FB: American Southwest Conference

[Toby Taff]

I don't understand how Randolph-Macon jumped us. Higher SOS sure, but they only played 8 D3 games and we played 9. And, their loss was much worse than ours—W&L as opposed to UMHB. Anybody have an explanation I'm not seeing?

Also, don't want to be combative, but doesn't this poke a hole in Pat's "you would have been in if you scheduled a D3 team in non-conference" narrative? Say we played Hendrix and beat them by 50 in non-conference—would that really have made any difference? Really it seems like we were doomed by the fact that the committee valued UMHB less than usual (because of 2019 quarterfinal exit), and because Belhaven and HPU both failed to go 8-2 and get the ASC a third team in the RR. Really seems like our only chance this year would have been to beat UMHB—even if we had played a D3 team in non-conference.

If HSU were located in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, or Minnesota, they'd be in hands down. Unfortunately, the Southern/Western teams are a minority outsider, and not viewed as part of the club. The Northern-centric NCAA folks basically look at us like the snooty people at the golf club in Caddyshack looked at Rodney Dangerfield.

Hardin-Simmons didn't get in because they were behind Randolph-Macon in the final rankings. They never even got to the table. Had nothing to do with any other region than region 3.

They probably would have got in if they stayed in Region 6...

Probably even less likely to see the table.

[justafan12]

I don't understand how Randolph-Macon jumped us. Higher SOS sure, but they only played 8 D3 games and we played 9. And, their loss was much worse than ours—W&L as opposed to UMHB. Anybody have an explanation I'm not seeing?

I have the same question regarding RM.  Why?  So their win on Saturday bumped their SOS up and HSU is "penalized" for playing in a weaker conference?  Teams can only play other teams in their conference for the most part (7-9 games); so we are back to geography determining who gets in.

Also, Washington & Lee loses on Saturday and only drops one spot in the regional ranking.  That seems odd plus 2 of their wins were against non D3 teams; the point many are saying hurt HSU.  I read somewhere that if one of the ranked teams in region 3 lost on Saturday that possibly another ASC teams comes in at number 7 in giving HSU a win over a RRO.  NCAA will never explain this.

So Bethel, with 2 losses to #5 team, gets in over HSU, with 1 loss to #2 UMHB.  Hummm.

[D3fanboy]

I don't understand how Randolph-Macon jumped us. Higher SOS sure, but they only played 8 D3 games and we played 9. And, their loss was much worse than ours—W&L as opposed to UMHB. Anybody have an explanation I'm not seeing?

Also, don't want to be combative, but doesn't this poke a hole in Pat's "you would have been in if you scheduled a D3 team in non-conference" narrative? Say we played Hendrix and beat them by 50 in non-conference—would that really have made any difference? Really it seems like we were doomed by the fact that the committee valued UMHB less than usual (because of 2019 quarterfinal exit), and because Belhaven and HPU both failed to go 8-2 and get the ASC a third team in the RR. Really seems like our only chance this year would have been to beat UMHB—even if we had played a D3 team in non-conference.

If HSU were located in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, or Minnesota, they'd be in hands down. Unfortunately, the Southern/Western teams are a minority outsider, and not viewed as part of the club. The Northern-centric NCAA folks basically look at us like the snooty people at the golf club in Caddyshack looked at Rodney Dangerfield.

Hardin-Simmons didn't get in because they were behind Randolph-Macon in the final rankings. They never even got to the table. Had nothing to do with any other region than region 3.

They probably would have got in if they stayed in Region 6...

Probably even less likely to see the table.

1. StJ - AQ
2. UWW - AQ
3. UMHB -AQ
4. UMHB - AQ
5. UW-L - 1st Pool C
6. HSU
7. Bethel
8. Redlands -AQ

seems like if the ASC was in region 6, 8-1 HSU would be above 8-2 Bethel and St Johns would have lost a RRO, so maybe UWW would host through the semi's. If's and but's, I know

[jknezek]

I don't understand how Randolph-Macon jumped us. Higher SOS sure, but they only played 8 D3 games and we played 9. And, their loss was much worse than ours—W&L as opposed to UMHB. Anybody have an explanation I'm not seeing?

