FB: Presidents' Athletic Conference

[ExTartanPlayer]

CMU has been a fairly frequent participant in the ECAC bowls since rejoining the PAC (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019). Prior to the PAC re-entry, we played in one my senior season in 2007 and also in 2012.  Speaking from personal experience...coming the year after a playoff berth in 2006, some guys may have found it lame (since, you know, it wasn't making the playoffs) but at the time we were not a program where "playoffs every year" was an expectation, and the seniors were unanimously enthusiastic about one extra game.  The way your season goes & your team's expectations entering the season surely factor in. We had lost four in a row at mid season and rebounded to win our last four, so I think we were all happy about the chance to put a little exclamation point on our season's redemption arc, but it may have been tougher to swallow if we had "just missed" the playoffs. It may feel different for a team that goes 9-1, or for a team that had very high expectations of making the playoffs. If you're a program that expects to win your conference every year, an ECAC game after going 7-3 probably feels like a letdown.  This is why some programs don't bother participating or seem all that enthusiastic when they do.

Not sure what this year's team would feel about it. The 2015 team was a big step forward after a few years of lackluster (by historical CMU standard) teams (2008-14 was the worst collective stretch for CMU in 30+ years).  That season marked the start of CMU's ascent to eventually being a real contender for the PAC title, though it took a few years to finally knock off W&J.  2015 was also the renewal of some really great Academic Bowl matchups after CWRU had seemed like the better program consistently for five or six years.  So in 2015, 2016, 2017 an ECAC bowl probably felt like pretty heady stuff.  In 2023, coming off two straight league titles...

I suspect an ECAC game would be viewed as a mild disappointment for this year's team if only because with last year's playoff success & the amount returning they had high hopes for another playoff run. So I'll hold out hope for Pool C. Starts with beating Westminster and CWRU...around the nation, gotta hope for a weird combination of results - as a fan of a possible "9-1 with a middling strength of schedule and likely 0-1 record vs regionally ranked opponents" you have to root for a) all the strongest on-paper teams to win their leagues and b) anybody else sitting in Pool C to take an extra unexpected loss. The WIAC and MIAC could do us a favor by continuing to eat each other. WashU could do us a huge favor if they could upset Wheaton. I'll have to poke around more but we basically want all the conference leaders who would be strong Pool C candidates to get their auto bids and then otherwise have complete chaos so there aren't many 9-1 teams on the board with good playoff criteria. So few Pool C bids available this year that you really can't bank on getting one, and I'm on record many times on these forums as saying "want to make the playoffs? Win your league" so ultimately if they miss out, that's life.

As for GCC: now that CMU has beaten W&J, I think you want to see either CMU or CWRU finish 9-1. Not sure it actually matters which; there might be a slight reason to prefer CMU if we think the committees who rank teams will take last year into account and be more likely to rank CMU than CWRU. I'm not sure you can really count on getting two other PAC teams into the final RR's. The closed system makes it hard to predict how they'll rank any of us.

[mikefln]

As for GCC: now that CMU has beaten W&J, I think you want to see either CMU or CWRU finish 9-1. Not sure it actually matters which; there might be a slight reason to prefer CMU if we think the committees who rank teams will take last year into account and be more likely to rank CMU than CWRU. I'm not sure you can really count on getting two other PAC teams into the final RR's. The closed system makes it hard to predict how they'll rank any of us.

Another factor is that CMU already dominated W&J.  If Case beats W&J in a close game, and then beats CMU in a close game, that does not look as strong.  If Case dominates W&J as well, then it goes back to what you said already about CMU's recent history being preferred.   

[mikefln]

My Power Rankings after week 7 -

Tier 1

1) Grove City- One game at a time, don't lose focus and they are the PAC rep in the playoffs
2) CMU- After that game, I do wonder if they are not the best team in the conference despite the loss to GCC.
3) CWRU –I moved them to Tier 1 this week, we will find out Saturday if that was premature or not.

Tier 2

4) W&J- I am moving them down from Tier 1 this week because they got dominated. If they beat CWRU this week, I will bump them back up to tier 1.

Tier 3

5) Westminster- Won a tough game against Allegheny. 
6) Allegheny- Despite the loss to Westminster, they showed heart and really was in it for most the game.  Not sure on team makeup (senior heavy, mostly underclassmen, etc) to know if they are a rising program or not. 

Tier 4

7) Geneva- I think they are clearly better than their opponent this week Waynesburg
9) SVC- Westminster is the better team, but this is a winnable game none the less.  If they win this week, a 5-5 record is not out of the question.
9) Thiel- Allegheny game is winnable but will take a very strong showing this week. After that only other winnable game is SVC

Tier 5

10) Waynesburg- I think Geneva is clearly better, but if Waynesburg wants to move forward, they need to win this week and next before the W&J game.
11) Bethany- Will be interesting to see how much fight they have this week.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Oddly, I am going to defend W&J a little bit here, despite the fact that I deeply and thoroughly enjoyed that game because I want us to beat W&J as much as anybody in the conferences.

