Around the Nation board

[K-Mack]

If anybody's awake, I soft-published an ATN regional ranking primer with full examinations of Pools B and C and a Q&A sesh at the end.

I proofread it, but I won't add it to the front rotation until the morning. If you examine the numbers and see something wrong, or that I missed, please let me know.

http://www.d3football.com/x/twl9c

[ADL70]

Don't WashU and Millsaps have a common opponent in Centre?

In the week's "Snap Judgements" in the Tom Arth discussion, shouldn't " Arth is not the first-year head coach" be " Arth is now the first-year head coach"?

BTW you were right Arth was the QB in 2002, the last big MtU-JCU game(s).

[K-Mack]

Don't WashU and Millsaps have a common opponent in Centre?

In the week's "Snap Judgements" in the Tom Arth discussion, shouldn't " Arth is not the first-year head coach" be " Arth is now the first-year head coach"?

BTW you were right Arth was the QB in 2002, the last big MtU-JCU game(s).

All those things are co-rrect.

Also I have been wanting to respond to bleedpurple because I agree and I don't, but I lost track of it. Long story short, anything but leaving it to chance. I like sanctity of Saturday in theory, and I agree tiebreakers are imperfect, but it has to be determined by something that was in your control, not randomness.

[bleedpurple]

Don't WashU and Millsaps have a common opponent in Centre?

In the week's "Snap Judgements" in the Tom Arth discussion, shouldn't " Arth is not the first-year head coach" be " Arth is now the first-year head coach"?

BTW you were right Arth was the QB in 2002, the last big MtU-JCU game(s).

All those things are co-rrect.

Also I have been wanting to respond to bleedpurple because I agree and I don't, but I lost track of it. Long story short, anything but leaving it to chance. I like sanctity of Saturday in theory, and I agree tiebreakers are imperfect, but it has to be determined by something that was in your control, not randomness.

How about:

1. Fewest personal foul/unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
2. Fewest total yards allowed.

Both of these are within the strategy of either team. Both are positive signs of championship level teams. Neither cause an incentive to "run it up". Both within the teams' control.

[HScoach]

Don't WashU and Millsaps have a common opponent in Centre?

In the week's "Snap Judgements" in the Tom Arth discussion, shouldn't " Arth is not the first-year head coach" be " Arth is now the first-year head coach"?

BTW you were right Arth was the QB in 2002, the last big MtU-JCU game(s).

All those things are co-rrect.

Also I have been wanting to respond to bleedpurple because I agree and I don't, but I lost track of it. Long story short, anything but leaving it to chance. I like sanctity of Saturday in theory, and I agree tiebreakers are imperfect, but it has to be determined by something that was in your control, not randomness.

How about:

1. Fewest personal foul/unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
2. Fewest total yards allowed.

Both of these are within the strategy of either team. Both are positive signs of championship level teams. Neither cause an incentive to "run it up". Both within the teams' control.

I know where you're going with these 2 categories because UWW is near the top of both categories, and assume they were slightly done with tongue-in-cheek, but the "few yards allowed" does not promote sportsmanship.    If I have to worry about total yards, then it's in my best interest to NOT play the 2nd and 3rd team defenses at the end of games to make sure I don't give up a bunch of garage yards.

Luckily the team I follow hasn't had to worry about tie breakers in a long, long time.   And won't have to worry about it this year either as the OAC is a one game, winner take all battle in 2 days.   Can't wait for Saturday.   The playoffs start early this year in Alliance.

[bleedpurple]

Don't WashU and Millsaps have a common opponent in Centre?

In the week's "Snap Judgements" in the Tom Arth discussion, shouldn't " Arth is not the first-year head coach" be " Arth is now the first-year head coach"?

BTW you were right Arth was the QB in 2002, the last big MtU-JCU game(s).

All those things are co-rrect.

Also I have been wanting to respond to bleedpurple because I agree and I don't, but I lost track of it. Long story short, anything but leaving it to chance. I like sanctity of Saturday in theory, and I agree tiebreakers are imperfect, but it has to be determined by something that was in your control, not randomness.

How about:

1. Fewest personal foul/unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
2. Fewest total yards allowed.

Both of these are within the strategy of either team. Both are positive signs of championship level teams. Neither cause an incentive to "run it up". Both within the teams' control.

I know where you're going with these 2 categories because UWW is near the top of both categories, and assume they were slightly done with tongue-in-cheek, but the "few yards allowed" does not promote sportsmanship.    If I have to worry about total yards, then it's in my best interest to NOT play the 2nd and 3rd team defenses at the end of games to make sure I don't give up a bunch of garage yards.

Luckily the team I follow hasn't had to worry about tie breakers in a long, long time.   And won't have to worry about it this year either as the OAC is a one game, winner take all battle in 2 days.   Can't wait for Saturday.   The playoffs start early this year in Alliance.

