FB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[wally_wabash]

I'm not arguing for conferences or favorite teams.  I'm not in support of life time bans for teams and conferences.  I'm arguing for the teams, no matter who they are and what conference they reside in, that demonstrated the ability to compete with the best teams to be given the Pool C bids.   

Of course you're not.  That would be elitist.  But then all of the constraints that you build around your ideal Pool C selection system leads us down a path where the only teams that can get invited live in the WIAC, MIAC, and CCIW subdivisions.  But that's just a coincidence, I'm sure. 

That's like me flatly denying that I don't really like to eat seafood.  I swear, I've got nothing against seafood.  I just never, ever order any when I go out.  It's pretty transparent, isn't it? 

[wally_wabash]

As for comparing Widener, I ask you to show me a game where they played a recognized nationally strong team and performed well. 
It's not as difficult as you're trying to make it.  Despite the ridiculous loss by Wesley last year, at least they have significant recent history of performing well against recognized strong teams.  We can balance their blow out to Mt with their strong games with UMHB and (didn't they play Linfield- I don't recall exactly?) their victories over all the other teams they play in early playoff rounds.

This right here is the hair in the soup.  What's the list of teams?  What is the complete list of teams that the rest of the division has to play -and play WELL against- to get access to the Pool C tickets?   Make that list.  Then tell us why you drew the line where you decided to draw the line. 

[Retired Old Rat]

Any team that could possibly win the title ends up in the 64 team field.  No perfect process to include/exclude but we do end up with a true title winner.

[emma17]

I'm not arguing for conferences or favorite teams.  I'm not in support of life time bans for teams and conferences.  I'm arguing for the teams, no matter who they are and what conference they reside in, that demonstrated the ability to compete with the best teams to be given the Pool C bids.   

Of course you're not.  That would be elitist.  But then all of the constraints that you build around your ideal Pool C selection system leads us down a path where the only teams that can get invited live in the WIAC, MIAC, and CCIW subdivisions.  But that's just a coincidence, I'm sure. 

That's like me flatly denying that I don't really like to eat seafood.  I swear, I've got nothing against seafood.  I just never, ever order any when I go out.  It's pretty transparent, isn't it?

Elitist and Genius.  Perhaps arguing the facts is getting more difficult for you.       
I reckon all I have to do to disprove you is identify one team not in the WIAC, MIAC or CCIW that I feel was deserving of Pool C participation.  I'll give you two, and then await a new label.     

In 2014 there were 2:
-JCU (OAC).  Why, because they played Mt Union competitively two consecutive years.
-Wabash (NCAC).  Why?  Because the one regular season loss two years running was to a decently competitive team by a close margin and their most recent playoff experience was competitive against the better teams.

Question for you.  The final 2013 D3 poll showed UWP at #9, UWO at #11 and St. Thomas at #20 (none were given a Pool C bid), are the voters elitist in their rankings? 

[wally_wabash]

Elitist and Genius.  Perhaps arguing the facts is getting more difficult for you.       
I reckon all I have to do to disprove you is identify one team not in the WIAC, MIAC or CCIW that I feel was deserving of Pool C participation.  I'll give you two, and then await a new label.     

In 2014 there were 2:
-JCU (OAC).  Why, because they played Mt Union competitively two consecutive years.
-Wabash (NCAC).  Why?  Because the one regular season loss two years running was to a decently competitive team by a close margin and their most recent playoff experience was competitive against the better teams.

I should have included the OAC on my list of fancy neighborhood leagues.  They all get an annual chance to play Mount Union and therefore have a chance every year to cash in by simply not getting "smoked" whatever that looks like. 

I don't understand why Wabash makes your cut.  I don't disagree, but it's entirely arbitrary. 

Question for you.  The final 2013 D3 poll showed UWP at #9, UWO at #11 and St. Thomas at #20 (none were given a Pool C bid), are the voters elitist in their rankings?

UWP certainly did make the tournament in 2013.  UW-O and St. Thomas not so much.  UW-O's ranking is probably a bit high- yes, I do believe some of the top 25 voters get sucked into the "strong league" trap.  Unfortunately for the Titans and the Tommies, 2013 had a particularly strong crop of at-large teams, complete with all of the big name brands that you love so much.  John Carroll, Illinois Wesleyan, Platteville, and Pacific Lutheran were slam dunk picks in 2013.  The last choice came down SJF and Wabash, and the committee picked SJF.  I'm pretty sure St. Thomas was the team left standing from the West and they didn't have the SOS chops to really be in play there with two losses.  Oshkosh was never in play.  Don't be third in your conference.  Don't be the third at-large in your region.  It's really hard to get picked that way. 

[jknezek]

Emma -- in 2013 the "weakest" Pool C team by the polls, SJF, went the farthest, upsetting the 9th polled team, JCU. It's a terrible example for your cause. It also shows why the polls aren't the answer.

For the most part I agree with you. The Pool C process does not guarantee that the best teams not getting an A bid make the tournament. I think we can all accept that this happens. I simply don't care. We haven't left home a team that could win it all in my opinion and that's all I care about.

