FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[ExTartanPlayer]

I have been underwhelmed by what the Cardinals have done in the playoffs in recent years -- with their sustained regular season success and the CCIW's supposed position as a strong D3 football conference, I would expect fewer slip ups prior to the purples.   (And that projection of the CCIW as a top-tier conference is IMO (1) is very much up for debate based on *everyone's* performance against that middle ground between the cupcake conferences and the purple powers,  and (2) is fairly difficult to measure given how frequently we run into the purple teams in rounds 2/3 of the playoffs.)

kiko, excellent stuff there.  I think you make a good point about how difficult it is to measure the CCIW's position as a strong D3 football conference, but I've got something to add on top of your nice NCC/Wheaton analysis (I just looked at this a few days ago in a discussion with wally_wabash).  The CCIW may not have produced a Purple-Power-level team yet, but what stands out to me is that they generally do have at least two, sometimes three playoff-caliber teams every year.  In the last five years, the CCIW is 11-9 in the playoffs and has dropped a few of those "middle" games to which you're referring, but one of the most impressive things about that is that four different teams have accounted for at least one of those wins.

2012: both North Central and Elmhurst won their first-round game, and both then gave respectable showings in second round losses (30-14 to Linfield and 24-17 to St. Thomas, both on the road).  Wheaton, who might have been the best of that triumvirate, stayed home because of their early-season gag job against Albion.

2011 was a bit disappointing: Illinois Wesleyan lost in the first round, and North Central had a blowout win in round 1 followed by the epic loss to Wabash.  Two teams combined to go 1-2.

2010 also had two CCIW entrants: North Central, won two games and then lost 20-10 to UWW, and Wheaton, won a first-round game before losing to Bethel.  Two teams combined to go 3-2.

2009 had just one, Illinois Wesleyan, who beat Wabash in the first round, then got stomped by UWW.  One team goes 1-1.

2008 had a pair: North Central won in the first round, then lost to Franklin, while runnerup Wheaton got in through Pool C and made a surprising run all the way to the semis (beat Trine, Wabash, Franklin before losing to Mount Union).  Two teams go 4-2.

That five-year run speaks quite impressively about overall quality/depth of the league; I bet that no other conference in the country can match that "four different teams in five years" stat (I should double-check, the MIAC might have) which is not a perfect metric, given that the WIAC/OAC have likely produced some runners-up who would have won a game if they could only get into the playoffs, but still impressive.  The overall playoff record of 11-9 doesn't sound that great but it's actually pretty impressive because putting two teams in the playoffs every year means that you're always putting a runner-up in against someone else's champ at some point, and remember that record is compiled by four different teams (not like a gaudy playoff record entirely compiled by one champion and the occasional runnerup).  At no point has the CCIW overcome either of the Purple Powers, and they have admittedly lost games to the Franklin/Wabash level at times but they've beaten them as well.  In three of the aforementioned seasons (2008, 2010, and 2012) they produced two teams that won a playoff game.  That's pretty impressive in my book. 

In short, I think it's hard to say that the CCIW is better than the WIAC, OAC, or MIAC...but probably can be placed on par with or comfortably ahead of the rest of Division III conferences.  What stands out to me is that depth of "good" teams.  Four different teams notching at least one playoff win in the last five seasons is impressive.

[NCF]

========

I have been underwhelmed by what the Cardinals have done in the playoffs in recent years -- with their sustained regular season success and the CCIW's supposed position as a strong D3 football conference, I would expect fewer slip ups prior to the purples.   (And that projection of the CCIW as a top-tier conference is IMO (1) is very much up for debate based on *everyone's* performance against that middle ground between the cupcake conferences and the purple powers,  and (2) is fairly difficult to measure given how frequently we run into the purple teams in rounds 2/3 of the playoffs.)

===

(And to be clear, succeeding against those Middle Ground schools is absolutely where North Central has the biggest opportunity to  move the program to the next level.  Folks are often eager to measure them against the purples, but the Birds haven't graded out consistently against the middles yet.  They're getting better, as they've won two of their most recent four here, but elite teams don't lose games like the Cardinals did against Wabash in 2011.)

Couldn't agree with you more on this!

[kiko]

Couple of comments on this.

