FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[BashDad]

There should be a copy/paste FAQ for these annual "conversations."

[emma17]

Did 5 voters feel, based upon UWW's close game with UWRF, that UWW was no longer likely to beat UMHB or Mt?

I do think that's the case. What else would it really be?

I guess the other thing it could be is the pollsters aren't looking at the poll from the perspective of whether UWW can beat Mt or UMHB, rather, the pollsters are simply applying their beauty contest standards.  It's as though the pollsters found a big ol mole on UWW's backside that they didn't know existed previously, and they simply cannot get that ugly thing out of their minds.  As such, they cannot consider UWW the most beautiful team at the time.  On the other hand, Mt looks much prettier because they just beat JCU, and UMHB just put up 83 points on East Texas Baptist- and boy don't they look all pretty.

The problem is, this too is an incredibly naïve approach given UWW's history don't you think?
Think about how many times posters have commented on these boards in the past few years about the chinks in UWW's armor late in the season or early in the playoffs when UWW has failed to "meet expectations" in a victory.  And yet, UWW has gone on to win 5 of the last 6 Stagg Bowls. 
Given the very recent history, given the knowledge of the returning players, given the knowledge specific to last year's UWW game vs UWRF where the whole world knew Jake Kumerow would be returning in the playoffs, why would the pollsters feel a close game vs UWRF suddenly means UWW is no longer more likely to beat Mt and UMHB? 

I don't mean to make this all about UWW, it's just easy to make a point with them.  This same thing applies to NCC and every other team.  Whatever the team, if a pollster ultimately feels Team A would beat Team B in a head to head game, I don't think the pollster should feel obligated to vote differently just because Team A's victories aren't as pretty as Team B's victories. 
     

[Pat Coleman]

Did 5 voters feel, based upon UWW's close game with UWRF, that UWW was no longer likely to beat UMHB or Mt?

I do think that's the case. What else would it really be?

The problem is, this too is an incredibly naïve approach given UWW's history don't you think?
   

This is easy to say 36 weeks later, though, isn't it? Those without purple-tinted glasses on could definitely look at UWW and think there was just a chance they weren't best team in the country anymore. For perspective here's what some UWW fans were saying at the time:

Well played. Very scary game tonight....UWRF played its heart's out.

UWW has a lot to work on before the post season.

BoBo--Did you think WW imposed its will on RF until they gave up?

That certainly didn't happen today...UWW was lucky to have won and the Falcons and their coaches have my respect. And that line is coming down immediately. Thank you sir for reminding me.

[02 Warhawk]

Did 5 voters feel, based upon UWW's close game with UWRF, that UWW was no longer likely to beat UMHB or Mt?

I do think that's the case. What else would it really be?

The problem is, this too is an incredibly naïve approach given UWW's history don't you think?
   

This is easy to say 36 weeks later, though, isn't it? Those without purple-tinted glasses on could definitely look at UWW and think there was just a chance they weren't best team in the country anymore. For perspective here's what some UWW fans were saying at the time:

Well played. Very scary game tonight....UWRF played its heart's out.
UWW has a lot to work on before the post season.

BoBo--Did you think WW imposed its will on RF until they gave up?

That certainly didn't happen today...UWW was lucky to have won and the Falcons and their coaches have my respect. And that line is coming down immediately. Thank you sir for reminding me.

Hey that's me!!! 

That's a day I would love to forget.

[Pat Coleman]

I mean, think about how close UWW came to losing the top seed and home-field advantage, losing a cushy first-round game and the rest.

[D3gridiron]

I will be very interested to see IWU today vs Franklin. They are making some strong proclamations in Bloomington about what happened last year. I am not so sure it was all injury related. There is no question they have some top level CCIW talent coming back. I am sure they are a contender.

For the consensus top 3 here are a couple things I think are the strengths and questions for each. My questions are really about when these teams play each other because I expect their only losses will be to one of the other two:

Wheaton:
Strengths: Linebacker/DE, OLine, defensive speed, QB, size and depth at WR
Questions: Speed at WR, DB experience, Kicking game (although after watching the Wabash scrimmage I think they are ok here)

Hard to believe that any observer of Wheaton football would be questioning the kicking game this year.  In their first game, Wheaton kickers were a perfect 8 for 8 on FG/PAT's, and kick-offs remained very solid again this year.

