FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[WittFan]

I had missed the reference in the "Schedule" section that NCAC was going to full round-robin in 2012, ending the NCAC-UAA schedule.

Two obvious questions:

• Does this mean the strength-of-schedule for the upper half of the league just went from bad to worse?
• If so, does this pretty much guarantee the NCAC's days of hosting a first-round playoff game are over?

I don't think so.  As it was, respectable SOS's were available to the NCAC.  Wabash was ranked #15 by the NCAA's SOS formula last year.

Wabash had a good SOS because the NCAC didn't do a full round-robin. Replace Chicago with Hiram and Wabash's SOS takes a nosedive. So more often than not the full round-robin will hurt the SoS for the top half of the league, right?

What's going to happen is that both the OWP and OOWP figures will trend toward .500 for everybody in the league which will plant most of our teams somewhere around the middle or maybe just a touch above the middle of the pack.  10-0 NCAC champions will host a game more often than they won't.

I think I need to give myself a refresher on how SOS works. Are you saying that the net effect on SOS will be a was because the decrease in OWP for the top half of the league will be offset by the increase in OOWP?

[WittFan]

How do you guys feel about the NCAC going to a full round robin?  It's a topic that has come up occasionally over the years...

My thoughts are that I think it's a good idea now which is a change from what I would have said two or three years ago.  Swapping Earlham with DePauw makes all the difference.  If we draw the top/bottom tier line in our league now I think you have the Ws, Depauw, and Allegheny in the top half while OWU/Kenyon/Oberlin/Denison/Hiram in the bottom half.  With a round robin, the top half teams are going to have four real tests and then five games that should be winnable.  Before DePauw, you were really only dealing with four teams, and even three in a couple of Wooster's lean years post-Sutton, which wouldn't have made for a compelling round robin and prevented teams from using the three-non conference games to get some better games (for instance those Wabash/Franklin classics never would have happened).  Four good league games plus one elective to go schedule a good opponent (hopefully) I think makes for a pretty good football schedule.  We'll see how it works out in practice, but I think now is a good time to try it out at least.  At the very least we can kiss those silly power ratings goodbye.   

Granted the power-ranking format had its fair share of problems and teams often failed to take advantage of the opportunities it offered, but I maintain that it is never desirable for a respectable program to be forced to play Hiram and Kenyon. I strongly support any arrangement, as flawed as it may be, where there is a possibility of avoiding these two teams. Honestly, I would rather Wittenberg play an 8-game season than have to spend two weeks a year figuring out creative ways to avoid hanging triple-digits on schools that have consistently proven that they have no interest in taking football seriously.*

*(I want to make it clear that my disdain applies only the administrations of these schools and not the players. Year after year they play their hearts out in spite of impossible odds. Not once have I seen them "phone it in." Most importantly, they handle themselves with dignity and class under the most trying of circumstances. The players on both those teams have my utmost repect.)

[wally_wabash]

Welcome Moose.

Which team, if that info won't compromise your anonymity.

Thanks for the welcome. I was more concerned with my son's anonymity than my own. He'll be going to Denison. A little farther from home than his mom and I would have liked (from our selfish point of view) but I think he'll have a great four years there.

I was really impressed with all of the NCAC schools he visited. Great academics, good coaches, nice facilities and a good healthy perspective on the role of athletics in higher education. I don't think he would have went wrong with any of the schools.  I really like this conference.  I'll just be logging some extra miles (like a few thousand) over the next four years.

Good stuff, Moose.  Piper-Deeds is my second favorite place to watch a game in the NCAC.  I really like that setting and the renovated stadium was very well done.  Best of luck to your son over in Granville! 

[wally_wabash]

I had missed the reference in the "Schedule" section that NCAC was going to full round-robin in 2012, ending the NCAC-UAA schedule.

Two obvious questions:

• Does this mean the strength-of-schedule for the upper half of the league just went from bad to worse?
• If so, does this pretty much guarantee the NCAC's days of hosting a first-round playoff game are over?

I don't think so.  As it was, respectable SOS's were available to the NCAC.  Wabash was ranked #15 by the NCAA's SOS formula last year.

Wabash had a good SOS because the NCAC didn't do a full round-robin. Replace Chicago with Hiram and Wabash's SOS takes a nosedive. So more often than not the full round-robin will hurt the SoS for the top half of the league, right?