You left off Wheaton's 1995 season where they beat Wittenberg at home (as a decided underdog) and then lost @ Mt Union (after trailing in the 4th quarter 14-7).

Figured you'd flag that.  I left it off for three reasons, which you may or may not disagree with:

1. The playoff format was different in that era -- there were just 16 playoff qualifiers, and the format pre-dates the pool system.  Given that much of my argument regarding playoff success related to the quality of competition, including a year where the size of the playoff field changed these dynamics would seem to muddy the conversation.
2. It feels like an outlier in a conversation about the current era.  Multiple classes of students / players enrolled, matriculated, and graduated between that playoff appearance and the next playoff appearance by Wheaton.  There were a couple of years during that interim window in which the entire student body consisted of kids who did not experience a playoff season in their four years.  When this happens, IMO you're talking about two different eras.
3. Given that it was 18 years ago, I felt the statute of limitations had sort of expired on that season as a proof point.

1995 was one of the three QF seasons you noted, so I get why you believe it belongs in the mix.  It changes the conversation from "we have just one more deep run in the playoffs than you do" to "we have *three* and you only have one".  But from my perspective, including it would be similar to a Michigan fan using their 1997 national championship as a proof point in a conversation with someone regarding the strength of their current football programs.

You also didn't list Wheaton's 7 losses the way you list NCC's:

@Mt Union which then lost to UWLax in the semis (who won the Stagg)
@Mt Union which won the Stagg
@Mt Union which lost the Stagg to St Johns
@Mt Union which lost in Semis to UMHB
@Mt Union which won the Stagg
@Mt Union wich lost the Stagg to UWW
@Mt Union which lost the Stagg to UWW
Vs Bethel which lost in Semis to Mt Union

Wheaton never lost to a team that lost in the QF. Wheaton mad the QF

I didn't list those because I assumed everyone would know that, since almost all of Wheaton's losses were to Mount, their opponent typically went on to play in or win the Stagg Bowl.

My broader point is that there is some nuance behind the 'Wheaton never lost to a team that lost in the QF".  Wheaton has had six playoff teams since the turn of the millennium.  In the first four of those seasons, Wheaton played exactly one team that was not a MIAA cupcake or Mount Union.  So of course they weren't losing to teams that lost in the Quarterfinals -- they were beating up on weaker teams and losing to Mount Union, and had almost no games against middle-tier competition.  Would they have beaten these teams?  Dunno -- they beat the one that they did play, and it was an excellent win.  North Central has played a lot more of these teams, and their record is a mixed bag.  But I think using "we don't lose to teams that lose in the QF" as a proof point is a bit misleading without also considering who they did and did not play.

I also want to touch on this:

Also, you make the following statement:

So, against the middles, North Central is 2-4 and Wheaton is 3-1.  The biggest driver of this is 2008, where Wheaton secured two of its four wins against middles, and in the process beat a team that had eliminated the Cardinals.  Outside of this season, I really don't see much difference in how the two schools have fared in the playoffs.  Wheaton's losses are mostly to Mount, but their road to get there was not always the most difficult in the world.

You can't make this claim. Wheaton's two biggest coup's were first beating Baldwin Wallace in 2003, when BW had only lost to Mt Union and beat every other OAC team by at least 18 pts. This was when no OAC team had lost in the playoffs to anyone outside of Mt Union and not a single person on these boards (including me) thought Wheaton had any chance of beating BW or even competing with them.

The second was the 2008 season when Wheaton was the 32nd and last team into the field via pool C and a decided underdog on the road the 3 teams and beat them all to make it the semifinals. You can't say "outside of this season" because that's almost 40% of the data AND it includes a road win against the team that beat NCC, who lost at home. Those are some of the biggest differentiators between the two schools in their playoff history (another being that Wheaton has been to 3 QF and 1 Semi and NCC has only been to 1 QF) so you cannot simply say those don't count and the two schools have performed similarly. That's just not sound.

