Top 25 rankings

[BDTartan]

Eh-You, Jane was nowhere to be found, so I threw you in there during that conversation.  Go ahead and hate away man.  Nothing new to me.  Been hated on all my life.  Just so you know, I'm glad my buddies at Mt. Union pounded your Averett into the dirt.

[Eh-You]

Tarzan - no matter how hard you try, I WILL NOT accept bribes to move up on the hater list! I see your clever attempt to pass Coleman and the karma bandits. You'll have to be way more hateful than that!

[BDTartan]

Haha.  No seriously, I felt bad for Averett not getting any respect until you black-balled me and put me on your hater-list.  Coleman is an animal all by himself.  He must feel good picking on the little guys huh?  Oh well, what can be done about it?  Revolution?

[Eh-You]

Oh well, what can be done about it?  Revolution?

Hater polls in signatures to undermind the karma system

[Eh-You]

If others see you making attempts to conversate with me it will result in a MASSIVE decline in your karma (Please see that large negative number on the left of your screen.)

[BDTartan]

I see.  Yet my karma remains the same.  Maybe you pissed off some people I haven't.  What's karma anyways??  It'll come back and get those who wield it without cause.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Eh-You,

Or perhaps the reason you have a "large negative number" at the left of your screen (and BDTartan does not) is because you have been behaving as an A**H*** while he has been a gentleman.  Have you ever considered that possibility?

Just a thought.

[BDTartan]

Thank you Mr. Ypsi.  I try to post intelligently and keep my feelings out of it.  Seems to be working.  Me and Eh-You were in similar situations as far as our teams lack of respect in certain polls.  I thought I had quite a good argument yet I kept my cool and waited on the Gurus' response.  I still think I have a good argument, but it seems that I don't.  Just hoping CMU can come through and win a playoff game.  Crossin' my fingers and hoping that I don't have to go to Alliance to see the Tartans in the first round.  Although it will be nice to see some of my friends from Mt.

[Pat Coleman]

Boy oh boy, wouldn't there be a bunch of crow eating and scrambling for cover if CMU actually made a playoff run.

This is beginning to sound like Ferrum 2005.

Hey, listen, I'm all for CMU getting inthe playoffs, but let's remember, there are 32 playoff teams and only 25 in the Top 25. Sure, all you've done is beat everyone on the schedule, but shoot, what about the teams that have played harder schedules?

Kudos to CMU for doing better than previous years on a similar schedule, but there is no automatic bid to the Top 25. Step out and see the rest of Division III play.

[Pat Coleman]

Considering the UAA has had only one play-off representative(CMU, 1990, lost first round to Lycoming) for them to get in is an accomplishment to me. 

Washington U. made the playoffs in 1999 and accounts for the 0-1 record listed on our front page.

[Pat Coleman]

Also, I understand the guru's have seen more than we have, but sometimes that leads to them acting like the pet-owner holding the treat just out of the dog's reach just because he can.

Yeah, you're just really getting out of hand here. You seem to think I'm the only one who votes, where in fact there are 25 voters. At least one voter has seen CMU play in person this season and I'm sure several others have on tape.

How about the unbiased computer ranking from Massey? They have CMU 44th, 39th once you removed the on-an-island NESCAC. Is the computer a hating guru too?

http://www.mratings.com/rate.php?lg=cf#Div%20III

I think you're a little overreacting. Playoffs -- assuming you see a ranked team -- will be quite an awakening.

[K-Mack]

Pat C. - thanks for your explanation to En You on the last two post. I personally like to see you guys at D3Football.Com respond in that tone and fashion (at least showing that you have a little compassion) rather than your sharpe responses (previous to me and En You) that made it appear you could care less about Averett and you wanted to be a Smart A__.

We totaly respect your knowledge and your insight but when you respond in the fashion as you did earlier yesterday and day before, then you just create hate and discontent among your followers. We look to you guys for the truth and insite. We sometimes don't want to agree with what you tell us, but it certainly is easier to swaller when you don't come across like jerks.

Again, thanks for all you guys do and keep up the good work. I left you a question on the ODAC Board when you have time.

KickerDad,
I appreciate the kudos and kind words, but with regard to tone of posts on the message board, Pat and I have long seen eye-to-eye on this.

Generally speaking, our posts reflect the tone of the posts we're responding to and/or the overall discussion going on on the board at that particular time. You will rarely if ever see one of us deliver a curt response to a polite question. But if people choose to carry themselves in a certain way on the board, and/or drag our names into the muck, both of us are willing to mix it up, without truly crossing the line set forth in the Terms of Service. It is a message board, after all, with a certain culture and attitude deemed acceptable, although it varies from board to board.