Contrast this to the Wheaton nation holding it's collective breath during FG's and PAT's over the last three years, especially last year.  Last season, Wheaton's FG/PAT kicker missed more FG's than any other kicker in all D3, and in fact only 6 kickers in all NCAA divisions combined missed more FG's then him last season.  And his FG percentage was among the lowest in all D3 at 47%.  Not to mention all the missed PAT's. 

Hard to believe Wheaton stuck with that kicker when the guys who are kicking now were on the bench ready to go and they also had another available senior kicker last year who had a strong leg handling the kick-offs.  As much as Wheaton juggles players, the way they stuck with that FG/PAT kicker last year was baffling and it ultimately played a big role in them not getting a trip to the Elite 8. I feel confident that Wheaton FG/PAT kicking will improve this year – it really has no where to go but up.

[emma17]

Did 5 voters feel, based upon UWW's close game with UWRF, that UWW was no longer likely to beat UMHB or Mt?

I do think that's the case. What else would it really be?

The problem is, this too is an incredibly naïve approach given UWW's history don't you think?
   

This is easy to say 36 weeks later, though, isn't it? Those without purple-tinted glasses on could definitely look at UWW and think there was just a chance they weren't best team in the country anymore. For perspective here's what some UWW fans were saying at the time:

Well played. Very scary game tonight....UWRF played its heart's out.

UWW has a lot to work on before the post season.

BoBo--Did you think WW imposed its will on RF until they gave up?

That certainly didn't happen today...UWW was lucky to have won and the Falcons and their coaches have my respect. And that line is coming down immediately. Thank you sir for reminding me.

I don't want to hijack this board with UWW stuff.  My point isn't UWW specific.  I use UWW in particular because the polls allow us to see how many first place votes they have/had.  My point is voters can and should look past the beauty and ask the real question, if these two teams played each other, who do I think would win?
As far as it being easy to say 36 weeks later, no, I don't think the time frame matters.  That's the point I made in my post-the same issues were raised in multiple years about UWW's unimpressive victories vs. supposed inferior teams.  The bottom line is, for 5 out of 6 years, UWW did find a way to win every game it had to win.  Why would a reasonable voter think that would change, especially in 2014, with all that UWW had coming back and Kumerow getting set to return? 

Anyway, this argument holds true for NCC and any other team, not just UWW.  Winning pretty or as expected is nowhere near as important as finding a way to win is.   

[Pat Coleman]

Well, see, this is why we have 25 voters -- "the voters" are not one monolith and do not have just one opinion. If that were the case, we might as well be Lindy's magazine and have one person's opinion rule all. But that's why those rankings aren't very good -- they're not diverse enough.

"if these two teams played each other, who do I think would win?"

That is what the voters should do. And when a team struggles to beat River Falls, a few of those 25 voters might think perhaps they would struggled to beat Mount Union or UMHB.

But the voters ask who they think should win, not who emma17 thinks should win. So they might not agree with you.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Contrast this to the Wheaton nation holding it's collective breath during FG's and PAT's over the last three years, especially last year.  Last season, Wheaton's FG/PAT kicker missed more FG's than any other kicker in all D3, and in fact only 6 kickers in all NCAA divisions combined missed more FG's then him last season.  And his FG percentage was among the lowest in all D3 at 47%.  Not to mention all the missed PAT's. 

Hard to believe Wheaton stuck with that kicker when the guys who are kicking now were on the bench ready to go and they also had another available senior kicker last year who had a strong leg handling the kick-offs.  As much as Wheaton juggles players, the way they stuck with that FG/PAT kicker last year was baffling and it ultimately played a big role in them not getting a trip to the Elite 8. I feel confident that Wheaton FG/PAT kicking will improve this year – it really has no where to go but up.

This post is a perfect example of how easy it is to be deceptive with statistics.

Cote's number of missed field goals and FG percentage must be placed in proper context. Five of his missed kicks are came from longer than 40 yards, which some D3 teams will not even send the kicker onto the field. He was a serviceable 9-14 inside 40 yards (by Division III standards - this isn't the NFL, where anything inside 40 is automatic). I don't know that there's an easy way to do this, but I would be curious to know where his percentage inside 40 ranked vs. the D3 national average on FG's inside 40. I bet it was around that 65 percent mark.

Point is, a large number of missed FG attempts doesn't mean the kicker is any worse than anywhere else in the division. You have to look deeper. You may reasonably blame the Wheaton coaches for not understanding their players' limitation and allowing him to attempt FG's outside his range, but then again I did not look up the game context for each attempt (ie last play of a half, 4th and very long situations it makes more sense to kick regardless of how low the chances are).

