Top 25 rankings

[Pat Coleman]

I guess my hope for the poll would be that it ranks who is best. And that would correspond to who will advance furthest in the playoffs -- if the playoffs were seeded nationally and accurately.

[repete]

That would be the biggest if of the day ....

[DutchFan2004]

Pat you bring up a good point about being ranked nationally for the playoff positions.  With the 32 spots now, have any of the D3 top 25 teams failed to make the playoffs?  Just curious. 

[Pat Coleman]

Yes. Remember -- 21 automatic bids last year and 22 this year take up the majority of the field.

[Ralph Turner]

Pat you bring up a good point about being ranked nationally for the playoff positions.  With the 32 spots now, have any of the D3 top 25 teams failed to make the playoffs?  Just curious. 

Good question...

Here is the Top 25 after week 11.

Only #14 Cortland St (9-1) and #21 Linfield (6-3) failed to make the playoffs.

The Pool C clamoring over the non-selection of Cortland as a Pool C bid was discussed in the Immediate Reaction to 2006 Bracket blog.  (The blog had 276 responses.)

[DutchFan2004]

Ralph,

I remember the discussion about Cortland and the outrage now.  Thanks.  In your opinion was Linfield with 3 losses missing the playoffs a huge error. 

[downtown48]

I don't think it was a huge error, if you don't handle your business when you need to, you're going to get passed over.  The fact is they had every opportunity to win the conference championship outright against Whitworth despite turning it over 6 or 7 times (including 4 shots from inside the 10 at the end of the game) and they didn't get it done.  Now would they have beaten some of the teams that did make the playoffs...I believe they would have.  Would they have won their first round game, yes, beyond that I'm not too sure. 

[repete]

kmack,

Not sure it's quite accurate to lump SJU with two schools with much lesser influences on the national title picture. The situation is a bit different.

It neglects SJU's run of four straight West titles so far this decade in what is clearly the most top-heavy region. SJU also has given MUC stronger Stagg Bowl challenges than anybody recently. I'd venture it wasn't just"2003-2004 aside" but the 2000 team also might have at least lived up to its ranking.

Is SJU overrated? Sure, at times, quite possibly this year ... but for different reasons than Rowan or W&J.

No other region has produced the diversity of Stagg champs. Five schools have won Staggs over the past 12 years and four of them have come from the West. So it's safe to assume that whenever you're assembling a list of contenders, your top West selection will get a pretty high ranking to start. SJU, it's been proven, is often a pretty safe pick.

And when the depth in that region (i.e., two West No. 7s winning Staggs) plays out, the early pick has to end drop those "three to five" spots. It's a bit deeper than just "name recognition."

Another part of the equation, which TC's post mentions, is that not all teams reload equally.

That said, I offer this up not so much as criticism, but in the spirit of debate -- which to me is the main reason for preseason rankings (and I think we all see it's working ...).

[Ralph Turner]

I don't think it was a huge error, if you don't handle your business when you need to, you're going to get passed over.  The fact is they had every opportunity to win the conference championship outright against Whitworth despite turning it over 6 or 7 times (including 4 shots from inside the 10 at the end of the game) and they didn't get it done.  Now would they have beaten some of the teams that did make the playoffs...I believe they would have.  Would they have won their first round game, yes, beyond that I'm not too sure. 

I agree with Downtown.  Had Linfield beaten HSU in Abilene, then I think that Linfield would have earned the at-large bid that HSU got. 

[Pat Coleman]

And when the depth in that region (i.e., two West No. 7s winning Staggs) plays out, the early pick has to end drop those "three to five" spots.

Only one West No. 7 won the Stagg.

[repete]

Yup, my mistake.

It was No. 7 PLU with the win (a monkey stomp of Rowan BTW ... which in two Staggs and a recent semi vs. West teams seems to have "bad matchups") and No. 7 SJU with that last-second loss to MUC in Salem.

[K-Mack]

I was shocked that Rowan ended up higher than I had them in my ballot. 

I wasn't shocked but I was definitely disappointed. Rowan is too high based on what's coming back.

Cortland returns only four defensive starters from last year (two cornerbacks, strong safety and one defensive lineman). Offensively, they lose their top running back, top two receivers and four starting offensive linemen from last year. I don't think Cortland was playing games with us.

I had to revise my Cortland ranking from USAT SW. I didn't change much, but that was one of them.

[K-Mack]

Seriously, based on what the Hawks are losing, I didn't expect the #2 spot.  K-Mack had made a good case, I thought.   But glad to see it anyway.

Yeah, right?  But Leipold can't play the "no respect" card this way.

I guess if there were more teams with a lot coming back, I could've seen them falling to the low end of the top 10. Not as far as Capital though, because at least you have The Beav, and the O-Line. Shoot, if Berez were still the coach, I might foresee you all going back to the old 70-30 run-pass split.

With Leipold though, and with Danny Jones to work with ... we just don't know how everything's going to pan out. I could see No. 2 by the end of the year though. You've got the always-tough WIAC and a visit from UMHB. And the St. Cloud game can only help you probably in the eyes of Pollsters, a la last year's La Crosse-S. Dakota State game.

[K-Mack]

There are tons of doubts about Whitewater and St. John's, and I personally don't endorse either of those teams as 2 or 3. I could see either one ending up there, but given the amount of turnover both are experiencing, I don't think their performance in last year's playoffs necessarily adds up to what they'll do this year.

...