I have the same question regarding RM.  Why?  So their win on Saturday bumped their SOS up and HSU is "penalized" for playing in a weaker conference?  Teams can only play other teams in their conference for the most part (7-9 games); so we are back to geography determining who gets in.

Also, Washington & Lee loses on Saturday and only drops one spot in the regional ranking.  That seems odd plus 2 of their wins were against non D3 teams; the point many are saying hurt HSU.  I read somewhere that if one of the ranked teams in region 3 lost on Saturday that possibly another ASC teams comes in at number 7 in giving HSU a win over a RRO.  NCAA will never explain this.

So Bethel, with 2 losses to #5 team, gets in over HSU, with 1 loss to #2 UMHB.  Hummm.

I think the Region 3 Committee had a decision to make: push R-MC or H-SU? It seems like they chose R-MC because SOS was better and that is a primary criteria. So at that point, leaving W&L in to give R-MC a result against an RRO is important. I think had the Region 3 Committee thought that H-SU was more likely to get in by the criteria than R-MC, H-SU would have been above them in the final rankings and I doubt W&L would have been in the last RR, most likely subbed out for another ASC team.

If the goal is to get as many of your region teams in as possible, and we've seen the committees angle for this approach in the last couple years and we certainly saw it this year with the completely unjustifiable addition of Washington University to the Region 5 rankings to help Wheaton, then Region 3 had to choose one of R-MC or H-SU to support, and it seems like the horse they decided was better built to get in was R-MC.

Clearly it wasn't quite enough.

[crufootball]

I don't understand how Randolph-Macon jumped us. Higher SOS sure, but they only played 8 D3 games and we played 9. And, their loss was much worse than ours—W&L as opposed to UMHB. Anybody have an explanation I'm not seeing?

I have the same question regarding RM.  Why?  So their win on Saturday bumped their SOS up and HSU is "penalized" for playing in a weaker conference?  Teams can only play other teams in their conference for the most part (7-9 games); so we are back to geography determining who gets in.

Also, Washington & Lee loses on Saturday and only drops one spot in the regional ranking.  That seems odd plus 2 of their wins were against non D3 teams; the point many are saying hurt HSU.  I read somewhere that if one of the ranked teams in region 3 lost on Saturday that possibly another ASC teams comes in at number 7 in giving HSU a win over a RRO.  NCAA will never explain this.

So Bethel, with 2 losses to #5 team, gets in over HSU, with 1 loss to #2 UMHB.  Hummm.

I think the Region 3 Committee had a decision to make: push R-MC or H-SU? It seems like they chose R-MC because SOS was better and that is a primary criteria. So at that point, leaving W&L in to give R-MC a result against an RRO is important. I think had the Region 3 Committee thought that H-SU was more likely to get in by the criteria than R-MC, H-SU would have been above them in the final rankings and I doubt W&L would have been in the last RR, most likely subbed out for another ASC team.

If the goal is to get as many of your region teams in as possible, and we've seen the committees angle for this approach in the last couple years and we certainly saw it this year with the completely unjustifiable addition of Washington University to the Region 5 rankings to help Wheaton, then Region 3 had to choose one of R-MC or H-SU to support, and it seems like the horse they decided was better built to get in was R-MC.

Clearly it wasn't quite enough.

Yeah it would seem that some discussion needs to happen when numerous people can't justify certain things that certain RACs did. The system is built under the understanding that you can't question the criteria but it does seem like every year there are cases when people think that different RACs emphasized certain areas of others. One could argue that Region 3 could have looked hard enough to rank Belhaven or Howard Payne, giving both HSU and UMHB regionally ranked wins which obviously changes things.

[jknezek]

I don't understand how Randolph-Macon jumped us. Higher SOS sure, but they only played 8 D3 games and we played 9. And, their loss was much worse than ours—W&L as opposed to UMHB. Anybody have an explanation I'm not seeing?

I have the same question regarding RM.  Why?  So their win on Saturday bumped their SOS up and HSU is "penalized" for playing in a weaker conference?  Teams can only play other teams in their conference for the most part (7-9 games); so we are back to geography determining who gets in.