Two comments on this.  One, there's more than a little Lou Holtz in the 'we were the 32nd and last team in the field' comment.  The relative scarcity of at-large berths (seven) and the reliance on regional results to choose from among a set of teams from different regions that have virtually no common opponents means that being last in certainly does not mean you are the weakest team.  There was no doubt that Wheaton was playoff-caliber from a talent standpoint that year; the only question was whether The Only System We Have would allow them the opportunity to keep playing beyond Thanksgiving that year.  Generally speaking, with CCIW Pool C teams, the question is never whether they belong in the field or whether they can hold their own.  It's whether results around the country break in such a way that they get an opportunity to keep playing.

Second: I can and will say 'outside of this season'.  When one season contains 40% of your data points, it will have an outsized influence on a bigger data set.  It makes sense to confirm whether the conclusion you draw from the remaining data is the same as what you would draw from the full data set.  Wheaton unequivocally had a better playoff run in 2008.  The road victories were impressive and it was a demonstration of good success against that middle tier I focused on in my original post.  The question to me was, if you take that year and put it in the "Wheaton" column, then what do the rest of the years look like?  And from my standpoint, they look pretty close to a wash.

[kiko]

In short, I think it's hard to say that the CCIW is better than the WIAC, OAC, or MIAC...but probably can be placed on par with or comfortably ahead of the rest of Division III conferences.  What stands out to me is that depth of "good" teams.  Four different teams notching at least one playoff win in the last five seasons is impressive.

I think this is fair.  There are any number of good to very good teams in the conference.  But there is also a clear chasm between the power conferences and what has been a respectably middle class performance by CCIW playoff teams.

Here's a breakdown of the past five years using the tiering I'd mentioned before.  Lots of wins over weaker conferences, no success against the purples (and we've all had a crack at them at least once), and a mixed bag against the middle tier.  That feels middle class to me.

Should Beat Thems (7-1):
2008 Round 1 - Wheaton 14-0 over Trine
2008 Round 1 - North Central 44-23 over Thomas More    
2010 Round 1 - Wheaton 31-21 over Coe
2010 Round 1 - North Central 57-7 over St. Norbert
2011 Round 1 - North Central 59-13 over Dubuque
2011 Round 1 - Monmouth 33-27 over Illinois Wesleyan
2012 Round 1 - North Central 41-21 over Cal Lutheran
2012 Round 1 - Elmhurst 27-24 over Coe


Middles (4-3):
2008 Round 2 - Wheaton 59-28 over Wabash
2008 Round 2 - Franklin 38-38 over North Central
2008 Quarters - Wheaton 45-28 over Franklin
2009 Round 1 - Illinois Wesleyan 41-35 over Wabash
2010 Round 2 - Bethel 15-10 over Wheaton
2010 Round 2 - North Central 28-9 over Ohio Northern
2010 Round 2 - Wabash 29-28 over North Central


Purples (0-5):
2008 Semis - Mount 45-24 over Wheaton
2009 Round 2 - Whitewater 45-7 over Illinois Wesleyan
2010 Round 2 - Whitewater 20-10 over North Central
2012 Round 2 - Linfield 30-14 over North Central
2012 Round 2 - St. Thomas 24-17 over Elmhurst

=====

One other comment, which relates to this:

2012: both North Central and Elmhurst won their first-round game, and both then gave respectable showings in second round losses (30-14 to Linfield and 24-17 to St. Thomas, both on the road).  Wheaton, who might have been the best of that triumvirate, stayed home because of their early-season gag job against Albion.

The Albion loss was bad, but it didn't kill Wheaton last year.  Wheaton didn't make the playoffs because they channeled a Wizard of Oz performance in the final two minutes of their game against North Central.  The CCIW tiebreaker in a three-way tie, assuming head-to-head cannot break the tie, is +/- in games among the tied teams.  The three games in question were North Central's 44-10 win over Elmhurst, the Jays' 35-30 win over Wheaton, and the Wheaties' 35-21 win at North Central.  But the end of that latter game was quite illuminating.   North Central scored with just over two minutes left, which gave them a +20 point differential and left Wheaton at +9.  Wheaton got the ball back with plenty of time for a hurry-up drive in a situation where a touchdown would move them into a position where they have the tiebreaker advantage.  Instead, they ran the ball three straight times to end the game.

