FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[cciwman]

As the rankings are debated, one team which has not been mentioned is St. Johns.  If you watched the St. Johns vs Aurora game, you saw two teams competing to the end and both with visual flaws during the game.  A week later, Aurora got waxed and probably would not have scored if it weren't for a NCC fumble inside the 10.  I don't think there is any question Wheaton and the rest Top 5 teams are in a group by themselves.

Then again, you have the NCAA Division III rankings and St. Johns is listed 5th.  https://twitter.com/NCAADIII/status/1440030808157220872?s=20 .  Just goes to show you many voters don't pay attention and that is sad as they are no where near the team they have been the past couple years.

[Gregory Sager]

That's not "the NCAA Division III rankings" ... that's just the NCAA Division III Twitter account posting the top fifth of the new AFCA poll.

[Neverwas]

Good notes Greg. How would you rank the programs?

Yes, agreed. I too would be interested in Greg's opinions.

[kiko]

I would be curious to know if the regional committees are again ranking ten teams per region, or if that will be reduced because each of the regions is now smaller.

Related - if you go back and look at the final 2019 RRs, North Central was actually 1-1 versus RROs.  The North committee moved WashU into the final rankings (the ones done concurrent with bid selections) to boost the Cardinals' resume.  I would assume that the committee may take similar action if there is a similar opportunity this year to aid a region team that is bubblish.

[Gregory Sager]

Good notes Greg. How would you rank the programs?

Yes, agreed. I too would be interested in Greg's opinions.

Like I said, I need BigRedScots to be more specific about what exactly he's asking me to rank in terms of CCIW football coaching jobs. I'd be happy to give my two cents' worth; I just need to know what I'm giving them for.

[USee]

I would be curious to know if the regional committees are again ranking ten teams per region, or if that will be reduced because each of the regions is now smaller.

Related - if you go back and look at the final 2019 RRs, North Central was actually 1-1 versus RROs.  The North committee moved WashU into the final rankings (the ones done concurrent with bid selections) to boost the Cardinals' resume.  I would assume that the committee may take similar action if there is a similar opportunity this year to aid a region team that is bubblish.

I haven't looked into this yet, but I wonder if the committees are the same or that's reconfigured too with the regions changing?

[kiko]

I would be curious to know if the regional committees are again ranking ten teams per region, or if that will be reduced because each of the regions is now smaller.

Related - if you go back and look at the final 2019 RRs, North Central was actually 1-1 versus RROs.  The North committee moved WashU into the final rankings (the ones done concurrent with bid selections) to boost the Cardinals' resume.  I would assume that the committee may take similar action if there is a similar opportunity this year to aid a region team that is bubblish.

I haven't looked into this yet, but I wonder if the committees are the same or that's reconfigured too with the regions changing?

My assumption is that some members will change as their conferences are now in other regions (OAC, MIAA, NCAC, HCAC are all now Region 4, for example).  And some will stay the same from conferences that are still grouped with the CCIW.  And some members will shuffle as different reps come on board.

So whether the new/remaining members continue with a similar philosophy is an open question.

ETA:  Unless I am missing something, it looks like the only conference that was previously grouped with the CCIW that is still in their region is the NACC.  The ARC and Midwest were previously West Region.

[Gregory Sager]

It depends upon whether or not the D3 football committee's bylaws state that the regional rep has to be from that region. My guess is that they do, but I'm not assuming that. Perhaps Pat knows.

As you can see, the current committee does not have a member who is part of Region V. It had two as recently as 2019, but Jim Catanzaro (Lake Forest head football coach) and Mike Schulist (Carroll AD) must've had their terms expire in 2020 or 2021.

[wally_wabash]

RE: Wheaton's SOS

In 2019, North Central's non-conference opponent finished 2-8.  Christopher Newport ought to do better than that on average, so North Central caught some bad luck there, but obviously not enough to keep them out. 

Northwestern doesn't play in the NJAC, but comparing Northwestern to CNU in 2019, Northwestern actually ended that season with a higher OWP than CNU did.  We'll see where Northwestern's OWP lands this year (it doesn't look like it will be quite as high- Central helped a lot)but if Northwestern can win 4-5 games, I don't think this will be the SOS disaster that might be feared.  It's hard to get too far away from that .500 number when you play in a 10-team league with a full round robin.  If for some reason, that number ends up in the .460s and there isn't another ranked opponent that emerges from Wheaton's schedule, Selection Sunday gets very interesting. 