Also, Washington & Lee loses on Saturday and only drops one spot in the regional ranking.  That seems odd plus 2 of their wins were against non D3 teams; the point many are saying hurt HSU.  I read somewhere that if one of the ranked teams in region 3 lost on Saturday that possibly another ASC teams comes in at number 7 in giving HSU a win over a RRO.  NCAA will never explain this.

So Bethel, with 2 losses to #5 team, gets in over HSU, with 1 loss to #2 UMHB.  Hummm.

I think the Region 3 Committee had a decision to make: push R-MC or H-SU? It seems like they chose R-MC because SOS was better and that is a primary criteria. So at that point, leaving W&L in to give R-MC a result against an RRO is important. I think had the Region 3 Committee thought that H-SU was more likely to get in by the criteria than R-MC, H-SU would have been above them in the final rankings and I doubt W&L would have been in the last RR, most likely subbed out for another ASC team.

If the goal is to get as many of your region teams in as possible, and we've seen the committees angle for this approach in the last couple years and we certainly saw it this year with the completely unjustifiable addition of Washington University to the Region 5 rankings to help Wheaton, then Region 3 had to choose one of R-MC or H-SU to support, and it seems like the horse they decided was better built to get in was R-MC.

Clearly it wasn't quite enough.

Yeah it would seem that some discussion needs to happen when numerous people can't justify certain things that certain RACs did. The system is built under the understanding that you can't question the criteria but it does seem like every year there are cases when people think that different RACs emphasized certain areas of others. One could argue that Region 3 could have looked hard enough to rank Belhaven or Howard Payne, giving both HSU and UMHB regionally ranked wins which obviously changes things.

Honestly? I think the Committees chose who they thought would be their best at-large offering and then found ways to support them. It wasn't about whether W&L or Belhaven should be ranked and how that would determine who the second at-large team from Region 3 would be, it was first about whether they thought R-MC or H-SU would look better at the table and then how to polish that team's resume as much as possible.

Now, if H-SU had a significantly better resume than R-MC, SOS or winning percentage or RRO without stacking a team at the bottom, then I don't think that discussion gets held. But with H-SU and R-MC looking very similar BY THE CRITERIA, and R-MC having a slight SoS advantage, R-MC might have looked like the easier option to push through in what was otherwise essentially a toss-up. So push R-MC as high up as you legitimately could in the rankings and leave a limping W&L program at the bottom to give them a RRO.

Right, wrong, who knows? I suspect it wouldn't have mattered. H-SU on the table or R-MC on the table would have been almost identical, so if R-MC wasn't selected I think H-SU would have also struggled. Had R-MC gotten in, I think H-SU fans would have had reason to be even more upset, because they probably would have gotten in at that spot. Without R-MC getting in... well... it wouldn't have looked good for the Cowboys either.

[crufootball]

I don't understand how Randolph-Macon jumped us. Higher SOS sure, but they only played 8 D3 games and we played 9. And, their loss was much worse than ours—W&L as opposed to UMHB. Anybody have an explanation I'm not seeing?

I have the same question regarding RM.  Why?  So their win on Saturday bumped their SOS up and HSU is "penalized" for playing in a weaker conference?  Teams can only play other teams in their conference for the most part (7-9 games); so we are back to geography determining who gets in.

Also, Washington & Lee loses on Saturday and only drops one spot in the regional ranking.  That seems odd plus 2 of their wins were against non D3 teams; the point many are saying hurt HSU.  I read somewhere that if one of the ranked teams in region 3 lost on Saturday that possibly another ASC teams comes in at number 7 in giving HSU a win over a RRO.  NCAA will never explain this.

So Bethel, with 2 losses to #5 team, gets in over HSU, with 1 loss to #2 UMHB.  Hummm.

I think the Region 3 Committee had a decision to make: push R-MC or H-SU? It seems like they chose R-MC because SOS was better and that is a primary criteria. So at that point, leaving W&L in to give R-MC a result against an RRO is important. I think had the Region 3 Committee thought that H-SU was more likely to get in by the criteria than R-MC, H-SU would have been above them in the final rankings and I doubt W&L would have been in the last RR, most likely subbed out for another ASC team.