I do not know if we saw the Scarecrow, and Wheaton didn't grasp the opportunity in front of them, or if we saw the Cowardly Lion and they knew where they stood but elected to stand down, unwilling to risk losing a share of the conference championship at the expense of a potential playoff berth despite a late-game two-touchdown lead.  One explanation reflects poorly on the coaching staff's preparation and situation awareness and the other reflects poorly on the trust they had in their team's ability to execute.  Regardless of how well they would or would not have fared, Wheaton was not in the playoffs last year in part because they chose not to aim for that target.

[emma17]

This thread is a very interesting read - thanks to all that provide detail to support your points.
As a conference outsider, I can tell you that IMO the CCIW from a perception standpoint is without doubt considered a top tier conference to those I talk with anyway.

I mentioned the 2010 NCC team previously only because I feel that was a championship level team that very well may have played the championship in the third round.
I didn't know the Wheaton teams that lost to Mt so I can't comment.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that NCC has unfortunately underachieved in their last two playoff runs- while perhaps the other CCIW teams achieved or overachieved in their recent runs.
This may not be an entirely accurate position- although I stand by my opinion on NCC underachieving.

[NCF]

This thread is a very interesting read - thanks to all that provide detail to support your points.
As a conference outsider, I can tell you that IMO the CCIW from a perception standpoint is without doubt considered a top tier conference to those I talk with anyway. I mentioned the 2010 NCC team previously only because I feel that was a championship level team that very well may have played the championship in the third round.
I didn't know the Wheaton teams that lost to Mt so I can't comment.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that NCC has unfortunately underachieved in their last two playoff runs- while perhaps the other CCIW teams achieved or overachieved in their recent runs.
This may not be an entirely accurate position- although I stand by my opinion on NCC underachieving.

I'm not so sure the CCIW, as a whole, can be considered top tier. Now, the top two or three teams in the conference, yes.

[USee]

Couple of comments on this.

You left off Wheaton's 1995 season where they beat Wittenberg at home (as a decided underdog) and then lost @ Mt Union (after trailing in the 4th quarter 14-7).

Figured you'd flag that.  I left it off for three reasons, which you may or may not disagree with:

1. The playoff format was different in that era -- there were just 16 playoff qualifiers, and the format pre-dates the pool system.  Given that much of my argument regarding playoff success related to the quality of competition, including a year where the size of the playoff field changed these dynamics would seem to muddy the conversation.
2. It feels like an outlier in a conversation about the current era.  Multiple classes of students / players enrolled, matriculated, and graduated between that playoff appearance and the next playoff appearance by Wheaton.  There were a couple of years during that interim window in which the entire student body consisted of kids who did not experience a playoff season in their four years.  When this happens, IMO you're talking about two different eras.
3. Given that it was 18 years ago, I felt the statute of limitations had sort of expired on that season as a proof point.

1995 was one of the three QF seasons you noted, so I get why you believe it belongs in the mix.  It changes the conversation from "we have just one more deep run in the playoffs than you do" to "we have *three* and you only have one".  But from my perspective, including it would be similar to a Michigan fan using their 1997 national championship as a proof point in a conversation with someone regarding the strength of their current football programs.

I can understand this but it wasn't as if there are 10 different seasons, it's only 1 season you are excluding and it does indicate strength of the program over a longer time period.

[formerd3db]

I was thinking about taking in the Wheaton vs. Albion game this weekend- so I checked out how the Britons did last week.  Holy cow, anybody see the box score in their win over Defiance?   

Not that NCC needs more support, but I feel it's a bit misleading when their playoff record is attacked as not making it deep into the playoffs.  Their 2010 team was the victim of unfortunate playoff pairings.  I know this will get the goat of some, but UWW should never have been seeded as low as they were- sending them on the road to NCC in round 3.  With a better seeding, NCC is playing in the Semis and maybe the Stagg- IMO they were at least as good as Mt that year.

I will be surprised if Albion beats Wheaton this weekend as they barely got by Defiance.  I don't think that will happen-just a "gut feeling".

[ExTartanPlayer]

This thread is a very interesting read - thanks to all that provide detail to support your points.
As a conference outsider, I can tell you that IMO the CCIW from a perception standpoint is without doubt considered a top tier conference to those I talk with anyway. I mentioned the 2010 NCC team previously only because I feel that was a championship level team that very well may have played the championship in the third round.
I didn't know the Wheaton teams that lost to Mt so I can't comment.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that NCC has unfortunately underachieved in their last two playoff runs- while perhaps the other CCIW teams achieved or overachieved in their recent runs.
This may not be an entirely accurate position- although I stand by my opinion on NCC underachieving.