I'm sure it's been a great week and Saturday will be a great day for you. I guess the "price" of dominance is not having too many regular season that get adrenaline going.  You've not gotten to experience much of that in years.  At UW-W, we have had some foregone conclusion games, but not nearly as many or to the extent Mount has. I still haven't decided which I like better. It's like my buddy said (expressing his preference for a UW-W blowout to a close game), "I don't like good football games".  I actually love good games...as long as UW-W comes out on the right side of them. 

Your right about the sportsmanship issue regarding yards allowed. It just feels like better sportsmanship to try to stop someone than to continually try to score to win a tiebreaker. But you are right, maybe it's not. I know none of these ideas would ever be actually adopted because most people aren't as adamant about my whole "sanctity of Saturday" ideal. Believe it or not, I was not (intentionally) being UW-W centric for once.  I honestly don't even know what the WIAC tiebreaker is other than head to head. I was just trying to add Keith's "something in your control" the the mix, keeping the sportsmanship and "sanctity of Saturday" ideas.

[RLW]

I realize I am new to D3 football and I have struggled to understand the D3 playoff selection system. I came to grips with my team not making the playoffs with the win/loss record, RRO, and the SOS that the NCAA has to be consider for a team to get to the playoffs. However the NCAA published today the top 25 and seven colleges are in the playoffs behind two colleges that did not make the playoffs in the top 25. I am throughly confused, I guess the system for picking the top 25 is different from playoff selection. WOW

[jknezek]

I realize I am new to D3 football and I have struggled to understand the D3 playoff selection system. I came to grips with my team not making the playoffs with the win/loss record, RRO, and the SOS that the NCAA has to be consider for a team to get to the playoffs. However the NCAA published today the top 25 and seven colleges are in the playoffs behind two colleges that did not make the playoffs in the top 25. I am throughly confused, I guess the system for picking the top 25 is different from playoff selection. WOW

I'm not sure what you are referring to, but the NCAA does not publish a top 25 D3 football teams. They publish statistics about D3 which ranks teams in each category, but no subjective ranking of the "best" teams overall. The AFCA does a poll and D3football.com does a poll, but not the NCAA. So what you are reading is a) not what you think it is or b) not done by the NCAA. Making the playoffs has nothing to do with being in the AFCA or D3football.com polls. There are plenty of playoff primers around, but it is a fairly simple system.

Right now there are 24 conferences where the conference champion gets automatic qualification (Pool A). Those conferences have to have a minimum of 7 members and it doesn't matter if the champion is 4-6 for the season or 10-0, the conference champion is automatically qualified for the playoffs. So those champions may or may not be highly regarded by the AFCA or D3football.com poll, but none of that matters. This rule ensures access to the playoffs for the vast majority of D3 football teams at the beginning of every season with no subjectivity or value judgments.

The last 8 spots are divided 2 ways. Pool B is teams that are either independents (no conference affiliation) or non-qualifying conferences (not enough members like the UAA and SCAC or in a probationary period like the SAA and MASCAC). There is generally one Pool B spot for every 7 or 8 teams that are in this grouping. This year we had a big grouping, so there were 3 Pool B spots. Only teams that are either independent or in non-qualifying conferences can be selected for these bids. The teams are selected by a committee using a provided set of criteria as a guideline to the discussion.

Finally, however many spots are left, this year it was 5, are the spots available for Pool C teams. These teams are "second chance" teams. Meaning they either did not get their conference AQ or they were a Pool B qualifying team that was not selected via the available Pool B spots. No Pool B qualifying team has ever been selected as a Pool C, but the potential is there. These teams are the only TRUE selected teams from the entire D3 universe. They are chosen by a committee using a defined set of criteria as guidelines for the discussion.

Pool B and Pool C, a minority of the total playoff field, are the only selected teams for the tournament. Usually the bulk of Pool B and Pool C teams can be surmised before the selection show, leaving only a couple of final openings up for debate. Those last few selections are often hotly debated on this site, but the important thing to remember is that access through Pool C is a "last resort." You are lucky to be selected in this manner and it is far better to not leave your selection up to some committee. It is far simpler to guarantee yourself a playoff spot by winning your conference.

It may seem complicated but it is actually a very simple process, none of which involves any kind of poll that you might have originally been referring to.

[ADL70]

NCAA.com does show both the AFCA and D3 polls, but only the Regional Rankings are by the NCAA.  But they don't post their final regional rankings.

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/d3

[K-Mack]

I'm sure it's been a great week and Saturday will be a great day for you. I guess the "price" of dominance is not having too many regular season that get adrenaline going.  You've not gotten to experience much of that in years.  At UW-W, we have had some foregone conclusion games, but not nearly as many or to the extent Mount has. I still haven't decided which I like better. It's like my buddy said (expressing his preference for a UW-W blowout to a close game), "I don't like good football games".  I actually love good games...as long as UW-W comes out on the right side of them. 