I'd also note that in 2019 some weird stuff happened that made the Pool C bubble very, very small. 
- Redlands and Chapman both upset NWC teams and created profiles (high SOS + RRO wins) that made the SCIAC a two-bid league.  No bid stealing there- those were earned, but that's also not the norm and that's not repeated this year 
- Central upset Wartburg and stole a bid- Wartburg's SOS was over .550 and they were a lock
- UW-Oshkosh upset UW-Whitewater in the last game of the DIII regular season and stole a bid 

Could weird stuff happen this year?  Definitely.  We also don't quite know how the extra regions are going to influence the selections.  Do two extra choices on the table help or hurt a team that has the kind of profile that Wheaton is probably going to have (SOS just under .500, 0-1 vs RRO)?  We just don't know.  It's going to be fun to really dive in on this over the last few weeks of the season.

I think a RRO of 0-1 is overly pessimistic. Do we know how many teams are going to be ranked regionally? If it's 8 like I have seen mentioned but I don't think confirmed is 8. With the CCIW, ARC, NACC, MWC as the region, is there any way the CCIW doesn't end up with 3 ranked teams as long as CCIW's 3-10 don't continually beat each other up. Wheaton, North Central, two out of the ARC and one each from the NACC and MWC means you still have two more regionally ranked spots to use.

That's a good expansion upon Pat's earlier point this morning that being separated from the WIAC and the OAC in the new alignment benefits the CCIW in terms of garnering an at-large bid, in the sense that the CCIW is likely to get at least one other team regionally ranked (allowing Wheaton to at least break even in RRO) regardless of how relatively mediocre the rest of the CCIW's upper half happens to be this season. Of course, RRO is a separate criterion than SOS, the latter of which is almost certainly going to be not-so-good for Wheaton.

0-1 vs RRO is a worst case scenario for Wheaton, obviously.  If anybody else from the CCIW does get into the final ranking, Wheaton's inclusion in the Football Championship is academic (it may well be, anyway). 

For the sake of the exercise, I'm going to assume a couple of things:

- that losing four games is a regional ranking disqualifier.  7-3 is the minimum record required for ranking (but still not guaranteed).
- every CCIW team that isn't Wheaton and North Central are going to lose to Wheaton and North Central

With that in mind,

- WashU, Millikin, IWU, Elmhurst, Carthage, and NPU all lost their non-conference game.  Any of these teams would need to go 7-2 in conference play (the 2 are baked in) to have a chance to get in to the back end of the regional rankings. 
- Augustana and Carroll won their non-conference games, so could conceivably get ranked with a 6-3 conference record.  Augustana has already dropped their game in hand, so no more margin for error for the Vikings.  Carroll?  Who knows!  Their best CCIW record so far has been 2-7 so they would need to outperform their best CCIW performance (modern era) by 4 games to get to that 7-3 zone. 

So maybe WashU can get there?  Maybe Millikin?  Maybe Augustana?  But if nobody separates from that second level of the league and they all beat each other up, the CCIW is going to end up with a lot of 5-5s and 6-4s and that probably doesn't get ranked.  So 0-1 vs RRO isn't out of the question.

FWIW I am in no way advocating for Wheaton to not be part of the championship.  That wouldn't be good for anybody except maybe the Butterburger Bowl.   

[bleedpurple]

I totally get fans being irked that 2 teams they beat are ranked higher but I am not sure what sense it makes for a coach to voice that to his players. Pretty entertaining clip Pat!

It's funny to me that Coach Thorne is pretending to be offended by their place in the polls. And there was not a team ranked ahead of his team that they beat by 24 points. Two very different teams in a very different year. I look forward to him finding that out.

The polls are certainly more speculative, but you do have an NCC team with a large number of returning starters and players from their Championship team. So ranking UWW ahead of the defending champions, given what we know about each team, seems like some voters are putting a longer history on their vote than logical. I think UWW is top 5 but I would definitely rank NCC (before last week) ahead of them and Mt Union. I know that's blasphemy in Purple country, but I am certainly not alone in that thinking.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion. And obviously those voting express theirs each week. If the NCAA were to use the D3football poll as a part of the selection process (even a tie-breaker), then I would be more concerned about it. As it lies, it serves as fodder and a starting point for some great discussion.