If the goal is to get as many of your region teams in as possible, and we've seen the committees angle for this approach in the last couple years and we certainly saw it this year with the completely unjustifiable addition of Washington University to the Region 5 rankings to help Wheaton, then Region 3 had to choose one of R-MC or H-SU to support, and it seems like the horse they decided was better built to get in was R-MC.

Clearly it wasn't quite enough.

Yeah it would seem that some discussion needs to happen when numerous people can't justify certain things that certain RACs did. The system is built under the understanding that you can't question the criteria but it does seem like every year there are cases when people think that different RACs emphasized certain areas of others. One could argue that Region 3 could have looked hard enough to rank Belhaven or Howard Payne, giving both HSU and UMHB regionally ranked wins which obviously changes things.

Honestly? I think the Committees chose who they thought would be their best at-large offering and then found ways to support them. It wasn't about whether W&L or Belhaven should be ranked and how that would determine who the second at-large team from Region 3 would be, it was first about whether they thought R-MC or H-SU would look better at the table and then how to polish that team's resume as much as possible.

Now, if H-SU had a significantly better resume than R-MC, SOS or winning percentage or RRO without stacking a team at the bottom, then I don't think that discussion gets held. But with H-SU and R-MC looking very similar BY THE CRITERIA, and R-MC having a slight SoS advantage, R-MC might have looked like the easier option to push through in what was otherwise essentially a toss-up. So push R-MC as high up as you legitimately could in the rankings and leave a limping W&L program at the bottom to give them a RRO.

Right, wrong, who knows? I suspect it wouldn't have mattered. H-SU on the table or R-MC on the table would have been almost identical, so if R-MC wasn't selected I think H-SU would have also struggled. Had R-MC gotten in, I think H-SU fans would have had reason to be even more upset, because they probably would have gotten in at that spot. Without R-MC getting in... well... it wouldn't have looked good for the Cowboys either.

But is it/should it be the committees job to push for a certain team. If we are going to use criteria, lets use it and as much as possible lets use in the same way across the board. Now I don't want that, but I don't blame teams on the bubble for pointing out the interpretation of that criteria seems to change region by region and year by year. I will admit there is no great way to determine the 5 best at large teams but when the main gurus of D3football.com publicly call out the system, something is off.

[jknezek]

I don't understand how Randolph-Macon jumped us. Higher SOS sure, but they only played 8 D3 games and we played 9. And, their loss was much worse than ours—W&L as opposed to UMHB. Anybody have an explanation I'm not seeing?

I have the same question regarding RM.  Why?  So their win on Saturday bumped their SOS up and HSU is "penalized" for playing in a weaker conference?  Teams can only play other teams in their conference for the most part (7-9 games); so we are back to geography determining who gets in.

Also, Washington & Lee loses on Saturday and only drops one spot in the regional ranking.  That seems odd plus 2 of their wins were against non D3 teams; the point many are saying hurt HSU.  I read somewhere that if one of the ranked teams in region 3 lost on Saturday that possibly another ASC teams comes in at number 7 in giving HSU a win over a RRO.  NCAA will never explain this.

So Bethel, with 2 losses to #5 team, gets in over HSU, with 1 loss to #2 UMHB.  Hummm.

I think the Region 3 Committee had a decision to make: push R-MC or H-SU? It seems like they chose R-MC because SOS was better and that is a primary criteria. So at that point, leaving W&L in to give R-MC a result against an RRO is important. I think had the Region 3 Committee thought that H-SU was more likely to get in by the criteria than R-MC, H-SU would have been above them in the final rankings and I doubt W&L would have been in the last RR, most likely subbed out for another ASC team.

If the goal is to get as many of your region teams in as possible, and we've seen the committees angle for this approach in the last couple years and we certainly saw it this year with the completely unjustifiable addition of Washington University to the Region 5 rankings to help Wheaton, then Region 3 had to choose one of R-MC or H-SU to support, and it seems like the horse they decided was better built to get in was R-MC.

Clearly it wasn't quite enough.

Yeah it would seem that some discussion needs to happen when numerous people can't justify certain things that certain RACs did. The system is built under the understanding that you can't question the criteria but it does seem like every year there are cases when people think that different RACs emphasized certain areas of others. One could argue that Region 3 could have looked hard enough to rank Belhaven or Howard Payne, giving both HSU and UMHB regionally ranked wins which obviously changes things.