I love good games too. As much as I didn't like seeing those jokers from H-SC hold R-MC on the 1.5-yard two-point conversion on Saturday, it was a really great game in the series, and I left more pleased than distraught (helps that I ran into a lot of old alums and our campus/field is really looking sharp these days, but mostly it was that rush at the end of the game)

[hazzben]

I've posted this before, but don't have time to look it up.

I like the idea Pat proposes in terms of somehow tweaking the criteria to ensure, as the number of auto-bid conferences expand, that we maintain a way for quality runner up teams to make the field.

My issue with Regional Ranking being the threshold is that we've already seen a willingness by some regions to massage/manipulate (pick your verb) their rankings to ensure Pool C teams make the field. I'm just not sure we have a good way to make sure a regional committee wouldn't simply take things into their own hands to ensure a 7-3 (all losses in conference) or 6-4 squad didn't make it high enough.

I'd advocate something along these lines:

Pool A conference champions (or teams awarded the right for the at large via conference tie-breaker) receive their bid provided they meet one of the following criteria:

1. DIII Winning percentage of .700 or greater
2. Win over a RRO (this raises what to do with the once ranked always ranked issue)
3. 3 losses against RRO's
4. Ranked in the top 12 of the Regional Rankings

Maybe we could debate how high to set criteria 1 and 3. But taken together, achieving only 1 of these criteria shouldn't be undoable for any team that has a case to be in the field. There are also multiple layers to ensure teams aren't discouraged from scheduling tough teams OOC.

To tease out how it would look.

Say there's carnage in the NWC and PLU wins the league but has a d3 record of 6-3 (2 OOC losses). They also aren't ranked in a tough West Region field with multiple 1 & 2 loss teams from the WIAC, MIAC, IIAC and SCIAC. However, one of their wins is over a 1 loss Linfield team ranked 8 in the final ballot. They are in.

A team goes 6-4 (2 OOC, 2 Conf losses apiece) and wins the IIAC. No wins against RRO, 2 losses against RROs. Unranked in the final rankings. They are out, elligible for Pool C and the IIAC A bid becomes an additional Pool C bid.

We want to preserve equal access for good teams, but ensure totally undeserving teams don't limp in. At the same time, there are enough ways to make it in that an RC shouldn't have to manipulate things to get someone their A bid.

[K-Mack]

I'd be open to something along those lines, although I don't want to overcomplicate it, since people (well, the people who don't post on these boards) have a tough enough time grasping it as it is.

[K-Mack]

We should build a map tool that plots all 244 schools, then lets you shade out 243 of them and draw a 500-mile radius around it. Or lets you pick any two and determine the distance between.

@smedindy @wallywabash @d3football @RalphTurnerMcMurry ... anybody?

For a programmer, this can't be that hard.

[Ralph Turner]

We should build a map tool that plots all 244 schools, then lets you shade out 243 of them and draw a 500-mile radius around it. Or lets you pick any two and determine the distance between.

@smedindy @wallywabash @d3football @RalphTurnerMcMurry ... anybody?

For a programmer, this can't be that hard.

That would be a great Google map!

I have no trouble with the winner of a member conference getting into the playoffs. How much excitement have we had with Gallaudet winning their conference.  Those are their peer institutions.  We let the NESCAC play in their own sandbox.  Hey!  This is D-3. The idea is the competition, the life lessons, and the life long friendships. K-Mack did a great job of covering that this year in ATN. 

As for continued expansion of conferences, the SAA pulls 9 teams (from Pool B into a Pool A conference, when WashUStL and UChicago join. You have Berry and Hendrix adding football because they don't have to play Trinity!).  CWRU and CMU move from Pool B into a Pool A conference.  The MASCAC finally takes the bid that it had loaned D-3 for a decade while it was in the NEFC.  Let's also remember that the Pools are the reason the more schools are sponsoring teams. There is more excitement.  Besides, 16 of those Pool A teams will be done by Saturady about 3:15pm local time.

I cannot find the 27th Pool A conference, unless it is the NESCAC.  Maybe the Capital AC finally gets a Pool A bid as schools add football. You cannot carve up the football-playing schools in the East Region any other logical way to get another conference.  The SCAC might get a Football Pool A bid if several more schools resume or start programs, but I don't see that either.  Pool B in 2016 will be Wesley, Macalester, the SCAC-4 and maybe CNU.  Has anyone heard of another possible realignments?

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Besides, 16 of those Pool A teams will be done by Saturady about 3:15pm local time.

I sure hope that's not the case... I'd rather see Pool A Franklin defeat Pool B WashU