Your SOS really doesn't have much to do with your place in the standings.  Some really good teams (Wittenberg, Trine) had horrible SOS figures last year.  Some really horrible teams (Olivet for example) had really good SOS figures (they were #18).  Replacing somebody like Chicago with Hiram (using last year as an example) would have hurt Wabash's SOS pretty significantly, sure.  Playing a full 9-game round robin probably elminates any chance that an NCAC team is going to be in the top 20 (probably top 40 at that).  But it also eliminates any chance that any of our teams will wind up down below 200. 

What's going to happen is that both the OWP and OOWP figures will trend toward .500 for everybody in the league which will plant most of our teams somewhere around the middle or maybe just a touch above the middle of the pack.  10-0 NCAC champions will host a game more often than they won't.

I think I need to give myself a refresher on how SOS works. Are you saying that the net effect on SOS will be a was because the decrease in OWP for the top half of the league will be offset by the increase in OOWP?

That's exactly right.  The net winning percentange for the entire league will be .500.  Now that everybody in the league is playing everybody, at the end of the season everybody's OWP will be somewhere close to .500, give or take the results of that one non-league game that everybody gets.  The OOWP will behave similarly because 9 of your 10 opponents have 9 other common opponents...so that's all going to hover around .500 also.  The end result is that you wind up with a pretty tight group of SOS's for the league.  Using the OAC as an obvious point of comparison, their SOS ranks last year were:

JCU - 44
Muskingum - 73
B-W - 83
Capital - 90
Otterbein - 91
Mount Union - 92
ONU - 93
Wilmington - 95
Heidelberg - 128
Marietta - 182

That's out of 227 teams rated by this site, so you can see how they really trend toward the middle of the pack, or slightly above thanks to the OAC's positive results in their non-league games.  I would expect the majority of the NCAC's numbers to fall in a similar range, or maybe slightly below given that our league's performance out of conference hasn't been as good as that of the OAC.  But maybe that can swing around...really, I think it's the difference between having most of our teams clustered around the 90s and clustered around the 110s.  I don't think it's a big difference in the grand scheme. 

[D3_DPUFan]

If you want to see a student-athlete who really gets it...take a few minutes to watch Michigan State QB Kirk Cousins speak at the Big 10 Kickoff luncheon. Very impressive.


http://www.bigtennetwork.com/generic/sports/video?autostart=true&bcpid=60234638001&bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAEBQhU8~,kLn_EtefUBn-jd4QuQdKKKEE0M4y3HUj&bclid=0&bctid=1086521553001

[aueagle]

Thoughts go out to the Wittenberg Tigers on Dave Maurer...
Great story by D3 on him...I was lucky to have met him...
outstanding coach and person.

[aueagle]

I like what Coach Hatem is trying to do in Granville.....I think with some breaks, they
can reach the upper tier of the conference, soon. A great statement by the the new
uniforms by the Big Red...if only OWU would put the Bishop back on the helmet...but that might have to wait for the change-over.....

http://denisonbigred.com/sports/fball/2011-12/releases/20110727obrlgg

[BashBacker#16]

BB16's player to watch...

TYLER HOLMES, Sophomore Running Back.  Note it.

WAF!

[wabco]

From the Prinston Review of 356 colleges and universities:

Best Athletic Facilities:
1.  Georgia Tech
2.  Univ of Md
3.  U S Military Academy
4.  Wabash College
5.  The Ohio State

As a counter point, at Party School we have:
15. The Dannies
16. IU

[1837Tigers]

Do they have a list of schools that don't teach spelling?  Prinston???  

(I tried to resist, sorry!)

[wabco]

I am not ranked.  Fine motor skill issues.

[aueagle]

....and to expand on wabco's recent find...The Harvard on the Hocking, Ohio U. is #1 in Party!!

http://www.thebestcolleges.org/2012-princeton-review-party-school-rankings/

[bashbrother]

Interesting!   Wabash in the top in Athletic Facilities,  Depauw in the top 15 in partying.  The 47-0 isn't such a mystery now.   (I still think we would beat them at their own game... Beer pong is still kind of a sport)  

[smedindy]

DPU may be ranked because of quantity of 'parties' (or what they call parties), but I bet Wabash beats them on quality.

And the more I hear of Ben Quayle, son of Dan the Dannie, the more I worry about the future offspring of Danny men...

[smedindy]

As for full-round robins, I think if you're going to have a conference, you need to play them all. The Big 10 played a full round robin for a while in the late 70's and early 80's. The issue is that you can have a situation where there are co-champs or tri-champs because one team didn't play the other. But D-1 is all about cash money moola now (to the detriment of many things) but in D-3 it makes sense.

The current make up of the NCAC is optimal. Football is not the only sport. The OAC doesn't suffer because they have nine conference games. I love the membership of the current NCAC and wouldn't change it for anything.