FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[wally_wabash]

In the past, didn't D3 use a selection committee? Just go back to that.

If the selection committee was popular, we wouldn't have NPI, right? 

[Cardinal773]

First: Roosevelt=Robert Morris

It's disappointing that a conference gets a two year grace period and gets to keep an AQ.  Toss them into pool B and NPI the s*** out of them.

As for the whole margin of victory (MOV) thing, I wouldn't like to see that happen.  Player safety and sportsmanship and all.  I would like to see an informed, reasonable ranking of teams as part of the equation.  I can see a large group of voters, like those for the D3FB poll, getting a ranking done.  Toss out maybe 5 out of the 50 or so votes if they stray too far from the general consensus* and pepper the rankings into the NPI. 

*An example of this might be if the NCC SID ranks NC #1 and maybe puts SJU at #30 to gain some bracketing advantage.

So yeah. Pool B.  Power rankings by a group of reasonable people.

[CarollFan]

The NPI dial experiment would actually make the bubble sting a bit less for Wheaton, no? It wasn't the 40/60 split that did them in.

No. I understand tweaking the dials wouldn't have helped but scheduling UWO, or any other top 25 caliber team is a mistake with this system. What stings is that if UWO beat RF or if NPU beat Carthage/Elmhurst, we would be in. Those things you can't control and the reality is this current format doesn't recognize all playoff worth at large teams. The clear message is: Use what you can control, i.e. schedule a mid tier NCAC/MIAA/IIAC/MWC team and go 9-1. It's a bummer for D3fans but I believe upper echelon teams are going to have even bigger problems than UMHB and WIAC teams (as well as NCC) have had scheduling games going forward.

Hit the nail on the head right there.

Would like to know if they ran any scenarios before deciding on this 40/60 NPI nonsense.

Wheaton should do what MHBU did and play teams you've never heard of before and win 90-0 vs playing a WIAC program with this format.

CCIW has one non-conference game. In 2026 we'll move to two it looks like. That will provide some more flexibility for all teams in scheduling. The team leaving is WashU. The team I follow, Carroll is 5-0 in non-conference games the last 5 seasons and in those same years 0-5 vs. WashU.

The problem with this is, NCC has enough problems getting 1 non conference game scheduled, let alone 2. Plenty of people want to play bottom tier CCIW teams.

The NPI dial experiment would actually make the bubble sting a bit less for Wheaton, no? It wasn't the 40/60 split that did them in.

No. I understand tweaking the dials wouldn't have helped but scheduling UWO, or any other top 25 caliber team is a mistake with this system. What stings is that if UWO beat RF or if NPU beat Carthage/Elmhurst, we would be in. Those things you can't control and the reality is this current format doesn't recognize all playoff worth at large teams. The clear message is: Use what you can control, i.e. schedule a mid tier NCAC/MIAA/IIAC/MWC team and go 9-1. It's a bummer for D3fans but I believe upper echelon teams are going to have even bigger problems than UMHB and WIAC teams (as well as NCC) have had scheduling games going forward.

Hit the nail on the head right there.

Would like to know if they ran any scenarios before deciding on this 40/60 NPI nonsense.

Wheaton should do what MHBU did and play teams you've never heard of before and win 90-0 vs playing a WIAC program with this format.

CCIW has one non-conference game. In 2026 we'll move to two it looks like. That will provide some more flexibility for all teams in scheduling. The team leaving is WashU. The team I follow, Carroll is 5-0 in non-conference games the last 5 seasons and in those same years 0-5 vs. WashU.

The problem with this is, NCC has enough problems getting 1 non conference game scheduled, let alone 2. Plenty of people want to play bottom tier CCIW teams.

In recent years NCC has been forced to play NAIA Robert Morris (2X), Webber International, and Roosevelt due to their inability to schedule within D3. They were able to schedule Wabash one year, and Aurora a couple of times including this year. Another year they were able to schedule D3 Christopher Newport, but had to travel all the way to Virginia to play a regular season game.

NCC vs. UMHB ...there we go solved a couple issues

[wally_wabash]

So yeah. Pool B.  Power rankings by a group of reasonable people.

A group of people are only reasonable to the champions of the teams that got selected.  For the teams that just missed, that same group of people will have obviously had a bias or an agenda or whatever and are definitely not reasonable. 

Reasonable people were selecting the field for this tournament and enough people didn't like those results that they took the whole process away from reasonable people.  Not just in football, but across all of the NCAA's championships. 

It's disappointing that a conference gets a two year grace period and gets to keep an AQ.  Toss them into pool B and NPI the s*** out of them.

