FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[wally_wabash]

Do you have a Link to the media guide?

Sure thing.   

[bashbrother]

Thanks so much Wally.  Good stuff.

[HSCTiger fan]

Great game Wabash. Defense certainly delivered everything promised.  Both teams are better for having played each other.  Congrats on great win.

Wally you seem to love digging deep and finding facts. How many 3rd and 26s did Wabash D give up in last 11 games?  Coach most certainly played what he felt were the odds in his favor.  I see both sides of the argument.

Best of luck the rest of the season.

[wally_wabash]

Great game Wabash. Defense certainly delivered everything promised.  Both teams are better for having played each other.  Congrats on great win.

Wally you seem to love digging deep and finding facts. How many 3rd and 26s did Wabash D give up in last 11 games?  Coach most certainly played what he felt were the odds in his favor.  I see both sides of the argument.

Best of luck the rest of the season.

I believe Wabash led D3 in 3rd down% defense, so Wabash wasn't giving up too many 3rd and anythings.   

[Li'l Giant]

I missed the discussion earlier but HSCTiger Fan brought it up and I agree. My initial reaction on twitter to the quick kick on 3rd down was that it was a smart play. Facing a possibility of a sack on 3rd or a punt block on 4th (Wabash has blocked a few punts in recent seasons) seemed like an unnecessary risk.

[aueagle]

I'm not a big fan of the "off-week"
An 11th game, at the start of the season would
be a natural...so, the Bishops get more film
time to look at the Lords...and we're in good
company, Mount Union is off too.....maybe
run up to Alliance and play the Raiders and see
where Watts has the Red & Black...I wish

[smedindy]

Do we really need 11 games? The big boys have moved from 10 to 11 to 12+. That's a lot. We have playoffs, remember, so 10 can turn into 13+ for a few teams.

[jknezek]

Do we really need 11 games? The big boys have moved from 10 to 11 to 12+. That's a lot. We have playoffs, remember, so 10 can turn into 13+ for a few teams.

Although it's unlikely to happen I'd rather add another round to the playoffs then go to 11 regular season games. As D3 continues to expand you either have to bump up the A requirement to 10+ teams, forcing another round of conference musical chairs, or you have to expand the playoffs so you can include the A teams and a few C teams. At least this way you limit the impact of another set of games to only a few teams. I don't see either scenario happening, however. Especially with D3 schools already changing some sport rules to start saving money.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Do we really need 11 games? The big boys have moved from 10 to 11 to 12+. That's a lot. We have playoffs, remember, so 10 can turn into 13+ for a few teams.

Although it's unlikely to happen I'd rather add another round to the playoffs then go to 11 regular season games. As D3 continues to expand you either have to bump up the A requirement to 10+ teams, forcing another round of conference musical chairs, or you have to expand the playoffs so you can include the A teams and a few C teams. At least this way you limit the impact of another set of games to only a few teams. I don't see either scenario happening, however. Especially with D3 schools already changing some sport rules to start saving money.

I agree.  I'm a bit nervy about the inevitable shift in Pool A requirements leading to conference musical chairs.  This is a can of worms I don't really want to open, but it seems inevitable at some point, so let's spitball for a minute.  Suppose that we're going to expand the playoffs.  I hate "uneven" numbers in the playoffs, but 64 seems like an unnecessarily large explosion of at-larges.  How far do you think they'd go?  A 36-team bracket, basically with one "play-in" game in each of four regional brackets?  40 teams with two "play-in" games? 

Eh.  Maybe jacking up the Pool A requirement and living with the round of conference-poaching is better, but I hate the thought of some decent leagues dissolving or adding stray members that don't really make sense just for a playoff bid.  Plus, forcing all teams into 10-team conferences reduces OOC play to one game for everybody, something most of us are not really in favor of, it seems.  Merp.

[Li'l Giant]

I'm don't think there is a compelling reason to change anything.

[badgerwarhawk]

I'm don't think there is a compelling reason to change anything.

What he said.

[Pat Coleman]

It would be nice to have an 11th game because it would give us another piece of data to use when figuring out at-large bids but I'd suspect it's highly unlikely we'll get one.

[jknezek]

I'm don't think there is a compelling reason to change anything.

There isn't right now. But D3 is growing at a couple teams a year. Right now we go 7 teams per conference A bid. Assuming we can continue to ignore the NESCAC (a fair assumption to ignore 10), we have 232 teams eligible for the playoffs right now. That makes for 33.14 bids if everyone were in a 7 team conference. Problem number 1. Thankfully we have some breathing room thanks to the following conferences, CC (10), E8 (9), HCAC (9), MAC (10), MASCAC (9), MIAC (9), Midwest (12), NCAC (10), OAC (10), PAC (11), UMAC (10), and USAS (9). There are also 10 conferences with 8 members. So by going over, we've bought ourselves some room. We use that room to subsidize the ASC (6) on probation, the Independents (5), and the SCAC (4), the latter two falling into the 1+ pool B bids. But as it stands, even with all the subsidies, we are down to 5 Pool C bids, 26 Pool A, and one Pool B.