For anyone familiar with statistics, this is an example of Simpson's paradox: a situation where a raw percentage of overall attempts looks relatively low in comparison to others because they had a higher degree of difficulty (on the whole).

Consider Kicker A, who goes 10-15 on the season. He is 4-5 from 20-29 yards, 6-10 from 30-39 yards, and does not attempt a FG over 40 yards.

Consider Kicker B, who goes 10-19 on the season. He is 5-5 from 20-29, 4-5 from 30-39, 1-6 from 40-49, and 0-3 from 50-plus (all end-of-half attempts where the coaches just sent him out to take a shot on a lucky make).

Kicker A has a higher raw FG percentage.
Kicker B is actually superior in each individual range.
He just had a lot of harder attempts!

And as for the "big reason we did not advance to the elite 8" - OK, he had a terrible day in that game. He also made the game winner against North Central, which is what got you into the playoffs.  So, um, yeah.

[USee]

Contrast this to the Wheaton nation holding it's collective breath during FG's and PAT's over the last three years, especially last year.  Last season, Wheaton's FG/PAT kicker missed more FG's than any other kicker in all D3, and in fact only 6 kickers in all NCAA divisions combined missed more FG's then him last season.  And his FG percentage was among the lowest in all D3 at 47%.  Not to mention all the missed PAT's. 

Hard to believe Wheaton stuck with that kicker when the guys who are kicking now were on the bench ready to go and they also had another available senior kicker last year who had a strong leg handling the kick-offs.  As much as Wheaton juggles players, the way they stuck with that FG/PAT kicker last year was baffling and it ultimately played a big role in them not getting a trip to the Elite 8. I feel confident that Wheaton FG/PAT kicking will improve this year – it really has no where to go but up.

This post is a perfect example of how easy it is to be deceptive with statistics.

Cote's number of missed field goals and FG percentage must be placed in proper context. Five of his missed kicks are came from longer than 40 yards, which some D3 teams will not even send the kicker onto the field. He was a serviceable 9-14 inside 40 yards (by Division III standards - this isn't the NFL, where anything inside 40 is automatic). I don't know that there's an easy way to do this, but I would be curious to know where his percentage inside 40 ranked vs. the D3 national average on FG's inside 40. I bet it was around that 65 percent mark.

Point is, a large number of missed FG attempts doesn't mean the kicker is any worse than anywhere else in the division. You have to look deeper. You may reasonably blame the Wheaton coaches for not understanding their players' limitation and allowing him to attempt FG's outside his range, but then again I did not look up the game context for each attempt (ie last play of a half, 4th and very long situations it makes more sense to kick regardless of how low the chances are).

For anyone familiar with statistics, this is an example of Simpson's paradox: a situation where a raw percentage of overall attempts looks relatively low in comparison to others because they had a higher degree of difficulty (on the whole).

Consider Kicker A, who goes 10-15 on the season. He is 4-5 from 20-29 yards, 6-10 from 30-39 yards, and does not attempt a FG over 40 yards.

Consider Kicker B, who goes 10-19 on the season. He is 5-5 from 20-29, 4-5 from 30-39, 1-6 from 40-49, and 0-3 from 50-plus (all end-of-half attempts where the coaches just sent him out to take a shot on a lucky make).

Kicker A has a higher raw FG percentage.
Kicker B is actually superior in each individual range.
He just had a lot of harder attempts!

And as for the "big reason we did not advance to the elite 8" - OK, he had a terrible day in that game. He also made the game winner against North Central, which is what got you into the playoffs.  So, um, yeah.

Ex Tartan,

At this point it is senseless to discuss the Wheaton kicking game with D3Gridiron. He/she has made exactly 15 posts and 12 of them are exclusively created to rip Sam Cote and/or the Wheaton coaches. This poster has an axe to grind. The points are made up, stats manipulated and perspective is way skewed. Actual data is not relevant.

Exhibit A: He says "Hard to believe any observer of Wheaton Football would question the kicking game this year...in the first game..."

This is response to a post I made BEFORE the first game when clearly the Thunder had lost their Kicker/Punter to graduation, making the kicking game a natural question.

