FB: Presidents' Athletic Conference

[Pat Coleman]

That's certainly possible. The ASC-PAC games haven't gone favorably for the PAC in the past, but those were Thomas More and W&J against UMHB rather than Grove City or Carnegie Mellon against HSU.

[Ice Bear]

Ex-Tartan and Pat +k for a plethora of solid info and perspective.

[jam40jeff]

Also, w.r.t. JCU and the PAC, CWRU beat them both times they played (in 2010 and 2011), before CWRU was in the PAC.

[Pat Coleman]

JCU finished tied for fourth in the conference in those years, and were not threats to make the Top 25.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Yeah, that was before JCU really rose to their more recent level, so I'm inclined to agree with Pat that isn't particularly relevant to my point (though it is fun anyway).

This isn't really a post about how the PAC teams stack up against John Carroll historically, but more generally how I think we'll tend give a little too much credit to "second place team from league with national powerhouse who doesn't lose to anyone else in their league and sometimes gives the national power a close game" unless we have other data. In the case of JCU 2013-22, we have that other data - in several years of going "9-1 with a reasonably competitive loss to Mount Union" they sometimes made a playoff run and other times lost at home in the first round to regular-old-good teams. They're probably a top-25 program over that period but we shouldn't act like they'd automatically replicate Mount Union's playoff success just because they give Mount Union a close game sometimes. Similarly, my (now horse-beaten-to-death-in-this-thread-so-will-let-it-go) opinion is that HSU gets too much benefit of the doubt from "occasionally playing close games against UMHB" and losing in the first round of the playoffs vs UMHB or Linfield every year, a presumption being that HSU would make a deep playoff run if only they didn't get stuck playing UMHB, and I suspect they'd look a lot like John Carroll over the past decade. Occasionally win a game or two, occasionally lose in the first round.  Yet they've been ranked in the preseason top 10 for the past five seasons running, including the season after a season where they lost a game to someone other than UMHB so we can't even apply the "they only ever use to UMHB" excuse (in 2019, they lost to Texas Lutheran, who also lost to 3-loss Hendrix for one of the few out-of-conference data points we get on those teams).  Being on an island has its disadvantages - like getting stuck playing the ogre of your league most years if you do make the playoffs - but it also has its advantages, like folks just assuming all the Texas teams are awesome because we don't see the rest of them against anyone else that often.  We get enough data on John Carroll and the rest of the OAC against other teams to know that just playing a close game with Mount Union every other year doesn't equate to "99% as good as Mount Union" but we don't really get that on HSU.

Wheaton/North Central is another decent parallel here, though I haven't done the same deep dive I did into John Carroll.

I mean...Endicott is the exact sort of team that (some) folks complain should be muscled out of the playoffs to allow more second chances for the HSU's of the world, or that teams like Endicott should be sent to UMHB in the playoffs to let HSU play somebody else. So HSU gets a chance to play the exact sort of team they'd play in a first round game if the NCAA had infinity dollars and decided to break up the Texas teams in the first round. They fell behind 37-3! That level of laying an egg shouldn't be ignored, injuries or not. And since we've been talking in this thread about how you need to take "history" into account, my argument would be that this game now is part of that "history" so next year when HSU is ranked 12th or whatever at the start of the season because "they'd have made a playoff run if only they didn't have to play another Texas team!" any fan of any conference that's not based on Texas should just copy and paste the link to that box score over and over until someone admits that maybe HSU is not, in fact, 99.9% of UMHB but more like "just another pretty good team" like Randolph Macon and Johns Hopkins and Ithaca and (insert PAC champ here) and a bunch of other teams that are consistent playoff contenders but not in the nation's ELITE TIER

[Pat Coleman]

For what it's worth, I think people come by this belief honestly -- John Carroll had a run to the national semifinals in 2002 when unshackled from Mount Union. They did it again in 2016. Capital had two years in a row where it advanced to the quarterfinals before getting eliminated by Mount Union in a pair of three-point games. It's not unreasonable to believe it could also be true in the ASC, except that teams basically never get unshackled from UMHB.