Honestly? I think the Committees chose who they thought would be their best at-large offering and then found ways to support them. It wasn't about whether W&L or Belhaven should be ranked and how that would determine who the second at-large team from Region 3 would be, it was first about whether they thought R-MC or H-SU would look better at the table and then how to polish that team's resume as much as possible.

Now, if H-SU had a significantly better resume than R-MC, SOS or winning percentage or RRO without stacking a team at the bottom, then I don't think that discussion gets held. But with H-SU and R-MC looking very similar BY THE CRITERIA, and R-MC having a slight SoS advantage, R-MC might have looked like the easier option to push through in what was otherwise essentially a toss-up. So push R-MC as high up as you legitimately could in the rankings and leave a limping W&L program at the bottom to give them a RRO.

Right, wrong, who knows? I suspect it wouldn't have mattered. H-SU on the table or R-MC on the table would have been almost identical, so if R-MC wasn't selected I think H-SU would have also struggled. Had R-MC gotten in, I think H-SU fans would have had reason to be even more upset, because they probably would have gotten in at that spot. Without R-MC getting in... well... it wouldn't have looked good for the Cowboys either.

But is it/should it be the committees job to push for a certain team. If we are going to use criteria, lets use it and as much as possible lets use in the same way across the board. Now I don't want that, but I don't blame teams on the bubble for pointing out the interpretation of that criteria seems to change region by region and year by year. I will admit there is no great way to determine the 5 best at large teams but when the main gurus of D3football.com publicly call out the system, something is off.

I don't necessarily disagree. But over the last couple years, several committees have been lambasted around here for not playing the game and teams not making the field as other committees sneak a RRO on to the bottom of the rankings. Now they seem to all be playing the same game when they think it is helpful. By the criteria I don't think the Region 3 committee did anything wrong putting R-MC ahead of H-SU. I also wouldn't have said it was wrong if it went the other way. By the criteria, those 2 teams were pretty even.

[crufootball]

Rather than making the text bubble keep growing jknezek I will just say I agree with you that I don't really have a problem with HSU being left out (based on criteria).

With that said, on the pod Pat and Greg essentially laid the blame on HSU for not playing a D3 non conference opponent, saying the cost of doing business just might have to include spending more money to find a D3 opponent willing to play them. On behalf of HSU I am not sure I like that logic, since the NCAA themselves uses cost savings as a way to make the playoffs less expensive. Why shouldn't a school be able to use the same excuse that the NCAA does?

[Ron Boerger]

Rather than making the text bubble keep growing jknezek I will just say I agree with you that I don't really have a problem with HSU being left out (based on criteria).

With that said, on the pod Pat and Greg essentially laid the blame on HSU for not playing a D3 non conference opponent, saying the cost of doing business just might have to include spender more money to find a D3 opponent willing to play them. On behalf of HSU I am not sure I like that logic, since the NCAA themselves use cost savings as a way to make the playoff less expensive. Why shouldn't school be able to use the same excuse that the NCAA does?

If I could give you a dozen +k for this I would.

[jknezek]

Rather than making the text bubble keep growing jknezek I will just say I agree with you that I don't really have a problem with HSU being left out (based on criteria).

With that said, on the pod Pat and Greg essentially laid the blame on HSU for not playing a D3 non conference opponent, saying the cost of doing business just might have to include spender more money to find a D3 opponent willing to play them. On behalf of HSU I am not sure I like that logic, since the NCAA themselves use cost savings as a way to make the playoff less expensive. Why shouldn't school be able to use the same excuse that the NCAA does?

If I could give you a dozen +k for this I would.

I agree. I think that is strange. Especially since R-MC played 2 non-D3 opponents... NNA and E&H. So I don't think that was the issue this year. I think Pat is off base on that one, but who knows?

[Etchglow]

Rather than making the text bubble keep growing jknezek I will just say I agree with you that I don't really have a problem with HSU being left out (based on criteria).

With that said, on the pod Pat and Greg essentially laid the blame on HSU for not playing a D3 non conference opponent, saying the cost of doing business just might have to include spending more money to find a D3 opponent willing to play them. On behalf of HSU I am not sure I like that logic, since the NCAA themselves uses cost savings as a way to make the playoffs less expensive. Why shouldn't a school be able to use the same excuse that the NCAA does?

