FB: American Rivers Conference

[NewKnightDad]

Wartburg ought to be happy it's not worse. It's time for 2014 results to not be considered in the 2015 ranking. Here's a relevant pair of 2015 results:

at Wartburg 35, Augsburg 27
St. Thomas 55, at Augsburg 6

Might be a case to be made that St. Thomas should be ahead of Wartburg. It's not a 2014 ranking.

I don't think you understand the lengths we go to to exactly eliminate bias among our voter panel, so to just throw that out there is pretty unfounded. We balance the panel among all four regions. The MIAC has a voter. The IIAC has a voter. So do about 20 other conferences.

I'm ignoring your gripe against Oshkosh. Pretty sure they had the best week in Division III football.

It is just very uncommon to move a team ahead of another when they have played in the same season.  Doesn't that make Wartburg's win over Oshkosh more impressive since their big win?  Just asking?

[Pat Coleman]

It is just very uncommon to move a team ahead of another when they have played in the same season.  Doesn't that make Wartburg's win over Oshkosh more impressive since their big win?  Just asking?

It's ok to ask, sure. But Wartburg beat Stout, not Oshkosh. And the Stout scores also don't really favor Wartburg either.

In reality, it's actually not that uncommon in our poll for a team to move down that doesn't lose.

[NewKnightDad]

Thanks Pat, I guess I need to remember who they played better.

[OrangeAndBlack]

Wartburg is probably right where they deserve to be seated in the latest rankings.  Arguably, there is a team ahead of them that may not deserve the better ranking, but the points are so close.  St. Thomas should be where Wheaton is IMO.  I certainly don't envy the panel that assigns the rankings given the dynamics of this D3 season and some of the unexpected outcomes we've already witnessed.  Objectively, the Knights are a 'good' team this year and have beaten a few decent teams, but they're certainly not the 'great' team that they were last season.  They've left way too many points on the table this year, and exposed a number of vulnerabilities and some nagging inconsistencies.  Fix those issues and they'll be back to scoring 40 or 50+ points and dominating each game.

[WB_Knights13]

The scariest thing to think about is when Wartburg executes for an entire game, and it will happen - It's going to be a tough day for the opponent it happens against. Look, they've improved each week, there's no doubt about it. If they continue that upward trend, work on the goal line offense (that adds 2 scores to the Central game and at least one more to the Coe Game - since scoring is apparently the most important thing now, and then those games are not even close) develop a couple more weapons at WR, I think they will be a very sound team in November. I also believe that Central will continue to play well as the season goes on and will continue to improve - they should win out.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Now, I realize Wartburg's wins recently haven't been super impressive, with their best win being over Bethel...but for UW-Oshkosh to pull an upset and be ranked ahead of Wartburg still with 1 loss? That's ridiculous.

Although Wartburg's wins have seemingly been less than impressive this season, they have won, and they haven't lost a regular season game dating back to November 2, 2013. This is where the regular season D3 rankings really fall short and mean anything. There aren't a lot of voters, and there is plenty of bias. #8 is good, but to have two 1 loss teams ranked in front of that? Complete joke.

And yes, I realize that Oshkosh's loss was to Robert Morris. However, two of their wins are over Finlandia (1-5) and North Park University (1-4).

I know Pat has already addressed this post, but this is just plain silly.

1. Re: "two of their wins are over Finlandia (1-5) and North Park University (1-4)" - Every team has to play a couple of bad teams at some point.  It's a fluke of schedule sequencing that sometimes a really good team has played a couple of tomato cans early.  But, you know, they just beat the #1-ranked multiple-time-defending-national-champions.  I think that counts as a quality win in most parts, no?  If Wartburg's schedule was ordered differently and they had played Buena Vista this week instead of Coe, you could point out the same thing about them.  It's just a fluke of what order your games fall in.

2. It is not in any way "ridiculous" that Oshkosh is currently ranked ahead of Wartburg.  "Undefeated" > "1 loss" is absolutely the laziest possible way to make a poll.  I do agree that winning should be prioritized, but quality of results also matters and technically NAIA games do not count (nor should they; it's impossible to figure out what NAIA games really mean vs. D3 when the schools play by a different set of rules).  UWO just notched literally the best possible regular-season victory: a victory over a two-time defending national champion that, for good measure, also beat then #1-NAIA Morningside a few weeks ago.

3. As Pat noted...we're kind of at the point where last-year results don't matter too much any more.  If anything, Wartburg is probably over-ranked because of their big run last year, not under-ranked.  The close shave with UWW last year gave them some extra cachet that carried over to a high ranking in this year's poll, but take that away and just look at 2015 and they're lucky to be in the top 10.  The balance of this year's evidence shows Wartburg with one real good win (Bethel - a very good team, although with one MIAC loss already on the board, probably not a likely playoff team) and four shoulder-shrug wins.  Here's another fun fact similar to Pat's listing of the Augsburg scores:

UW-Oshkosh 69, UW-Stout 14
Wartburg 41, UW-Stout 33

I am not a voter in the poll, but frankly the comment "Although Wartburg's wins have seemingly been less than impressive this season, they have won, and they haven't lost a regular season game dating back to November 2, 2013. This is where the regular season D3 rankings really fall short and mean anything. There aren't a lot of voters, and there is plenty of bias. #8 is good, but to have two 1 loss teams ranked in front of that? Complete joke." is so far off base that it's laughable and, IMO, insulting to the guys who actually do vote in the poll.  The D3football.com poll does a fantastic job working with fairly limited information (not much intra-regional play, hard to see video of more than a couple teams; nobody's getting paid to spend all day on Saturday watching 11 different video streams, then burn the midnight oil watching highlights of the rest of the top 25).  It's not their fault that dolts like you don't pay attention to any league but their own.

[Pat Coleman]

So ... I wouldn't use the word dolt.

[d-train]

I have Wartburg at #5...in the West. It's tough out this way, eh?

[Spurrier]

Hbc hanging up the whistle...college football won't be the same

[bluenote]

Do you guys think that you might meet UWW in the first round?  I hope to heck not!!!!

[Pat Coleman]

I'd be surprised, unless Wartburg were to lose a game between now and then. I'd estimate UWW would be looking at a 4 seed or so. In 2008 when UWW lost a conference game, they still had a first-round home game.

[WB_Knights13]

Would not be surprised to see a Wartburg-St. Thomas/St. Johns game in the making for the first round of the playoffs. Both of which would be a very tough matchup, especially with how great of a season St. Thomas is having thus far.

[d-train]

Would not be surprised to see a Wartburg-St. Thomas/St. Johns game in the making for the first round of the playoffs. Both of which would be a very tough matchup, especially with how great of a season St. Thomas is having thus far.

SJU maybe (~6 seed). UST-Wartburg sounds like a second round game to me if they both remain undefeated (~2 vs 3 seed).

[hazzben]

Would not be surprised to see a Wartburg-St. Thomas/St. Johns game in the making for the first round of the playoffs. Both of which would be a very tough matchup, especially with how great of a season St. Thomas is having thus far.

If Wartburg and UST both win out, no way they meet in Rd 1. UST SoS numbers & RRO will be interesting to see. I think the West #1 is between them and Linfield, if they all hold serve.

All that to say, it's way too early to start guessing who might play whom in rd 1. The MIAC and WIAC especially still have a lot of matches between very good teams.

[doolittledog]

UD Coaches show is up.  Starts at about the 1:45 mark.

http://portal.stretchinternet.com/dbq/portal.htm?eventId=235550&streamType=video

Talks about the Simpson victory and the upcoming game with Wartburg.