FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[wally_wabash]

Great Analysis! I believe someone from the ODAC board wanted to figure out who was the last team other than HS-C and Bridgewater to make an appearance in the Top 25. Would you know the answer, I am to lazy to go back.

I don't think there has been.  I think Catholic was close in 2008 and W&L has also popped up in the ORV list during a couple of seasons, but I don't think another ODAC team has been in the top 25. 

[Pat Coleman]

The poll didn't start until 2003, and Bridgewater was already in its run at that point.  I checked a few possible polls and didn't see any so it's possible nobody else has ever been in the Top 25 from the ODAC.

[wally_wabash]

h/t to HSCTiger Fan...Randolph-Macon was ranked for a handful of weeks in 2010.  The Jackets started 6-0, made it up to #20, then they finished 1-3 and wound up in fourth place in their league.  Because that's what happens in the ODAC. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

h/t to HSCTiger Fan...Randolph-Macon was ranked for a handful of weeks in 2010.  The Jackets started 6-0, made it up to #20, then they finished 1-3 and wound up in fourth place in their league.  Because that's what happens in the ODAC.

I almost posted an "I think Randolph-Macon snuck in there" comment, but I fact-checked myself and ended up looking in the wrong years (I checked 2007 and 2011 - the two seasons where they finished 8-2 - and didn't look at the 2010 season).

Related question for funsies: since Wooster's heyday ended, have any NCAC teams been ranked other than Wabash and Witt?  Allegheny, perhaps?  Did 2012 OWU make it into the poll?

[Li'l Giant]

My recollection was 2012 OWU didn't get into the 25 but got some votes.

[firstdown]

With the lows in the 40's and 50's in the evenings in the Midwest last week and the highs barely reaching 70, there was a nip of Fall in the air.  It seemed strange not to be going to a football game last weekend. 

[wally_wabash]

Doesn't appear that anybody in the NCAC has been ranked other than Wabash, Witt, and Tony Sutton.  As noted, OWU got some votes in 2012 and then Allegheny sniffed around just outside of the top 25 back in 2003, but that's it. 

Here's a fun research project...how many teams have been top 25 ranked at some point in every season in the D3football.com Top 25 era?  That's 11 full seasons of polling.  I'm going to figure this out tonight unless somebody beats me to it. 

[wally_wabash]

Update....this is going to be a pretty select group of teams.  I'm through 2005 and here are the teams that made the top 25 at some point between 2003-2005:
Bridgewater (VA)
Capital
Christopher Newport
Hampden-Sydney
Hardin-Simmons
Ithaca
Linfield
Mary Hardin-Baylor
Mount Union
Rowan
St. John's
Trinity (TX)
UW-Eau Claire
UW-La Crosse
UW-Whitewater
Wabash
Wartburg
Washington & Jefferson
Wheaton (Ill.)
Wooster

Still 8 more years of polls to go through and cull the list some more. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Update....this is going to be a pretty select group of teams.  I'm through 2005 and here are the teams that made the top 25 at some point between 2003-2005:
Bridgewater (VA)
Capital
Christopher Newport
Hampden-Sydney
Hardin-Simmons
Ithaca
Linfield
Mary Hardin-Baylor
Mount Union
Rowan
St. John's
Trinity (TX)
UW-Eau Claire
UW-La Crosse
UW-Whitewater
Wabash
Wartburg
Washington & Jefferson
Wheaton (Ill.)
Wooster

Still 8 more years of polls to go through and cull the list some more.

I'd bet the list will eventually shrink to Linfield, MHB, the Mount, and UWW - and possibly Wabash and Wheaton.  Everyone else has had one or more down years since 2005.

[jknezek]

Rather than looking for teams that made it ever year, I'd be more interested in all the teams that made the top 25 at least once in the last 5 polls of any given year. Those should be the best teams of each season, and I'm curious as to how many of the 300+ D3 teams rotate through that category. My thoughts are not many...

[wally_wabash]

Update 2: I'm up through 2008.  Six years of polls...here are the teams that were named at least once in each of the first six years of the D3football.com Top 25:
Capital
Christopher Newport
Hardin-Simmons
Ithaca
Linfield
Mary Hardin-Baylor
Mount Union
St. John's
Trinity (TX)
UW-Whitewater
Wabash
Wartburg
Washington & Jefferson
Wheaton (Ill.)


Three more years took six names off the list.  More coming later...I think Mr. Ypsi has a good nose though.  I'm pretty sure Wabash has been in the top 25 at some point during every season from 2008 on.  The one I wasn't sure about off hand was 2004, but the LGs did just sneak in at 20 for one week before they got Sutton-ed and that was that.  What I didn't realize was that it took until week 8 for Wabash to crack the top 25 in 2005.  That was one of our better teams over this period. 