[ExTartanPlayer]

For what it's worth, I think people come by this belief honestly -- John Carroll had a run to the national semifinals in 2002 when unshackled from Mount Union. They did it again in 2016. Capital had two years in a row where it advanced to the quarterfinals before getting eliminated by Mount Union in a pair of three-point games. It's not unreasonable to believe it could also be true in the ASC, except that teams basically never get unshackled from UMHB.

Hey, Pat, let's be clear, I didn't say that this could never happen.  I said that as often as this does happen, I think we'd see a different result, like maybe a first- or second-round playoff loss to just another "pretty good top-25ish" team instead of "death star annihilating all other teams until they lost to their nemesis again in the playoffs."  There was a time when the OAC runner-up was (almost) like that...but those days seem pretty long gone.

Why do we only count the deep playoff runs when speculating about how good "second team in conference with national powerhouse who sometimes almost beats them" is when unshackled from their nemesis?  Don't the losses count, too?

John Carroll has also lost twice at home in the first round to regular teams from regular middle-of-the-pack D3 conferences that nobody ever really thinks is producing a national contender!  In 2013 JCU finished week 11 ranked #9 in the poll and promptly lost at home to #25 St. John Fisher in the first round.  In 2018 they finished the season #8 in the poll and lost at home to an 8-2 Randolph-Macon team that received 0 votes (not a single goddamn vote!) in the week 11 top 25.  RMC had a loss to 5-5 Ferrum and a 30-point loss to Johns Hopkins and was nobody's idea of a threat to make a deep playoff run.  Both of those were 9-1 JCU teams with close Mount Union losses, close enough that the poll voters (reasonably) put'em into the top 10 in the last regular season poll.

In the past decade (2013-22, discounting the COVID "2020" season) John Carroll has lost four total OAC games to teams other than Mount Union (Ohio Northern and Heidelberg, twice each; two of these came in the same season, and one other came in a year where they actually beat Mount Union and made the playoffs anyway).  During this time they made the playoffs four times.  One resulted in a semifinal run, one in quarterfinal-run-ending-with-loss-to-Mount-Union, and two ended with first-round losses at home to teams that weren't remotely in the national title picture (in years where JCU ended the season poll ranked in the top 10).  The last two years we've been spared this happening yet again since they lost to W&J in the season opener both times suggesting that year probably also would have ended with an early playoff loss if they had played a lesser opponent in the opener and managed to squeak in through Pool C (after all, W&J couldn't even win the middling old PAC either year). 

You don't get to just count the wins!  The losses have to count too!

[Pat Coleman]

For what it's worth, I think people come by this belief honestly -- John Carroll had a run to the national semifinals in 2002 when unshackled from Mount Union. They did it again in 2016. Capital had two years in a row where it advanced to the quarterfinals before getting eliminated by Mount Union in a pair of three-point games. It's not unreasonable to believe it could also be true in the ASC, except that teams basically never get unshackled from UMHB.

Hey, Pat, let's be clear, I didn't say that this could never happen. 

And all I'm saying is that there is a reason why voters and fans might feel this way, and it's not just assumptions.

[ExTartanPlayer]

For what it's worth, I think people come by this belief honestly -- John Carroll had a run to the national semifinals in 2002 when unshackled from Mount Union. They did it again in 2016. Capital had two years in a row where it advanced to the quarterfinals before getting eliminated by Mount Union in a pair of three-point games. It's not unreasonable to believe it could also be true in the ASC, except that teams basically never get unshackled from UMHB.

Hey, Pat, let's be clear, I didn't say that this could never happen. 

And all I'm saying is that there is a reason why voters and fans might feel this way, and it's not just assumptions.