None of that is too bad if we stand still going forward. Pat would know the numbers best, but it seems to me we are picking up 1-3 teams a year in D3 on average. So every 3-4 years you are taking away a C bid at the current ratio. Won't take long to see what the future holds. So you have two options, expand the playoffs or increase the ratio to get an A. Expanding the playoffs will cost big money, though I can think of at least one way to mitigate the costs even if it doesn't increase the "fairness" of the seeding process.

That leaves us with upping the ratio. Musical chairs, but how do you need to up the ratio? If you move it by 1, you only affect 4 conferences as it stands now, the MIAA (7), the NACC (7), the SAA (7) and the ASC (6) which is already problematic unless McMurry comes back into the fold. At most going to 8 moves these 27 teams into Pool B, with a couple independents you go from having 5 bids guaranteed among the group to 4 bids. So the complete result of upping the requirement to 8 is basically a +1 C bid as it stands now. Not real helpful since that C was eaten up by D3 expansion in general.

If you go to 9, then you get a mess. In addition to the 4 conferences above, there are 10 more conferences with 8 members. Hello musical chairs. On the upside, you would consolidate to 80+27+3 independents (guess on the indies) = 102/9 = 12.2 bids versus the 15 now given to this pot. So you earn 2-3 Pool C bids back by creating complete havoc. That havoc might work out for you as conferences combine to more than 9 members, probably 10 for scheduling purposes, earning you another 1 or 2 C bids. So you get 3-5 extra at large bids, one eaten every few years for D3 expansion probably buys you a decade of expansion.

Basically in a few years you are going to have a few options. Spend the money to expand or revamp the AQ system. Upping the ante by 1 member does almost no good. Upping it by 2 makes a complete mess but is probably the most realistic option. So all AQ schools play a 9 game conference schedule and one OOC. Good luck picking the Pool C candidates given the limited cross over data.

The other option is the one that is already in use somewhat in sports with more members. Regional pods that don't accurately divide up the best teams, but lower the numbers when you go to a more national scene. You could pair conferences pre-season, or even multi-season, to pit champions against each other. For example the ODAC and USAS champion (or a runner-up for either if they earn the C) could play for a right to enter the tournament. Any league getting two bids gets the champion through automatically. This way you limit expenses drastically for all involved while still expanding. Make the schools pay for this round and if they choose not to, the opponent gets a pass into the national tournament.

Yes it's ugly since it wouldn't necessarily be fair, the WIAC and MIAC could be paired geographically in a miserably unfair grouping, but it would solve the math problem at the top of the post. It would also solve a "games played" type problem. It's likely that the teams going deepest into the tournament would come from 2 bid leagues, so those going deepest wouldn't necessarily play the opening round while teams that aren't going to progress as deep get an extra game. You could have 37 teams in this format, with 5 pod pairings (10 teams) and 27 byes. With 37 teams given the current numbers you'd have 26 As, 1 B, and 10 Cs. That would buy you an awfully long time of expansion while giving a lot of access to good teams that are crowded out by less good Pool A squads.

The nice thing about the pod concept is it can be expanded if you want to start small with just minor adjustments. See March Madness...

[wally_wabash]

I'm not a big fan of the "off-week"
An 11th game, at the start of the season would
be a natural...so, the Bishops get more film
time to look at the Lords...and we're in good
company, Mount Union is off too.....maybe
run up to Alliance and play the Raiders and see
where Watts has the Red & Black...I wish

I don't think there is anything at all stopping Watts and the boys from playing Mount Union on a regular basis.  All they'd have to do is call.  The Raiders need a week 1 game more often than not. 

[wally_wabash]

Yes it's ugly since it wouldn't necessarily be fair, the WIAC and MIAC could be paired geographically in a miserably unfair grouping, but it would solve the math problem at the top of the post. It would also solve a "games played" type problem. It's likely that the teams going deepest into the tournament would come from 2 bid leagues, so those going deepest wouldn't necessarily play the opening round while teams that aren't going to progress as deep get an extra game. You could have 37 teams in this format, with 5 pod pairings (10 teams) and 27 byes. With 37 teams given the current numbers you'd have 26 As, 1 B, and 10 Cs. That would buy you an awfully long time of expansion while giving a lot of access to good teams that are crowded out by less good Pool A squads.

The 37 team tournament also requires an extra week of postseason, which I can't imagine D3 presidents are signing up for.  I also can't imagine that the NCAA would love to pay to put on five more games. 

I like the 32 team format.  This comes from a fan of the team that was 33rd last year.