I'm not so sure the CCIW, as a whole, can be considered top tier. Now, the top two or three teams in the conference, yes.

By this metric, NO conference is "top tier" because even the OAC, WIAC, and MIAC have their respective weak sisters.

As I've noted...four different teams winning playoff games in five years (no matter against whom) is a claim no other conference can match.  That admittedly says nothing about North Park and Millikin but it still shows that your conference is more than the top two teams.  To compare conferences "as a whole" you have to look at how the bottom-CCIW teams compare to bottom teams in other top-tier conferences, where we don't have a lot of data.  A glance at 2010-2012 shows that even the bottom of the CCIW generally fares well in nonconference play against "weaker" competition.  Last year Carthage beat eventual MIAA champ Adrian and Millikin went 3-0 in nonconference play.  I don't think the bottom of the CCIW is any "worse" than the bottom of the OAC.

[USee]

You also didn't list Wheaton's 7 losses the way you list NCC's:

@Mt Union which then lost to UWLax in the semis (who won the Stagg)
@Mt Union which won the Stagg
@Mt Union which lost the Stagg to St Johns
@Mt Union which lost in Semis to UMHB
@Mt Union which won the Stagg
@Mt Union wich lost the Stagg to UWW
@Mt Union which lost the Stagg to UWW
Vs Bethel which lost in Semis to Mt Union

Wheaton never lost to a team that lost in the QF. Wheaton mad the QF

I didn't list those because I assumed everyone would know that, since almost all of Wheaton's losses were to Mount, their opponent typically went on to play in or win the Stagg Bowl.

My broader point is that there is some nuance behind the 'Wheaton never lost to a team that lost in the QF".  Wheaton has had six playoff teams since the turn of the millennium.  In the first four of those seasons, Wheaton played exactly one team that was not a MIAA cupcake or Mount Union.  So of course they weren't losing to teams that lost in the Quarterfinals -- they were beating up on weaker teams and losing to Mount Union, and had almost no games against middle-tier competition.  Would they have beaten these teams?  Dunno -- they beat the one that they did play, and it was an excellent win.  North Central has played a lot more of these teams, and their record is a mixed bag.  But I think using "we don't lose to teams that lose in the QF" as a proof point is a bit misleading without also considering who they did and did not play.

Lot's of assumptions here so let's look at the facts just to be clear.

In 2002, Wheaton lost to Alma in the regular season before beating them @Alma in the playoffs. Then Wheaton lost @MT Union in what the majority of Mt fans described as their toughest game of the year. This game alone went a long way toward the CCIW raising their profile in the d3 world.

In 2003 Wheaton beat Baldwin-Wallace who was the OAC runner-up and no one thought they had a chance. That was because the year before, John Carroll, who was a one loss OAC team, ran through the east coast in the playoffs like a knife through butter to face Mt Union again. So the OAC runner-up back then was considered the national runner-up/#2 team in the country. It was a huge win for Wheaton and between the 2002 game @Mt Union and the victory over BW in 2003 I would argue those two years gave the the CCIW a lot of credit on the national playoff scene. Many of the d3 fans would subsequently see Wheaton lose a game in conference and think, "Man, that conference must be tough if that school lost". Right or wrong, I believe that was a perception.

And finally, in 2004, Wheaton lost to Mt Union 27-6 which was MT union's 2nd lowest output of their season (and Wheaton gave up more than that in conference 3x) and then the next week, Carthage went to Mt Union and was in a 7 pt game in the 4th quarter before succumbing to the purple people eaters.

So, to dismiss the first 4 years as "the MIAA cupcake and Mt Union" is more than a little misleading when it was precisely those years that the reputation for the CCIW was established.

[USee]

Also, you make the following statement:

So, against the middles, North Central is 2-4 and Wheaton is 3-1.  The biggest driver of this is 2008, where Wheaton secured two of its four wins against middles, and in the process beat a team that had eliminated the Cardinals.  Outside of this season, I really don't see much difference in how the two schools have fared in the playoffs.  Wheaton's losses are mostly to Mount, but their road to get there was not always the most difficult in the world.