Also interesting to note (and easy to spot since they are all grouped in the same spot on my alphabetical list) is that through 2008 River Falls and Oshkosh are the only WIAC teams to have not been ranked.  And Oshkosh fixes that soon enough.  All but one team in that league have been ranked at some point.  Contrast that with the conversation that started this- has anybody other than Wabash/Witt/HSC/B'water ever been ranked at all?  Like I said, the WIAC is easy to spot because they are all grouped together...I might resort these by conference later on and see if any other league has come even close to that kind of depth in these rankings. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Update 2: I'm up through 2008.  Six years of polls...here are the teams that were named at least once in each of the first six years of the D3football.com Top 25:
Capital
Christopher Newport
Hardin-Simmons
Ithaca
Linfield
Mary Hardin-Baylor
Mount Union
St. John's
Trinity (TX)
UW-Whitewater
Wabash
Wartburg
Washington & Jefferson
Wheaton (Ill.)


Three more years took six names off the list.  More coming later...I think Mr. Ypsi has a good nose though.  I'm pretty sure Wabash has been in the top 25 at some point during every season from 2008 on.  The one I wasn't sure about off hand was 2004, but the LGs did just sneak in at 20 for one week before they got Sutton-ed and that was that.  What I didn't realize was that it took until week 8 for Wabash to crack the top 25 in 2005.  That was one of our better teams over this period. 

Also interesting to note (and easy to spot since they are all grouped in the same spot on my alphabetical list) is that through 2008 River Falls and Oshkosh are the only WIAC teams to have not been ranked.  And Oshkosh fixes that soon enough.  All but one team in that league have been ranked at some point.  Contrast that with the conversation that started this- has anybody other than Wabash/Witt/HSC/B'water ever been ranked at all?  Like I said, the WIAC is easy to spot because they are all grouped together...I might resort these by conference later on and see if any other league has come even close to that kind of depth in these rankings.

I'm pretty sure that every CCIW team except North Park has been ranked at some point (though I might be wrong about Augie and Millikin).

[ExTartanPlayer]

Like I said, the WIAC is easy to spot because they are all grouped together...I might resort these by conference later on and see if any other league has come even close to that kind of depth in these rankings.

I'd love to see this, if you get the time.  It'd be really cool to know the breakdown by conference.

Half of the UAA has been ranked, I believe

(2006 Carnegie Mellon, final ranking #22; 2007-2009 CWRU all ranked in the 20's in the final polls; unfortunately I don't think WashU has ever snuck into a Top 25 or I could say that "three-fourths" of the league has been ranked)

[ExTartanPlayer]

I'd bet the list will eventually shrink to Linfield, MHB, the Mount, and UWW - and possibly Wabash and Wheaton.  Everyone else has had one or more down years since 2005.

A thought on this: having a down year or two doesn't necessarily mean a team will drop from wally's list because a team only has to be ranked once during the season, not ranked in the final poll.   Some schools make it into the preseason rankings on reputation for a couple years after their peak has ended (Washington & Jefferson and Hardin-Simmons come to mind as fallen powers that seemed to grab a preseason ranking at least two seasons after they really deserved it).

With that said...you may be right that the list will be as few as six teams after looking over wally's list through 2008.  Several of those programs have fallen off far enough that you're probably right, and the window starts just early enough to miss current perennial powers Wesley (who I'm guessing would qualify if we just went from 2005 onward), North Central (also might have made this cut if we started the clock in 2005 - I assume they've been in every year since then?), and St. John Fisher (who only missed this in one or two seasons).

[wally_wabash]

And here's the honor roll...the list of teams that have made the top 25 in every season of the D3football.com Top 25 era (2003-present):
Linfield
Mary Hardin-Baylor
Mount Union
St. John's*
UW-Whitewater
Wabash
Wheaton (Ill.)

*St. John's is not ranked in the 2014 preseason top 25, so they're the only one of these seven that are on the hot seat. 

Members of oh-so-close club which I've arbitrarily decided is everybody who has missed out of the top 25 in only one or two of these seasons:
Bethel (2005, 2009)
Delaware Valley (2003, 2006)
Hampden-Sydney (2006, 2007)
North Central (2003, 2004)
Rowan (2008, 2009)
St. John Fisher (2003, 2009)
St. John's (2012
Wartburg (2012)
Wesley (2003, 2004)

Editor's note: Derp.