Sam Cote was a first team All CCIW kicker two years ago. He struggled last year as a senior, there is no doubt. As you point out he missed a 47 yarder to beat John Carroll but he made a buzzer beater to beat North Central or there would have been no John Carroll. But to rip the Wheaton coaches for not making a change and to imply they are biased is simply ridiculous. I have followed this program for decades and can count dozens of examples where younger players replaced veteran players. I can say without exception those players demonstrated on the field they were better than the player ahead of them. They earned it. If there was a better kicker than Sam Cote on the roster last year we would have seen him. No poster on here is going to convince anyone otherwise. MIke Swider and his 20+ years track record has earned the benefit of the doubt.

In short, there was no kicker in the grassy knoll.

[Mugsy]

Contrast this to the Wheaton nation holding it's collective breath during FG's and PAT's over the last three years, especially last year.  Last season, Wheaton's FG/PAT kicker missed more FG's than any other kicker in all D3, and in fact only 6 kickers in all NCAA divisions combined missed more FG's then him last season.  And his FG percentage was among the lowest in all D3 at 47%.  Not to mention all the missed PAT's. 

Hard to believe Wheaton stuck with that kicker when the guys who are kicking now were on the bench ready to go and they also had another available senior kicker last year who had a strong leg handling the kick-offs.  As much as Wheaton juggles players, the way they stuck with that FG/PAT kicker last year was baffling and it ultimately played a big role in them not getting a trip to the Elite 8. I feel confident that Wheaton FG/PAT kicking will improve this year – it really has no where to go but up.

This post is a perfect example of how easy it is to be deceptive with statistics.

Cote's number of missed field goals and FG percentage must be placed in proper context. Five of his missed kicks are came from longer than 40 yards, which some D3 teams will not even send the kicker onto the field. He was a serviceable 9-14 inside 40 yards (by Division III standards - this isn't the NFL, where anything inside 40 is automatic). I don't know that there's an easy way to do this, but I would be curious to know where his percentage inside 40 ranked vs. the D3 national average on FG's inside 40. I bet it was around that 65 percent mark.

Point is, a large number of missed FG attempts doesn't mean the kicker is any worse than anywhere else in the division. You have to look deeper. You may reasonably blame the Wheaton coaches for not understanding their players' limitation and allowing him to attempt FG's outside his range, but then again I did not look up the game context for each attempt (ie last play of a half, 4th and very long situations it makes more sense to kick regardless of how low the chances are).

For anyone familiar with statistics, this is an example of Simpson's paradox: a situation where a raw percentage of overall attempts looks relatively low in comparison to others because they had a higher degree of difficulty (on the whole).

Consider Kicker A, who goes 10-15 on the season. He is 4-5 from 20-29 yards, 6-10 from 30-39 yards, and does not attempt a FG over 40 yards.

Consider Kicker B, who goes 10-19 on the season. He is 5-5 from 20-29, 4-5 from 30-39, 1-6 from 40-49, and 0-3 from 50-plus (all end-of-half attempts where the coaches just sent him out to take a shot on a lucky make).

Kicker A has a higher raw FG percentage.
Kicker B is actually superior in each individual range.
He just had a lot of harder attempts!

And as for the "big reason we did not advance to the elite 8" - OK, he had a terrible day in that game. He also made the game winner against North Central, which is what got you into the playoffs.  So, um, yeah.

Ex Tartan,

At this point it is senseless to discuss the Wheaton kicking game with D3Gridiron. He/she has made exactly 15 posts and 12 of them are exclusively created to rip Sam Cote and/or the Wheaton coaches. This poster has an axe to grind. The points are made up, stats manipulated and perspective is way skewed. Actual data is not relevant.

Exhibit A: He says "Hard to believe any observer of Wheaton Football would question the kicking game this year...in the first game..."

This is response to a post I made BEFORE the first game when clearly the Thunder had lost their Kicker/Punter to graduation, making the kicking game a natural question.

Sam Cote was a first team All CCIW kicker two years ago. He struggled last year as a senior, there is no doubt. As you point out he missed a 47 yarder to beat John Carroll but he made a buzzer beater to beat North Central or there would have been no John Carroll. But to rip the Wheaton coaches for not making a change and to imply they are biased is simply ridiculous. I have followed this program for decades and can count dozens of examples where younger players replaced veteran players. I can say without exception those players demonstrated on the field they were better than the player ahead of them. They earned it. If there was a better kicker than Sam Cote on the roster last year we would have seen him. No poster on here is going to convince anyone otherwise. MIke Swider and his 20+ years track record has earned the benefit of the doubt.