Honestly, we focus on the criteria a lot for HSU... But, outside of the first half against UMHB and that one drive at the end of the game, they didn't have much that helped the eye test either.  They had 3 games decided by under one score (one of which was against a 2-7 McMurry, the second of which was a great first half against UMHB and then a disastrous second half, and finally against Belhaven).  It didn't help that Belhaven was never regionally ranked. 

Interestingly enough, two of the 10 non-conference games were cancelled (Hendrix vs Austin, and Trinity vs McMurry), we all know the "controversy" about HSU, and then Sul Ross had to get a non-affiliated second year university from Houston to come play. 

[crufootball]

Rather than making the text bubble keep growing jknezek I will just say I agree with you that I don't really have a problem with HSU being left out (based on criteria).

With that said, on the pod Pat and Greg essentially laid the blame on HSU for not playing a D3 non conference opponent, saying the cost of doing business just might have to include spending more money to find a D3 opponent willing to play them. On behalf of HSU I am not sure I like that logic, since the NCAA themselves uses cost savings as a way to make the playoffs less expensive. Why shouldn't a school be able to use the same excuse that the NCAA does?

Honestly, we focus on the criteria a lot for HSU... But, outside of the first half against UMHB and that one drive at the end of the game, they didn't have much that helped the eye test either.  They had 3 games decided by under one score (one of which was against a 2-7 McMurry, the second of which was a great first half against UMHB and then a disastrous second half, and finally against Belhaven).  It didn't help that Belhaven was never regionally ranked. 

Interestingly enough, two of the 10 non-conference games were cancelled (Hendrix vs Austin, and Trinity vs McMurry), we all know the "controversy" about HSU, and then Sul Ross had to get a non-affiliated second year university from Houston to come play.

That is true but historically they have never really been given a fair shot to prove themselves come playoff time. Since 2004 they have made the playoffs 6 times and they faced UMHB or Linfield each time, teams that 98% of D3 would have lost to. In 2004 and 2015 the finally did what everyone asked them to do and beat UMHB and they were rewarded by having to beat us again.

As for this year, they could have beat us, they could have played a D3 non conference team, but in their situation both of those things are not necessarily the easiest things to accomplish. 

[D O.C.]

The enegy burnt on these things is amazing.
When LINFIELD got hung out in 2001 the phrase LEAVE NO DOUBT was adopted.
Win the AQ.

[George Thompson]

Some thoughts on 2021 DIII playoff format.   
It is VERY flawed (and usually is).   

1.   It is very biased for Upper Midwest and Eastern teams.    They can travel  easily to many teams.   Not so for the west coast conferences.    SOS is unfair for that reason.

2.   Upper left bracket has five unbeaten teams, three ranked in the top 7 teams.   And, as usual, they place Linfield in the toughest bracket.   
      Lower left bracket has two.   Why wasn't Linfield placed here?
      Upper right bracket has two.   
      Lower right bracket has two.    Why was Hardin-Simmons not placed at all?  
      Why:  Each bracket should be as balanced as possible.    Fairness to all.

3.   If possible, teams should meet teams they have never played before.   
      Why?   Variety and makes playoffs as fair as possible.   

4.   How about a new format:
      A.   Top 16 teams (D3.com poll) have first playoff game at home.
            Why?   An independent poll determines those 16.    Minimal NCAA regional bias.     
      B.   Top 16 teams are spread equally among the four brackets.
            Why?   Fairness to all.   
      C.   First round:  Minimize travel costs.     Otherwise, lower 16 teams are random draws to meet the top 16 teams.
            Why?   Again, fairness to all.           
      D.   Second round: Minimize travel costs.     Otherwise, lower 8 teams are random draws to meet the top 8 teams.    Coin flip determines home team.
             Why?   Every team has a fair chance for a home game.                        
      E.    Third round and fourth rounds: coin flip determines home team.
             Why?   Every team has a fair chance for a home game.
   
These are only my thoughts and not anyone else.   

Is it possible to ever change this bad current playoff selection, which is so, so subjective and NOT based on fairness to all?

George Thompson