You can't make this claim. Wheaton's two biggest coup's were first beating Baldwin Wallace in 2003, when BW had only lost to Mt Union and beat every other OAC team by at least 18 pts. This was when no OAC team had lost in the playoffs to anyone outside of Mt Union and not a single person on these boards (including me) thought Wheaton had any chance of beating BW or even competing with them.

The second was the 2008 season when Wheaton was the 32nd and last team into the field via pool C and a decided underdog on the road the 3 teams and beat them all to make it the semifinals. You can't say "outside of this season" because that's almost 40% of the data AND it includes a road win against the team that beat NCC, who lost at home. Those are some of the biggest differentiators between the two schools in their playoff history (another being that Wheaton has been to 3 QF and 1 Semi and NCC has only been to 1 QF) so you cannot simply say those don't count and the two schools have performed similarly. That's just not sound.

Two comments on this.  One, there's more than a little Lou Holtz in the 'we were the 32nd and last team in the field' comment.  The relative scarcity of at-large berths (seven) and the reliance on regional results to choose from among a set of teams from different regions that have virtually no common opponents means that being last in certainly does not mean you are the weakest team.  There was no doubt that Wheaton was playoff-caliber from a talent standpoint that year; the only question was whether The Only System We Have would allow them the opportunity to keep playing beyond Thanksgiving that year.  Generally speaking, with CCIW Pool C teams, the question is never whether they belong in the field or whether they can hold their own.  It's whether results around the country break in such a way that they get an opportunity to keep playing.

Second: I can and will say 'outside of this season'.  When one season contains 40% of your data points, it will have an outsized influence on a bigger data set.  It makes sense to confirm whether the conclusion you draw from the remaining data is the same as what you would draw from the full data set.  Wheaton unequivocally had a better playoff run in 2008.  The road victories were impressive and it was a demonstration of good success against that middle tier I focused on in my original post.  The question to me was, if you take that year and put it in the "Wheaton" column, then what do the rest of the years look like?  And from my standpoint, they look pretty close to a wash.

My biggest beef is with this commentary. RE: Lou Holtz comment, I didn't say they were the weakest team but it is an undeniable fact they were the 32nd team. Last year they were the 33rd and didn't get in. So be it. It is also pretty well known that the top 4 conferences could get the top half of their teams in every year and do just fine in the playoffs. This isn't a Wheaton specific phenomenon.  But your "Put 2008 in the Wheaton column....and the rest of the years look like....pretty close to a wash" comment is absurd at its best. It is not intellectually honest to table one teams best data and not do the same for the other team. So if you take away Wheaton's 2008 (and apparently 1996) and NCC's 2010, what do you get then? That's much more of a fair comparison.

[NCF]

This thread is a very interesting read - thanks to all that provide detail to support your points.
As a conference outsider, I can tell you that IMO the CCIW from a perception standpoint is without doubt considered a top tier conference to those I talk with anyway. I mentioned the 2010 NCC team previously only because I feel that was a championship level team that very well may have played the championship in the third round.
I didn't know the Wheaton teams that lost to Mt so I can't comment.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that NCC has unfortunately underachieved in their last two playoff runs- while perhaps the other CCIW teams achieved or overachieved in their recent runs.
This may not be an entirely accurate position- although I stand by my opinion on NCC underachieving.

I'm not so sure the CCIW, as a whole, can be considered top tier. Now, the top two or three teams in the conference, yes.

By this metric, NO conference is "top tier" because even the OAC, WIAC, and MIAC have their respective weak sisters.As I've noted...four different teams winning playoff games in five years (no matter against whom) is a claim no other conference can match.  That admittedly says nothing about North Park and Millikin but it still shows that your conference is more than the top two teams.  To compare conferences "as a whole" you have to look at how the bottom-CCIW teams compare to bottom teams in other top-tier conferences, where we don't have a lot of data.  A glance at 2010-2012 shows that even the bottom of the CCIW generally fares well in nonconference play against "weaker" competition.  Last year Carthage beat eventual MIAA champ Adrian and Millikin went 3-0 in nonconference play.  I don't think the bottom of the CCIW is any "worse" than the bottom of the OAC.