I just can't figure out why St. John's has 5 starters back on offense, including their star QB, and 6 on D (or something close to that), and then Bethel, who also lost a lot of key guys but returns their QB and an all-American safety (Brandon Carr) would be ranked 21 spots behind.

Bethel beat St. John's 28-13 last year. If the logic is that the past is the past, that's acceptable, but that takes "St. John's went farther in the playoffs" off the table too.

Someone please call me on it if they think I'm being a homer, but what did St. John's really lose?

I'll preface my rant by saying that it's based off of memory and the institution-provided roster (neither of which is infallible) and some of my personal biases obviously show through.  That said, losing starters certainly doesn't always equal losing difference-makers.  Sure, SJU is going to graduate a couple of legitimate stars every year--it would be impossible for them not to.  But having a bunch of spots open isn't a problem when you have a surplus of capable players to fill those holes.

First, the "stars" that are leaving...  Jamie Steffensmeier is an absolute stud.  He stepped in as a first-year in '03 and led the National Championship team in tackles and hasn't let up since.  At the same time, he missed the '05 season and that 11-1 team didn't give up more than 16 points in any of the 10 games between when he got knocked out and when they ran into UW-Whitewater.  Sad to see him go, but life will go on.

Kevin McNamara had a lot of sacks.  Like, A LOT.  You know, kinda like Damien Dumonceaux and Jason Good and Jeremy Hood and... well, a lot of people have had a lot of sacks.  Nick Gunderson will have a lot this year, too, I bet.  And when he's gone, I'm sure someone else will get a bunch.

It sucks to lose the player who had the most receptions and the most rushing yards from the year before, but I never thought of Mike Lofboom as anything more than a solid player who fit well with the system he was in.

Kyle Gearman was a standard-issue #1 receiver, but I don't think he ever made THE LEAP that everyone was hoping for (expecting?).  I think Casey Haugen was listed as the other starter at WR last year and somehow I feel pretty confident SJU can replace his production.

The other starters (well, players who say significant time) lost, and I'll admit they're numerous, were pretty much role players--Phil Geisen, Chris Tift, Steve Levoir, Brandon Royce-Diop, etc.--were players who spent a couple of years learning the system, proved that they were worthy of getting on the field on Saturdays, and stepped in a performed.  Among the 150+ players on the team, I'd assume there are other similarly talented guys ready to seemlessly step in.

While Bethel has shown the ability to hang with St. John's over the last handful of years, they certainly haven't reached the point where they "reload" each year--losing players of Carr's or Porta's calibre just has a larger negative impact on that type of program than on SJU.

I agree with a lot of your points, but since this is already giant, I'll try to be brief.

The list I made when considering St. John's and other teams for the No. 2 spot (in June) had key losses and key returnees. The Johnnies had some significant losses, as mentioned above, but worse really was that they didn't bring many guys back that one could really get excited about. If they had, I think I would have ranked them higher than 7 (6th in D3football.com).

The losses were:
Steffensmeier, Gearman, McNamara (all of whom I viewed as rather significant) and then Tift, Lofboom, Levoir (DL) and Schoenberg (DB).

The key returnees were:
Kofoed (always nice to have a QB back that's 28-4 as a starter), Gunderson, Salvato (OL) and Cloeter (DB)

I think I made that list off the all-MIAC teams and D3 all-region teams. I know that's not a catch-all, but it does paint a picture you can use to compare. St. John Fisher for example, had four or five really key losses on their list, but they had 5 key returnees, including a couple at the positions where losses took place (RB and QB) that mitigated the effect of those losses (in my mind of course). When I did similar lists for UMHB and Wesley, the returnees side was much longer than the losses side.

We get expanded information, as mentioned on this thread, for the D3.com vote, but the original info held up rather well. I think I had 11 back for St. John's, not counting special teams, and it was a 5/6 split.

I'd say that means they have some work to do. Doesn't mean they can't end up in the Stagg Bowl, just supports the thing I was saying about voting for the known over the unknown.

I probably agree that St. John's reloads and Bethel not so much.

I defer to your knowlege on the value of a player like Gearman, since you've seen more SJU games than I have.

I agree with "losing starters certainly doesn't always equal losing difference-makers."

That's why I tried to make a difference-maker chart for the top teams, rather than just saying 16 back for these guys, 13 for these guys and assuming the 3 guys are a major difference. That isn't always the case.

That's also why Pat does a spreadsheet for the voters so we can see more than just the number of returning starters. Getting it broken down by position and with notes and postseason honors included helps you see something like Whitewater might only have 5 starters back on offense, but it's four O-Linemen and an All-American RB.

Also, this "Among the 150+ players on the team, I'd assume there are other similarly talented guys ready to seemlessly step in." is probably true of a lot of places like St. John's and Rowan (I do think they belong in the same sentence, but I said I'd be brief, so we can talk about that later) where there are guys (I feel like I said this yesterday) stepping in who might end up being better than the seniors.

But not knowing much about them, it's hard to go by that. Some of us do, and that probably gives some credence to the name-recognition factor. It's not necessarily a worthless thought.

Anyway ... don't worry about all the preseason talk. It helps us stay interested now, but it is in fact, just that, preseason talk.

[footballfan413]

Seriously, based on what the Hawks are losing, I didn't expect the #2 spot.  K-Mack had made a good case, I thought.   But glad to see it anyway.

Yeah, right?  But Leipold can't play the "no respect" card this way.

And don't think that didn't occur to me!   Well, I guess there is still the USA Today preview if he get desperate!   LOL!