CMU kicked their butts and deserves the win, but I honestly suspect if they lined up and played next week, the margin would be narrower.  Couple of reasons:

1. The wrinkle with Bouma playing the wildcat was the source of CMU's biggest offensive plays.  The fake-bubble-screen got'em for two huge runs in the first half.  Bouma had 140 rushing yards at halftime and finished with 149 yards.  CMU overall had 235 rushing yards at halftime and finished with 265 yards (the average per carry was depressed by a few TFL's with the second-stringers, but it wasn't hard to see that the CMU offense wasn't getting as much going after they adjusted to that wrinkle).  You don't just get to discount plays that happened with really good game-planning, but I suspect that a rematch would not see Bouma going for 5 touchdowns in the first half.

2. CMU's defense kicked W&J's offense around for the entire first half.  Sacks, turnovers, a blocked punt.  Other than the 67-yard touchdown pass, W&J barely did anything in the first half.  In the second half, they had several drives that actually went somewhere (once getting picked off inside the 10-yard line and another time stopped on 4th & goal at the 1; W&J also committed a boneheaded unsportsmanlike penalty after that play that ended up letting CMU start on the 16 instead of in the shadow of their own end zone).   A few things go differently there and W&J could have made it 32-21 or even 32-28.

Yeah, CMU may have relaxed/closed the playbook a little bit and coasted home since W&J never got within two scores, but I think we pretty much saw CMU's best game and one of W&J's worst games on Saturday.  Play it 10 more times and CMU might win >60% of them but I bet they don't win by 21 again.  I think that margin overstates the true gap between the teams.

It's academic now.  Time for CMU to rest, make sure they take Westminster seriously on 11/4 and set up a season-ending showdown of (hopefully) 8-1 CMU vs. 8-1 CWRU in the Academic Bowl that should have somewhat of a playoff atmosphere to it, being that both will still harbor at least some level of hope for a Pool C bid.

[DagarmanSpartan]

I hope that CWRU can indeed win its next two, and set up an "Academic Bowl" matchup for the ages!

Query: If the winner of the game finishes 9-1, what are the odds that they receive an at-large NCAA bid?

[ExTartanPlayer]

I hope that CWRU can indeed win its next two, and set up an "Academic Bowl" matchup for the ages!

Query: If the winner of the game finishes 9-1, what are the odds that they receive an at-large NCAA bid?

We'll be able to take a little better guess at that when we see the first set of regional rankings, but my guess is (unfortunately) "not very good"

The closed system of the PAC assures a .500 (middle of the pack) strength of schedule metric and prevents any non-conference quality wins (like last year with CMU beating RPI and Whitworth and W&J beating John Carroll) to establish that the league's top teams are worthy of regional rankings.  The most likely resume for a 9-1 Academic Bowl winner is "9-1 overall, 0-1 vs regionally ranked opponents, .500 SoS" which is not a particularly strong Pool C entry. 

What should CMU and CWRU be hoping for?

First, you want teams that would be slam-dunk Pool C choices to win their league if possible. 

Second, you want teams that are already likely into Pool C to take as many dents as possible. 

St. John's shocking loss to Gustavus Adolphus now means they probably cannot win the MIAC (due to a very weird MIAC structure, discussed on this week's podcast, where only division games count for who makes the MIAC title game).  SJU is likely to finish 8-2 with a huge SoS and several results against regionally ranked opponents that will make one of the strongest possible "2-loss" resumes you can have.  You'd love to see SJU take a third loss somewhere if anyone left on their schedule can manage it. 

Hardin-Simmons (currently has one loss) is playing UMHB, who already has three losses.  You probably want to see HSU win that game and lock up the ASC auto-bid, because nobody's putting a four-loss UMHB into the field, but a hypothetical 8-2 Hardin-Simmons might be a threat considering they'll probably have an RR win vs UW-La Crosse and a very good SoS metric.

The OAC presents an interesting conundrum.  John Carroll is hangin' out with 1 very good loss (close one vs. UW-Whitewater) and Mount Union coming up.  An 8-2 JCU with close losses vs. both UWW and Mount Union could be tricky.  They won't have any regionally ranked wins but they also will have a good SoS and two "results" vs RRO's that look good on paper.  Bizarre as it may sound, by the letter of the criteria a 9-1 CMU/CWRU would (possibly) stack up better against 9-1 Mount Union (if Mount lost to JCU), since Mount's resume "on paper" would be a similar "9-1, 0-1 vs RRO's, mediocre SoS" - but I don't seriously think a 9-1 Mount Union is getting left out of the playoffs no matter what the criteria say.  I think you gotta hope Mount beats John Carroll and roll the dice there.

You just gotta hope for total chaos amongst the Pool C teams.  Our old friends WashU could do us a favor if they could shock Wheaton in a few weeks.  You want basically any team that could finish 9-1 without winning their league to lose a second game.  You want basically anyone that's got impressive non-conference wins to either win their league and take an auto-bid, or to take some extra losses that knock'em down to 8-2 or 7-3.

