a miracle. Texas Lutheran needed a miracle.  Wabash didn't need a miracle.  Simply put, you don't know what you're talking about on this subject.  You want to get out here and blast the team because they didn't play the way you wanted them to on 11/9, tell the world that that isn't a playoff team, and then drop a bunch of "I told you so"s when Wabash doesn't get picked...you feel better about that?   What does that accomplish aside from broadcasting to the world that you're part of the sickening subset of Wabash "fans" that are ready dump all over the team over one loss.  ONE LOSS.  What does this accomplish? 

Wabash needs to take advantage of that one OOC game and schedule a team that stands a chance at being regionally ranked. They've done that with HSC going forward for the next two years at least. However, with the NCAC being basically a two horse race most years, it only gets them one shot against a RRO. It needs to be 2 if they are going to be serious about needing a "C" bid. Especially coming from the North. Witt should be the same way. That is the peril of a large round-robin conference with 2 dominant members.

Use that one OOC game wisely, it's the best chance the loser of the Witt/Wabash game have for getting a "C". As has been pointed out, moving the SOS needle is not real likely.

Again, it would be nice to be able to pick and choose exactly which team you play for the non-league game and it would be nice to be able to know with any amount of certainty who is going to be regionally ranked in the year 2017 when you're lining up a home and home in 2013.  But you can't know that.  And even if you could know that, you can't always get that game. 

There's a flaw in how we measure "strength" of schedule.  There's a flaw in how we define a quality win.  Those are a couple of the things that have to be examined as part of the quest to craft criteria that help identify the best team. 

I agree Wally. The ole saying we are just passionate fans is getting really old. I am amazed at some of the post on this board when Wabash goes 9-1 has some of the best stats in D3 and the take away margin is the best in all of the NCAA divisions. How many Stagg bowls have these people complaining been in? I know I know just passionate fans. These young men literally put their bodies on the line doing the best they can. I am sure I will get blasted for this but oh well.

[bashgiant]

I am new to all this so this might be a silly question but what about Wabash going independent like Notre Dame?

1000% no.  Oh my god no.  Independent is the worst possible thing you can be in D-III.  Look at Wesley's schedule in October/November.  That's what you get if you're an independent. 

And being a member of the NCAC is awesome.  It really is.  This group of schools is incredible.

Got it. Like I said I am learning. Thank you.

[firstdown]

WABCOL86 - Is the glass half empty or full? Witt came to C'Ville with a senior laden team and something to prove having lost to Wabash the past two seasons.  The LG's got in a hole early due to bad field position and trying to press in the second quarter without first stablizing the situation.  The second half was a very different game.  As to the unsportsman like penalties, quite frankly they were bogus having been called idiot refs that had lost their cool.  Wabash plays a very aggressive game and you can expect some penalties from aggressive play.  You want players that are "agile, mobile, and hostile."

Given the number of young players who played key roles, you can expect some unusual ups and downs.  Further, the team lost not one, but two 1,000 yard plus running backs during the season.  The team of running backs that stepped in did a great job filling in a situation that would be devastating for most teams.  The two backs are working hard to rehab and will be back next year along with 3 of the 4 guys who stepped.  Plus, the team had a sophomore quarterback in his first season as a starter.  His performance in the Bell game is but a sign of things to come.  The offensive line suffered some injuries during the year so it was rare to have the same group starting from week to week, which both didn't help, but has built depth for next year.

Wabash will lose some great seniors due to graduation, and they will be hard to replace.  However, if you look at the guys coming back, the younger players have gained a wealth of experience and will have another year in the weight room to get bigger and stronger on top of the team speed that they have.

Wabash has been very successful in recruiting and this will continue as well.  The bottom line, I see the glass half full and the prospects for next season quite bright.

[bashgiant]

WABCOL86 - Is the glass half empty or full? Witt came to C'Ville with a senior laden team and something to prove having lost to Wabash the past two seasons.  The LG's got in a hole early due to bad field position and trying to press in the second quarter without first stablizing the situation.  The second half was a very different game.  As to the unsportsman like penalties, quite frankly they were bogus having been called idiot refs that had lost their cool.  Wabash plays a very aggressive game and you can expect some penalties from aggressive play.  You want players that are "agile, mobile, and hostile."

Given the number of young players who played key roles, you can expect some unusual ups and down.  Further, the team lost not one, but two 1,000 yard plus running backs during the season.  The team of running backs that stepped in did a great job filling in a situation that would be devastating for most teams.  The two backs are working hard to rehab and will be back next year along with 3 of the 4 guys who stepped.  Plus, the team had a sophomore quarterback in his first season as a starter.  His performance in the Bell game is but a sign of things to come.  The offensive line suffered some injuries during the year so it was rare to have the same group starting from week to week, which both didn't help, but has built depth for next year.

Wabash will lose some great seniors due to graduation, and they will be hard to replace.  However, if you look at the guys coming back, the younger players have gained a wealth of experience and will have another year in the weight room to get bigger and stronger on top of the team speed that have.