In short, there was no kicker in the grassy knoll.

There are so many variables with the kicking game beyond the kicker.  Last year the struggles were across the board.  Bad snaps, bad holds, bad blocking, bad kicking, lost confidence...  As USee points out, Cote was an All-CCIW kicker the previous year.  Whereas he owns some responsibility for the drop in effectiveness, it wasn't only on him.

I did a quick pass at kicking stats over the previous 3 years, where D3gridiron express how the kicking game stunk across that entire span.  NOT SO!  Almost every team in D3 would gladly take the results from 2013.

2012:
FG: 8-13
4-5 from 20-29
4-5 from 30-39
0-1 from 40-49
0-1 from 50+
1 blocked

PAT: 50-52 96%

2013
FG:12-16
3-3 from 20-29
4-5 from 30-39
4-7 from 40-49
1-1 from 53 yards!

PAT:47-50 94%

2014:
FG: 9-19
6-8 from 20-29
3-6 from 30-39
0-3 from 40-49
0-3 from 50+
2 blocked

PAT: 41-46 89%

I think this is the most time I've ever spent on a kicker.

[kiko]

Today's scoreboard, as the CCIW and MIAA emerge with 4 wins each in today's challenge games:

St. Norbert 41, North Park 31
North Central 41, Trine 7
Kalamazoo 16, Millikin 13
Elmhurst 13, Hope 7
Wheaton 49, Adrian 0
Olivet 42, Carthage 32
Albion 60, Augustana 49
Illinois Wesleyan 49, Alma 14

St. Norbert escaped the Vikes by scoring the winning TD and a pick-6 in the final 30 seconds.

North Central's leading receiver was starting QB Dylan Warden as freshman Justin Hunniford sees most of the action behind center.

Josh Williams runs 33 times for 243 yards and a TD in the Jays' win at Langhorst.

Wheaton outgains the Bulldogs 521-187.

Albion racks up 733 yards of offense and does not turn the ball over during their win in Rock Island.

Illinois Wesleyan outgains Alma 583 to 232 while pulling away in a game that was tied after the first quarter.

[Gregory Sager]

St. Norbert 41
North Park 31

A heartbreaking loss for the Vikings, who came back from a 28-10 deficit to take their first lead of the game with 1:45 remaining when the NPU defense stripped the ball out of the hands of the SNC quarterback at the one-yard line and sophomore safety Matt DiFecchio then scored his second defensive TD in as many games by scooping up the fumble and running 99 yards for the go-ahead score. But the Vikings couldn't stop SNC in the final two minutes, as the Green Knights made a huge 4th-and-9 conversion at midfield and ended up taking back the lead, 35-31, on a TD screen pass with 22 seconds remaining. The final touchdown was meaningless, as a T.D. Conway desperation heave on the game's final play was tipped and then picked off and taken to the house.

The Green Knights may play in a lesser league, but they are very good, even by CCIW standards. They sport 33 seniors on their roster, and their huge offensive line gave NPU huge headaches today. The fact that the Vikings were able to come back from that far down and bring the game right down to the wire says a lot for this very young Vikings team.

[mr_b]

St. Norbert 41
North Park 31

A heartbreaking loss for the Vikings, who came back from a 28-10 deficit to take their first lead of the game with 1:45 remaining when the NPU defense stripped the ball out of the hands of the SNC quarterback at the one-yard line and sophomore safety Matt DiFecchio then scored his second defensive TD in as many games by scooping up the fumble and running 99 yards for the go-ahead score. But the Vikings couldn't stop SNC in the final two minutes, as the Green Knights made a huge 4th-and-9 conversion at midfield and ended up taking back the lead, 35-31, on a TD screen pass with 22 seconds remaining. The final touchdown was meaningless, as a T.D. Conway desperation heave on the game's final play was tipped and then picked off and taken to the house.

The Green Knights may play in a lesser league, but they are very good, even by CCIW standards. They sport 33 seniors on their roster, and their huge offensive line gave NPU huge headaches today. The fact that the Vikings were able to come back from that far down and bring the game right down to the wire says a lot for this very young Vikings team.

Greg, were you aware of technical issues with the audio and video feeds throughout the game? 

[Gregory Sager]

We were aware that there was some difficulty with the video feed. I wasn't aware that there was any trouble with audio.