Johns Hopkins/Muhlenberg is another interesting game.  Johns Hopkins has a good nonconference win over Ithaca, who is likely to win their league and end the season regionally ranked.  Muhlenberg's nonconference resume is less impressive, so they'll be a weaker Pool C candidate than JHU.  If you're a Poolm C hopeful, you have to root for Hopkins there, since JHU would be a stronger Pool C candidate.

[E.115]

Oddly, I am going to defend W&J a little bit here, despite the fact that I deeply and thoroughly enjoyed that game because I want us to beat W&J as much as anybody in the conferences.

CMU kicked their butts and deserves the win, but I honestly suspect if they lined up and played next week, the margin would be narrower.  Couple of reasons:

1. The wrinkle with Bouma playing the wildcat was the source of CMU's biggest offensive plays.  The fake-bubble-screen got'em for two huge runs in the first half.  Bouma had 140 rushing yards at halftime and finished with 149 yards.  CMU overall had 235 rushing yards at halftime and finished with 265 yards (the average per carry was depressed by a few TFL's with the second-stringers, but it wasn't hard to see that the CMU offense wasn't getting as much going after they adjusted to that wrinkle).  You don't just get to discount plays that happened with really good game-planning, but I suspect that a rematch would not see Bouma going for 5 touchdowns in the first half.

2. CMU's defense kicked W&J's offense around for the entire first half.  Sacks, turnovers, a blocked punt.  Other than the 67-yard touchdown pass, W&J barely did anything in the first half.  In the second half, they had several drives that actually went somewhere (once getting picked off inside the 10-yard line and another time stopped on 4th & goal at the 1; W&J also committed a boneheaded unsportsmanlike penalty after that play that ended up letting CMU start on the 16 instead of in the shadow of their own end zone).   A few things go differently there and W&J could have made it 32-21 or even 32-28.

Yeah, CMU may have relaxed/closed the playbook a little bit and coasted home since W&J never got within two scores, but I think we pretty much saw CMU's best game and one of W&J's worst games on Saturday.  Play it 10 more times and CMU might win >60% of them but I bet they don't win by 21 again.  I think that margin overstates the true gap between the teams.

It's academic now.  Time for CMU to rest, make sure they take Westminster seriously on 11/4 and set up a season-ending showdown of (hopefully) 8-1 CMU vs. 8-1 CWRU in the Academic Bowl that should have somewhat of a playoff atmosphere to it, being that both will still harbor at least some level of hope for a Pool C bid.

I'll also add here, you never want to play a good team on the heels of a bad loss.  CWRU will be heading into Washington, PA against a team who is looking to redeem themselves next week. 

With that said, man would a 8-1 vs 8-1 be a fantastic Academic Bowl.

It would be the most balanced in combined wins, with the closest being:

2017: 9-0 CWRU @ 7-2 CMU
2019: 9-0 CWRU @ 7-2 CMU
2022: 9-0 CMU @ 6-3 CWRU

[E.115]

CMU and CWRU on the Pool C heat map: https://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=9500.15

[E.115]

W&J notes on the big PAC matchup this week:  https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sidearm.nextgen.sites/washjeff.sidearmsports.com/documents/2023/10/25/CWRU_Game_Notes_-_10-28-2023.pdf

CWRU notes on the big PAC matchup this week:  https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sidearm.nextgen.sites/casewestern.sidearmsports.com/documents/2023/10/24/fb_WJC_game_notes23.pdf

Interestingly W&J and CWRU are exactly 3-3 against each other since CWRU rejoining the PAC.

[jam40jeff]

No CWRU/W&J video tonight?

EDIT: May not be a game worth watching f(or CWRU fans, at least), anyway.

[E.115]

^ here's the game: https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/live/

But I'm about done watching ...

[jam40jeff]

Thanks for the link.  Hopefully we can score to open the second half and make it a game.

[ADL70]

Done

The W&J FG looked to me like it was over the upright not through

[jam40jeff]

There were a number of questionable calls in W&J's favor, but CWRU didn't really play well enough to deserve to win that game.

[ADL70]

Blocked punt was the difference.

Jeff you missed key plays in the first half. Here's the replay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZJnLbjuieE

After the first W&J TD. CWRU went three and out and punted. The punt was muffed at the W&J 12, but went out of bounds before the Spartans could recover. W&J went three and out and after a short punt, Spartans started at $&J 48. On 3rd and 4 a W&J lineman clearly jumped into the neutral zone -- event the commentators agreed, but no flag and Fromberg's pass, perhaps thinking it was a free play,  is intercepted. The INT was a great play by the defender who leaped high to make the catch. On the drive that followed, Sais was called for a late hit out of bounds when an inbounds tackle drove the ball carrier into him while he was standing at the side line.

An impressive comeback from a 21-7 deficit that just fell short.

Total offense CWRU 446 W&J 431