Wabash has been very successful in recruiting and this will continue as well.  The bottom line, I see the glass half full and the prospects for next season quite bright.

Bravo!!!! + a bazillion!!!!!

[wabndy]

There's a flaw in how we measure "strength" of schedule.  There's a flaw in how we define a quality win.  Those are a couple of the things that have to be examined as part of the quest to craft criteria that help identify the best team.

I've been thinking about this a lot since last night.  When you are trying to compare a cross region team, looking at the primary criteria, lets assume you don't have a H2H or or common opponent.  That of course leaves us with these three:
-W/L percentage (which does not take into account bad losses.  There is functionally no difference under this criteria for losing to a powerhouse or a doormat.  That is the worst part of the system.  Quality "results" against RRO count in your favor - embarrasing losses to teams you should have beat really don't)
- SOS
- "Results" vs ranked teams.

The issue is that the SOS and ranked team results in large part duplicate each other.  If you are playing a team that ends up ranked, it is axiomatically going to boost your SOS.  While admittedly it does not exactly double count this criteria - I think it is somewhat disingenous to favor one team over the other because they have both a higher SOS AND more results against a RRO.  Throw in the fact that not all regions are created equally - this is the result we get.

I also think this is another good reason why it is a good idea to schedule HSC.  Not only would we potentially have had a second RRO game this year- by playing out of region game we also potentially put into play the "results against common opponent" criteria, depending on how the rankings fall, should we find ourselves in this situation again. 

[USee]

Great posts Wally. I'll admit I have thought all weekend about what Wabash could do differently (other than the obvious).  I find there are several teams that are playoff caliber not playing. That list is led by Bash.  Although UWO, St Thomas, Wheaton and even Heidleberg are all teams, in my opinion that would win games in the playoffs, those teams situation is easier to accept as they lost 2 games.  Wabash lost one game and a two loss team got in over them.  I understand why but I don't like it.  Simply put, hose teams I list above, along with SJf have a wider margin of error than Wabash.  That doesn't strike me as a fair system. I don't have the answer either but you are definitely starting to highlight some of the flaws, which is a good place to start. 

The OAC has the same problem but their one loss runner up is always the first team off the board.  What's different? Obviously Mt Union's presence at the top of that conference is a major factor. 

Scratching my head. 

[Joe Wally]

First and foremost, the Little Giants went 9-1 and ended the year with a Monon Bell victory.  For those two reasons alone I consider this season a success.  Hard stop.  The Wabash seniors who played their last games on Saturday have no reason (in my humble estimation) to think of their college football careers as anything other than a success.

With respect to playoffs, based on the conversation here from guys who are far better versed in the selection criteria than I am, it appears as if we probably knew or should have known before the season even started that it was going to take a 10-0 record to assure ourselves of a playoff berth.  Would a "better opponent" in week one have improved our chances of making the playoffs as a one loss team, perhaps, but as wally_wabash pointed out in an earlier post, even that "better opponent" would have not assured our spot.  Regardless, I have no regrets about the way this team represented my school and the way that their season ended.

We are ten months away from a game against Hampden-Syndey and the truest "Stag Bowl" that college football has seen probably since Wabash last played Rose-Hulman.  That should be a classic.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I am new to all this so this might be a silly question but what about Wabash going independent like Notre Dame?

1000% no.  Oh my god no.  Independent is the worst possible thing you can be in D-III.  Look at Wesley's schedule in October/November.  That's what you get if you're an independent. 

And being a member of the NCAC is awesome.  It really is.  This group of schools is incredible.

Something else that we always have to mention when the conference discussion comes up is that we tend to view things through the very narrow prism of what a conference membership means to our respective school's football team without considering the all-sports picture, which is really more important in D3.  While D1 conferences get the massive television money from football which allows football to entirely dictate what conference a school plays in, or which schools a conference tries to recruit (i.e. the Big Ten's additions of Maryland and Rutgers), D3 conferences are better suited considering the best thing for all sports programs.  Most of the D3 conferences are pretty interesting collections of schools in their own right bound by some sort of common thread.

[smedindy]

There's a flaw in how we measure "strength" of schedule.  There's a flaw in how we define a quality win.  Those are a couple of the things that have to be examined as part of the quest to craft criteria that help identify the best team.

I've been thinking about this a lot since last night.  When you are trying to compare a cross region team, looking at the primary criteria, lets assume you don't have a H2H or or common opponent.  That of course leaves us with these three:
-W/L percentage (which does not take into account bad losses.  There is functionally no difference under this criteria for losing to a powerhouse or a doormat.  That is the worst part of the system.  Quality "results" against RRO count in your favor - embarrasing losses to teams you should have beat really don't)
- SOS
- "Results" vs ranked teams.

The issue is that the SOS and ranked team results in large part duplicate each other.  If you are playing a team that ends up ranked, it is axiomatically going to boost your SOS.  While admittedly it does not exactly double count this criteria - I think it is somewhat disingenous to favor one team over the other because they have both a higher SOS AND more results against a RRO.  Throw in the fact that not all regions are created equally - this is the result we get.