Exactly! There are no top tier conferences, just top tier teams. Which is one reason I'd like to see the AQ eliminated and go straight top 32 teams. 

[USee]

2012: both North Central and Elmhurst won their first-round game, and both then gave respectable showings in second round losses (30-14 to Linfield and 24-17 to St. Thomas, both on the road).  Wheaton, who might have been the best of that triumvirate, stayed home because of their early-season gag job against Albion.

The Albion loss was bad, but it didn't kill Wheaton last year.  Wheaton didn't make the playoffs because they channeled a Wizard of Oz performance in the final two minutes of their game against North Central.  The CCIW tiebreaker in a three-way tie, assuming head-to-head cannot break the tie, is +/- in games among the tied teams.  The three games in question were North Central's 44-10 win over Elmhurst, the Jays' 35-30 win over Wheaton, and the Wheaties' 35-21 win at North Central.  But the end of that latter game was quite illuminating.   North Central scored with just over two minutes left, which gave them a +20 point differential and left Wheaton at +9.  Wheaton got the ball back with plenty of time for a hurry-up drive in a situation where a touchdown would move them into a position where they have the tiebreaker advantage.  Instead, they ran the ball three straight times to end the game.

I do not know if we saw the Scarecrow, and Wheaton didn't grasp the opportunity in front of them, or if we saw the Cowardly Lion and they knew where they stood but elected to stand down, unwilling to risk losing a share of the conference championship at the expense of a potential playoff berth despite a late-game two-touchdown lead.  One explanation reflects poorly on the coaching staff's preparation and situation awareness and the other reflects poorly on the trust they had in their team's ability to execute.  Regardless of how well they would or would not have fared, Wheaton was not in the playoffs last year in part because they chose not to aim for that target.

That's an interesting view. The fact remains if Wheaton had defeated Albion last year they would have been in the playoffs as a 2 loss team was taken and Wheaton would have been a 1 loss team. Not much of an argument there. The rest of your point is valid as they did not manage the tie breaker vs NCC, which has been beaten like a dead horse in here so I won't re-tread.

[USee]

Also, Trine in 2008 is absolute not a "should have beaten". Trine would have beaten most of the playoff field that year (and if you notice they did beat Franklin--whom you list as a middle--who beat NCC). I also think you can ask UWW fans what they think of the Trine program from their experience. Not a "should have beaten team" by any stretch. I could make the same argument for Coe in 2010 but I will not split hairs on that one.

Kiko, thanks for all this analysis and the arguments, makes the board much more enjoyable to participate in.

[USee]

This thread is a very interesting read - thanks to all that provide detail to support your points.
As a conference outsider, I can tell you that IMO the CCIW from a perception standpoint is without doubt considered a top tier conference to those I talk with anyway. I mentioned the 2010 NCC team previously only because I feel that was a championship level team that very well may have played the championship in the third round.
I didn't know the Wheaton teams that lost to Mt so I can't comment.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that NCC has unfortunately underachieved in their last two playoff runs- while perhaps the other CCIW teams achieved or overachieved in their recent runs.
This may not be an entirely accurate position- although I stand by my opinion on NCC underachieving.

I'm not so sure the CCIW, as a whole, can be considered top tier. Now, the top two or three teams in the conference, yes.

By this metric, NO conference is "top tier" because even the OAC, WIAC, and MIAC have their respective weak sisters.

As I've noted...four different teams winning playoff games in five years (no matter against whom) is a claim no other conference can match.  That admittedly says nothing about North Park and Millikin but it still shows that your conference is more than the top two teams.  To compare conferences "as a whole" you have to look at how the bottom-CCIW teams compare to bottom teams in other top-tier conferences, where we don't have a lot of data.  A glance at 2010-2012 shows that even the bottom of the CCIW generally fares well in nonconference play against "weaker" competition.  Last year Carthage beat eventual MIAA champ Adrian and Millikin went 3-0 in nonconference play.  I don't think the bottom of the CCIW is any "worse" than the bottom of the OAC.

Actually, every team except North Park has been the playoffs from the CCIW in the last 12 years. That's 7 teams in 12 years with playoff appearances and all those teams except Millikin won at least 1 game. I agree with ExTartan, pretty impressive