Some people think being "professional" for some reason means absorbing abuse silently. Professional for me is being able to carry on conversations with fans/readers in all forums, from the message boards, to the blog, to e-mail to face-to-face, and remain dedicated to providing the best work possible for all fans/readers no matter how some act. Fans of Division III are our lifeblood, of course, and generally speaking we respect you guys to the fullest. As Pat as noted elsewhere, however, we are fans too and don't consider it a requirement of the job to be talked down to, called names and have our integrity/intentions questioned.

Certainly if someone is uninformed and taking an aggressive "I am informed" stance, the proper information will be delivered in a similar tone, and that's necessary, lest someone read the uninformed posts and spread that information. If someone is uninformed and asking for help, no way would we ever disrespect that person for what they did not know. It's clear that few people have the time or desire to spend this much time on Division III, and doing so does not make any of us smarter than you, we just recognize we have put the work in over the years to know (most of the time) what we are talking about.

Bottom line is to get respect you have to give respect. We understand we have to treat you that way, but we're human and susceptible to the same behaviors shown on the board by others. Please do not attempt to hold us to a standard that you do not hold yourself to.

[K-Mack]

Tarzan - no matter how hard you try, I WILL NOT accept bribes to move up on the hater list! I see your clever attempt to pass Coleman and the karma bandits. You'll have to be way more hateful than that!

You're on fire today. When I first looked at your karma a couple hours ago, after reading your remarks about karma in your sig, you were at -18.

You are now at -28.

What have you done, man!?!?!

[K-Mack]

Ok then!!! Back to football...

Pat
I really think that there is something wrong when a team is undefeated and gets no love. In reality there are only a few schools who can sustain the top ten ratings year after year and when a team does go undefeated even for one year I believe they should get  to see that they're hard work paid off.
  But as has been hashed and rehased the rankings are nil when CMU gets into the playoffs.

That's exactly it.

I don't think an undefeated team should be kept from the playoffs, but if you're asking me to vote my conscience each week, I'm not going to tell you an 8-0 Carnegie Mellon team is better than a Baldwin-Wallace team that held Mount Union to 14 points. There is plenty of data to support our strength-of-conference rankings, which support the poll votes, and although things can most definitely change from year-to-year and surprises can and do take place (who had Wesley in last year's final four, for instance?), there are plenty of instances when a team's schedule comes into play and proves that the better record does not always make the better team.

I am assuming you guys know this.

So as much as I agree that if Carnegie Mellon goes 10-0 they should be in the playoffs, there's also nothing on that schedule that would lead me to rank them ahead of a team that has lost to Christopher Newport and UW-Whitewater, or Hardin-Simmons and Western Oregon, or even just Marietta and Mount Union.

I can't participate in a poll any other way. I vote for the teams, best I can, in order of which I think have proven themselves to be the 25 best at the time I vote. New data comes in each week and proves last week's poll wrong ... that's half the fun of having a poll to watch in the first place.

As far as CMU's future schedules, if you played Rochester and Wittenberg this year, those would have been games which helped determine strength. However, I feel your pain in that teams schedule most games years in advance and there's no telling if a game that looks strong now will be one three years ago.

That's why I favor all unbeatens making the playoffs. You can only play who is in front of you, and without a loss there is no way to tell if the team wouldn't have beaten stronger opponents had it played them, except for conjecture, which should probably play as small a role possible in playoff selection.

That was a big problem with the old 16-team system. Reputation seemed to play a large role in the regional polls, which had a direct effect on the playoffs.

In any case ...

[BDTartan]

Thank you K-Mack for using a different and more personable response than Pat.  If Pat mis-understood where I was going than I apologize, but I just wanted to know what was what.  I could care less what anybody thinks of me.  I just thought there was somewhat of an argument based on past posts about CMU and their schedule and opponents' W/L record.  That's all.  I'm not trying to turn this into a Ferrum of 2005.  I was just stating that there will be a lot of crow-eaters if CMU actually makes a playoff run.  I NEVER said they would, I said IF.  And I'm also not ignorant, if Pat thinks I am then he has another thing coming, I know he's not the ONLY voter.  I know there are 25 of them.  Unfortunately, he was the only one responding to me at the time.  I fully understood the way the polls and the voters themselves portrayed the top 25.  I understood CMU would probably have a tough time beating, let's say, 10 teams from #10-#25.  Believe me, I'm not going to live or die based on what you, the voters, think of me or CMU.  For all of this, I could just as easily never get on here again, but I will, because as I said, I applaud what you guys have done for small college athletics.  You guys make it easier to access D3 football than any other level but D1A. 

I propose this: Let's drop the whole poll argument because this could go on for light-years.  I know that if CMU gets the job done and wins out and gets into the playoffs then you guys will give them some love next year in the polls since they will be returning all but two players on offense and all but 5 players on defense.  So there, take my karma, berate me, burn me at the stake, I'm done.