I also think this is another good reason why it is a good idea to schedule HSC.  Not only would we potentially have had a second RRO game this year- by playing out of region game we also potentially put into play the "results against common opponent" criteria, depending on how the rankings fall, should we find ourselves in this situation again.

You can load up your SOS without touching ranked teams, though. In hoops, the Northeast (especially the NESCAC) are wonders at that. That region is huge, and it's easy to 'beat up' on the best teams from the lesser conferences.

[firstdown]

First and foremost, the Little Giants went 9-1 and ended the year with a Monon Bell victory.  For those two reasons alone I consider this season a success.  Hard stop.  The Wabash seniors who played their last games on Saturday have no reason (in my humble estimation) to think of their college football careers as anything other than a success.

Wabash finished the season number 1 in Total Defense and number 6 in Total Offense in Division 3 which is pretty good in my book.  Great job and well done to a great group of seniors, and to the team as a whole!

[wabndy]

What will really help is when (not if -FT to Wes) DePauw turns their program around.  Our two schools have been tied together for too long.  As long as Wabash's program is still flying high - DePauw is going to (by hook or by crook) put the resources in to try and bring their program up to the same competitive level.  If anyone doubts this, please contact Greg Carlson over at St. Scholastica and ask him what Wabash did to him after one-too-many bell game losses.  When DePauw is there (probably not 2014, but 2015 is wide open), then the NCAC will have all the makings of a power conference that gets its conference runner up at or near the top of the pool C bid.  The CCIW has it's three (Wheaton, IWU, and North Central).  The OAC has always had JC as the Washington Generals to UMU's Globetrotters.  Heidelberg's rise put JC on top of the Pool C board.  I see no reason why the NCAC won't have a true three-way race (all regionally ranked) at the top and have a respectable middle tier in a few years. 

[smedindy]

The one thing we don't want to do when thinking of how to reform the playoff system is to give up the automatic bid for qualified conferences. I think that files in the face of what D3 is about, and will cause more strife and grief by the have nots and perhaps build a system where certain conferences can never get a bid.

In D2 and D-1AA some conference champs are left out and have to fight their way into the field if they're lucky.

The MASCAC and SAA will get auto bids soon, which will transition 3 B bids to one. I think we're stuck with five "C" bids, which means D3 as a whole is strong, but you can't afford a slip up without getting some help.

I think what we really needed was Alfred to beat SJF. Their SOS was marginally lower, they would have been 2-1 RR, but the loss to RPI would have hurt them more than SJF's loss to Salisbury.

[smedindy]

What will really help is when (not if -FT to Wes) DePauw turns their program around.  Our two schools have been tied together for too long.  As long as Wabash's program is still flying high - DePauw is going to (by hook or by crook) put the resources in to try and bring their program up to the same competitive level.  If anyone doubts this, please contact Greg Carlson over at St. Scholastica and ask him what Wabash did to him after one-too-many bell game losses.  When DePauw is there (probably not 2014, but 2015 is wide open), then the NCAC will have all the makings of a power conference that gets its conference runner up at or near the top of the pool C bid.  The CCIW has it's three (Wheaton, IWU, and North Central).  The OAC has always had JC as the Washington Generals to UMU's Globetrotters.  Heidelberg's rise put JC on top of the Pool C board.  I see no reason why the NCAC won't have a true three-way race (all regionally ranked) at the top and have a respectable middle tier in a few years.

I think Wooster is primed for that. Denison seems to have stabilized as a good team. DPU will improve. OWU hopefully will continue their rise. Kenyon probably won't be a doormat anymore, and Oberlin always fights hard with this staff. Gheny can't possibly be this awful again. That leaves...Hiram. But, hey, North Park won a few conference games this year, so...

[wabndy]

You can load up your SOS without touching ranked teams, though. In hoops, the Northeast (especially the NESCAC) are wonders at that. That region is huge, and it's easy to 'beat up' on the best teams from the lesser conferences.

No argument there for basketball.  This ain't basketball.  A ten game schedule where  6-9 opponents all pre-deterimined and all play each other, how exactly do you "load up" your SOS without touching ranked teams?

[smedindy]

Well, in our region (or close enough) - all would have added a data point better than Hanover.

Concordia (WI) 8-2
Illinois College 8-2
Lakeland 7-3
Benedictine 7-3
Rose Hulman 7-3
Hope 7-3
Centre 7-3
Kalamazoo 6-4
Adrian 6-4
Olivet 6-4 (of course, K'zoo and Olivet may be lightning in a bottle)
MSJ 6-4
Chicago 6-4
Baldwin Wallace 6-4
Ohio Northern 6-4

They're out there. Of course with some teams you really don't know what you're getting. But Illinois College, for one, seems to have built something sustainable.

I didn't add Monmouth. They were 5-5 this year - but playing against President Ditzler's team would be fun.