And all I'm saying is that there is a reason why voters and fans who feel this way should look harder.  They are looking at an incomplete picture of the relevant data, selectively thinking of times they remember a second-banana-who-barely-lost-to-national-power went deep into the playoffs and down-weighting times where that presumptive second-banana-who-barely-lost-to-national-power went out earlier against a merely okay playoff team. 

[Pat Coleman]

For what it's worth, I think people come by this belief honestly -- John Carroll had a run to the national semifinals in 2002 when unshackled from Mount Union. They did it again in 2016. Capital had two years in a row where it advanced to the quarterfinals before getting eliminated by Mount Union in a pair of three-point games. It's not unreasonable to believe it could also be true in the ASC, except that teams basically never get unshackled from UMHB.

Hey, Pat, let's be clear, I didn't say that this could never happen. 

And all I'm saying is that there is a reason why voters and fans might feel this way, and it's not just assumptions.

And all I'm saying is that there is a reason why voters and fans who feel this way should look harder.  They are looking at an incomplete picture of the relevant data, selectively thinking of times they remember a second-banana-who-barely-lost-to-national-power went deep into the playoffs and down-weighting times where that presumptive second-banana-who-barely-lost-to-national-power went out earlier against a merely okay playoff team.

I don't think they forget such things, XTP. I just think that they are more likely to believe that it *could happen* again because it *has happened* already, multiple times. Most of the voters (maybe not all of the shorter-tenured ones) know this data -- they are just acting on the data differently than you think they should. They're not necessarily looking at an incomplete picture -- they're just interpreting it differently than you want them to.

[IC798891]

It's not unreasonable to believe it could also be true in the ASC, except that teams basically never get unshackled from UMHB.

So, if a playoff caliber team from the ASC played a playoff team that wasn't of UMHB's eliteness — because let's be honest, sending them out to Linfield isn't a walk in the park — they might go on a run?

Hypothetically then, if Hardin Simmons played a playoff game against someone other than Trinity or UMHB they could make a deep run? Like, if they were matched up with a team from the traditionally weaker New England region in Round 1? Maybe Endicott?

[Pat Coleman]

It's not unreasonable to believe it could also be true in the ASC, except that teams basically never get unshackled from UMHB.

So, if a playoff caliber team from the ASC played a playoff team that wasn't of UMHB's eliteness — because let's be honest, sending them out to Linfield isn't a walk in the park — they might go on a run?

Hypothetically then, if Hardin Simmons played a playoff game against someone other than Trinity or UMHB they could make a deep run? Like, if they were matched up with a team from the traditionally weaker New England region in Round 1? Maybe Endicott?

Welcome back. Feel like we have already talked about this in this very conversation. 

[mikefln]

You don't get to just count the wins!  The losses have to count too!

ExTartan  thank you for all you said and the serious thought and work you put into your argument.  The quote above basically states my feelings on the matter.  You as a CMU grad just said it more concise than I could.

I have no problem with Endicott, but to me the rational with their ranking and the PAC teams and other teams seem wishy washy and I was looking for what the rational is.  I basically got told, "We own this site, therofre the ranking and we say so."  That is why I stopped arguing.  But I do applaud the discourse that you provide. 

[Pat Coleman]

I basically got told, "We own this site, therofre the ranking and we say so." 

Nobody said that in any way, shape or form, Mike.

[mikefln]

I don't have much time this week to do attendance and add my thoughts for all teams. 

My Power Rankings after week 6 -

Tier 1

1) Grove City-
2) W&J-
3) CMU –

Tier 2

4) Case- They are clearly above Westminster imo but not at the others level yet.  But they still can prove themselves against W&J and CMU to hoist themselves up there.

Tier 3

5) Westminster-

Tier 4

6) Allegheny- Came back and battled W&J hard in 2nd half.  I think they are a notch above the rest of the teams but not enough to be in Westminster's level without beating them or another power team.

Tier 5

7) Thiel-
8) SVC-
9)Geneva-
10) Waynesburg-
11) Bethany-