Pool C will always be argued over regardless the method you choose to hand out the bids. I have no desire to bake in an advantage to certain conferences and find it way more enjoyable when SJF upsets JCU than simply having a name conference team lose by less in round 2...

[emma17]

Emma -- in 2013 the "weakest" Pool C team by the polls, SJF, went the farthest, upsetting the 9th polled team, JCU. It's a terrible example for your cause. It also shows why the polls aren't the answer.

For the most part I agree with you. The Pool C process does not guarantee that the best teams not getting an A bid make the tournament. I think we can all accept that this happens. I simply don't care. We haven't left home a team that could win it all in my opinion and that's all I care about.

Pool C will always be argued over regardless the method you choose to hand out the bids. I have no desire to bake in an advantage to certain conferences and find it way more enjoyable when SJF upsets JCU than simply having a name conference team lose by less in round 2...

I'm not suggesting the polls are the answer. I'm asking Wally if the pollsters are dirty, rotten elitists.
That said, I'm willing to listen to ideas on using some part of the national poll if people have them.
I'm not as convinced that we haven't left home a team capable of winning it all.

[ExTartanPlayer]

In 2014 there were 2:
-JCU (OAC).  Why, because they played Mt Union competitively two consecutive years.
-Wabash (NCAC).  Why?  Because the one regular season loss two years running was to a decently competitive team by a close margin and their most recent playoff experience was competitive against the better teams.

Again, here's the issue.  What constitutes a loss to a "decently competitive" team?  The 2013 Wittenberg team that Wabash lost to eventually went down 56-21 to Mount in the playoffs.  Just a few posts ago you were ready to disqualify Muhlenberg as a viable C candidate because they lost by one to Widener, who then lost 45-7 to Linfield in the quarterfinals, ergo playing Widener tough does not count....but now you're going to count Wittenberg losing by 35 to Mount Union as "decently competitive" enough to count as Wabash having a loss against a "decently competitive" team?

Like wally said:

Despite the ridiculous loss by Wesley last year, at least they have significant recent history of performing well against recognized strong teams.  We can balance their blow out to Mt with their strong games with UMHB and (didn't they play Linfield- I don't recall exactly?) their victories over all the other teams they play in early playoff rounds.

This right here is the hair in the soup.  What's the list of teams?  What is the complete list of teams that the rest of the division has to play -and play WELL against- to get access to the Pool C tickets?   Make that list.  Then tell us why you drew the line where you decided to draw the line.

Here.  Do this.  Really, do it.

[MasterJedi]

Hope this year is a lot more like 2008 than 2012. UWW can get in as long as they win out which I think they should. Hoping UWO stumbles at least once if not more though.

[hazzben]

Hope this year is a lot more like 2008 than 2012. UWW can get in as long as they win out which I think they should. Hoping UWO stumbles at least once if not more though.

Yeah, your D is really good right now. If you can get in a better groove at QB, I'm guessing things will shape up just fine.

[retagent]

One thing to remember about Pool C teams. It's more than likely that they will be seeded (I know) very low, and will be playing the highest seeded teams early. The chance for success in that scenario is small. And as has been stated many times, there are maybe 4 or 5 teams every year with a decent chance to win it all. Don't throw out the process because of that.

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Wally seems to struggle with basic math. He keeps wanting to dismiss strong and weak descriptions of conferences.

If we can agree that the people who run the D3 Kickoff are the most knowledgeable fans in The D3 World then their annual rankings of all teams makes it easy for us to determine what are strong and weak conferences. We add the ranking for each team in a conference then divide that total by the number of teams. This gives us an average ranking for the conference. I did this math using a three year average for the seasons 2013-14-15 and have posted the results in the Top 25 thread.

It becomes very apparent that there are indeed some very strong and some very weak conferences. My next project is to add Regions to the results so we can see what regions have the strongest conferences. With all the AQs out there the Pool C spots are precious and giving them to weak conferences is wrong. It is much easier to go 9-1 in a weak conference than in a strong one and be all that more attractive for a Pool C. Not to mention the East Coast bias of the whole thing.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I don't think wally has anywhere said that all conferences are equal.  We do know that some are "stronger" than others (although, if you look at a recent discussion on the NCAC board about the OAC/NCAC, I think you'll see that the middle of the division is really pretty tightly packed).  What wally has said, and this is an argument we have had about 100 times on these boards, is that you shouldn't make these decisions about which teams get ranked/invited based on which leagues they play in.

To emma's credit (seriously, emma, I am giving you credit here) he has said several times that he doesn't want to make it about a league or a region, but about the individual team's recent track record.  And I commend him for that.  Where my disconnect from emma occurs is that I do not think he is able to clearly define what it means to have a "track record against recognized teams" - there's too much gray area in there.  Blowout losses seem to count against some teams, but not others, and we can't clearly define what counts as a good enough result to suffice for a "track record" that would give the team a Pool C ticket.  North Central played a close game against this year Platteville who played a close game against Whitewater, so they're apparently cool for the Pool C party, but Muhlenberg should be out because they lost by 1 to Widener who got blown out by Linfield, but then North Central also lost by 1 to Wesley, who got blown out even worse last year by Mount Union than Widener did against Linfield.  It's just so wishy-washy, and it looks (although he insists that it's not the case) like you're ultimately slanting this towards teams and leagues that you're more familiar with or that have rubbed elbows with Mount and/or Whitewater.  That's where I have an issue.  So I want to see a clearly codified definition of "track record against recognized teams" that we can use.