If you took the AQ away from the ASC, the only thing that changes is 27 Pool As, 13 Pool C's. Hardin-Simmons is still the #2 overall seed, they're just Pool C now.  None of the other math changes and the same 40 teams are playing this tournament.   

[Cardinal773]

Alfred State just won an AQ in a4 team conference.  They're better than Wheaton? 

[wally_wabash]

The ECFC has annually produced a champion that has never been as good as Wheaton in any year.  But the ECFC champion and CCIW runner-up Wheaton aren't being evaluated in the same buckets, so that's sort of moot.

[Pat Coleman]

Just noticed MHBU's schedule. How is the world did they make it in? Brutal.


MHBU Schedule

I think there's something to be said for a minimum number of D3 wins or games to make the field. You have to play either 8 D3 games or have 6 D3 wins to be considered for an at large.

Are the rules also going to force someone to play them?

[SpartanHouse4]

In the past, didn't D3 use a selection committee? Just go back to that.

If the selection committee was popular, we wouldn't have NPI, right? 

That's my point - you don't know you had a good thing until it's gone.

[hazzben]

In the past, didn't D3 use a selection committee? Just go back to that.

If the selection committee was popular, we wouldn't have NPI, right? 

That's my point - you don't know you had a good thing until it's gone.

The Committee's were not a good thing. Did you forget how NCC got screwed out of seeding/hosting last year by the R5 RAC's notions vs the Nat Com's notions. There were constantly moving goal posts and RACs doing weird stuff to rank meh teams, to get other teams additional RRO W's for seeding or at large advantages.

It will never be perfect. But we have 12 at large bids this yes, that's a huge bonus. There's also a process to refine NPI. If there's no dial tweaking we can complain more, but it's the first iteration. ECFC won't have a bid next year. Improvements are looming.

[USee]

Just reacting to your example Hazz, pretty sure NPI didn't do NCC any favors for seeding/hosting this year. I do agree with your point, just maybe not your example.

[USee]

Sullivan and Johanik co-dpoy
Luke opoy

https://cciw.org/news/2024/11/19/cciw-announces-football-all-conference-teams.aspx

I am happy for all the players who are honored here. Some great players who are well deserving. I'm not a fan of the 1st team having 17 players. But if you honor more players on the first team than play each position I would highlight a year ago when there were 2 QB's honored as first team. Lehnen and Josh Raby from Carroll.

Raby's stats were as follows:

149.06 efficiency, 200-337, 5 Int, 26 TD's, 59%, 2,697 yds

If you are going to honor multiple players at each position, Mark Forcucci's peformance warrants 1st team consideration alongside Lehnen. His stats:

183.13 efficiency, 173-243, 4 Int, 27 TD's, 71%, 2,274 yds

[Cardinal773]

In the past, didn't D3 use a selection committee? Just go back to that.

If the selection committee was popular, we wouldn't have NPI, right? 

That's my point - you don't know you had a good thing until it's gone.

The Committee's were not a good thing. Did you forget how NCC got screwed out of seeding/hosting last year by the R5 RAC's notions vs the Nat Com's notions. There were constantly moving goal posts and RACs doing weird stuff to rank meh teams, to get other teams additional RRO W's for seeding or at large advantages.

It will never be perfect. But we have 12 at large bids this yes, that's a huge bonus. There's also a process to refine NPI. If there's no dial tweaking we can complain more, but it's the first iteration. ECFC won't have a bid next year. Improvements are looming.

Yes, and they made NCC travel to Mount Union so that ESPN didn't have to cart all their gear across the Midwest just to have it back in Canton in time for the Stagg. 

[Pat Coleman]

Yes, and they made NCC travel to Mount Union so that ESPN didn't have to cart all their gear across the Midwest just to have it back in Canton in time for the Stagg. 

 

That's not how ESPN does business. They hire out local production companies for stuff like the semifinals and then send something bigger for the Stagg. That's why we have more cameras at Stagg.

[hazzben]

Just reacting to your example Hazz, pretty sure NPI didn't do NCC any favors for seeding/hosting this year. I do agree with your point, just maybe not your example.

Right, but there was transparency to the process. There wasn't surprise from NCC about how it happened like last year. Or a disconnect between the Region 5 RAC and the NatCom on how the rules could be manipulated.

If the dials were tweaked to 20/80 or 15/85 NCC would have had a one seed. But that's not how they were set this year, so we knew they weren't going to be a 1 seed and we knew why.

[USee]

We knew last year there was a strong possibility at least a couple weeks early. We just assumed the subjectiveness of the committee would take over and it didn't.