I know emma was a the UWW game last night, so I respect that he hasn't gotten back to the board yet, but that's what I want to see next: a clear-cut definition or list of teams that a good result has to happen against to give you Pool C access.  Should we require that every Pool C team have a win against an RRO?  Remember, there are no official national rankings, so we can't (currently) stipulate that they have to have a result against a national top 25 team.  If that's a suggestion, I can live with a little hypothetical in this regard, but that does mean the NCAA would have to either i) create a committee to put out national rankings (considering most of the bitching that occurs about the RR's, I don't know that everyone here would like what they come up with) or ii) create some sort of D3 computer poll (again...guessing that the results would lead to a lot of jeers from the peanut gallery).

Not to mention the East Coast bias of the whole thing.

This is H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S.  What does this even mean?  Can you give me some examples of "East Coast bias" in the Pool C process over the last few years, or is that just a word you read in a book about 1970's football?  Are you worried that the national media covering D3 football has some influence over the selection process?

Two teams you might associate with the "East Coast" (Muhlenberg and Delaware Valley) got C bids last year (and for that matter, even though Muhlenberg is in Allentown, PA they are a South region team that would have been put up for selection because the South RAC put them there).

In 2013 there was one team (St. John Fisher) even close to the "East Coast" (you know that Ohio isn't on the East Coast, right?)

Look at a map.  It happens that there are a whole lot more D3 teams on the East Coast than there are on the West Coast (which explains why a league like the Centennial Conference, made up entirely of schools in Pennsylvania and Maryland, has to play in the South region; the East is already saturated with teams from New England, New York, and New Jersey).  We would expect to see more "East Coast" teams just by sheer mass of numbers.

If you're here to complain that any West Pool C team has to play Linfield in the first round, you're barking up the wrong tree.  Your issue is with the NCAA and the way it allots travel money for the playoffs, not with the East Coast media

[bman]

I guess I just don't understand why Widener getting smoked by Linfield counts against Widener (and by proxy, Muhlenberg, the Pool C selection that lost to Widener) as evidence that Pool C selection of Muhlenberg did not add competitive value...but then North Central's close game against Wesley is supposed to count as a positive point for their Pool C case, even though Wesley was smoked even worse by Mount Union than Widener was by Linfield.

First, no system will be perfect right?
Second, the current system fails to get the best teams in Pool C. It gets some/many right.
Third, Widener and the others have a history of getting beat badly against the better teams.
Fourth, the Wesley demolishment by Mt last year throws a wrench into every single analysis of strength, not just mine. Nobody knows how to handle that, including me.
Fifth- I don't think it's that difficult for you to look into the histories of Muhl, Del Val, Widener, CNP and others and reach the same conclusion I have. When given the chance to show they can compete w the recognized better teams in the country, they fail to do so.

Not that I'm going to add much to this discussion, but to add some commentary (Facts) around the Widener (and Del Val examples)

Del Val last year during the CNU game lost Aaron Wilmer (their QB who was invited for a tryout in the CFL), which was an incredible blow to their offense.  They were winning handily at that point....  So in these discussions, please acknowledge that injuries do play a role in the final outcome of these games...Had not Wilmer been injured, you would have seen a Widener/Del Val match-up, and one in which I'm not so confident that Widener would have won....

Widener - The bolded commentary that Widener gets beat badly against the better teams, really should have read "Widener has a history of getting beat badly by Mount Union and Linfield (in the D3 era).   Because last I checked, Widener is one of the few teams in D3 that has multiple national Championships in football.
I am hard pressed to find a horrific loss against anyone else...

Also, you can go back to the boards prior to the Linfield game last year, and the Mount game in 2012...I was not optimistic.   Both of the Widener teams that had moved to quarters were flawed teams.   WU in 2012 could not run the ball AT ALL.   Go into a game against MU with no running game, and see how it works out...we sure did...  But did WU not deserve to get in the play-offs?  c'mon...that's not even worth arguing...Last year's team was more balanced, but the WU faithful knew we had no chance, as our defensive backfield had been bad all year...and Linfield saw that, and destroyed us with the passing game...

Not that I want to open the East saturation discussion as it has been discussed ad nauseum for years, but Widener, Rowan, Del Val, Lycoming, and to an extent Wesley, all have the same recruiting base, and we cannibalize each other every year...  Put  UWW, UWL, UWO, UWSP, all within 30 miles of each other and see how you fare...
No excuses here, but since Widener seems to get used as an example of failure all the time here, I'd like to input the pertinent facts....

[d-train]

There are only 15 teams within a few hours of the West coast. That's biased