I find it interesting that Coach Thorne really cares that much (if he really does).  I think you'd have to look long and hard to find any fans of UW-W or Mount Union who care that much about the polls. And the coaches care even less. Because (and Greg, feel free to use this to open a podcast), they only worry about what they can control, not what they can't control. To me (again, just my opinion), for a coach to care about a poll is allowing himself to be distracted by something he can't control.  On the other hand, if he doesn't really care, but uses it for motivation, that raises a different set of questions for me.

[kiko]

What questions does it raise if it is purely a motivational device?

[robertgoulet]

I totally get fans being irked that 2 teams they beat are ranked higher but I am not sure what sense it makes for a coach to voice that to his players. Pretty entertaining clip Pat!

It's funny to me that Coach Thorne is pretending to be offended by their place in the polls. And there was not a team ranked ahead of his team that they beat by 24 points. Two very different teams in a very different year. I look forward to him finding that out.

The polls are certainly more speculative, but you do have an NCC team with a large number of returning starters and players from their Championship team. So ranking UWW ahead of the defending champions, given what we know about each team, seems like some voters are putting a longer history on their vote than logical. I think UWW is top 5 but I would definitely rank NCC (before last week) ahead of them and Mt Union. I know that's blasphemy in Purple country, but I am certainly not alone in that thinking.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion. And obviously those voting express theirs each week. If the NCAA were to use the D3football poll as a part of the selection process (even a tie-breaker), then I would be more concerned about it. As it lies, it serves as fodder and a starting point for some great discussion.

I find it interesting that Coach Thorne really cares that much (if he really does).  I think you'd have to look long and hard to find any fans of UW-W or Mount Union who care that much about the polls. And the coaches care even less. Because (and Greg, feel free to use this to open a podcast), they only worry about what they can control, not what they can't control. To me (again, just my opinion), for a coach to care about a poll is allowing himself to be distracted by something he can't control.  On the other hand, if he doesn't really care, but uses it for motivation, that raises a different set of questions for me.

Mount and UWW don't have to fight for respect bc it's been earned. Until NCC does it a couple of times they're going to have to fight for respect. I think UWW and Mt Union would each have been given the benefit of the doubt and been ranked #1 until proven otherwise. I see nothing wrong with what he's doing.

Does it matter? I'd argue in the recruiting world it does probably help NCC more to be able to say they're #1 than it would help the other 2.

[lmitzel]

I totally get fans being irked that 2 teams they beat are ranked higher but I am not sure what sense it makes for a coach to voice that to his players. Pretty entertaining clip Pat!

It's funny to me that Coach Thorne is pretending to be offended by their place in the polls. And there was not a team ranked ahead of his team that they beat by 24 points. Two very different teams in a very different year. I look forward to him finding that out.

The polls are certainly more speculative, but you do have an NCC team with a large number of returning starters and players from their Championship team. So ranking UWW ahead of the defending champions, given what we know about each team, seems like some voters are putting a longer history on their vote than logical. I think UWW is top 5 but I would definitely rank NCC (before last week) ahead of them and Mt Union. I know that's blasphemy in Purple country, but I am certainly not alone in that thinking.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion. And obviously those voting express theirs each week. If the NCAA were to use the D3football poll as a part of the selection process (even a tie-breaker), then I would be more concerned about it. As it lies, it serves as fodder and a starting point for some great discussion.

I find it interesting that Coach Thorne really cares that much (if he really does).  I think you'd have to look long and hard to find any fans of UW-W or Mount Union who care that much about the polls. And the coaches care even less. Because (and Greg, feel free to use this to open a podcast), they only worry about what they can control, not what they can't control. To me (again, just my opinion), for a coach to care about a poll is allowing himself to be distracted by something he can't control.  On the other hand, if he doesn't really care, but uses it for motivation, that raises a different set of questions for me.

Mount and UWW don't have to fight for respect bc it's been earned. Until NCC does it a couple of times they're going to have to fight for respect. I think UWW and Mt Union would each have been given the benefit of the doubt and been ranked #1 until proven otherwise. I see nothing wrong with what he's doing.

Does it matter? I'd argue in the recruiting world it does probably help NCC more to be able to say they're #1 than it would help the other 2.

I don't see the problem, either. The whole "Nobody believes in us!" motivational tactic has been used forever by teams everywhere. Why are we raising questions about it now with this particular team?

[hazzben]

I see it as a motivational tactic.

NCC is an elite team that just beat the only other elite team in your conference 21-7. Thorne and the coaches need to keep their team focused and obsessed with improvement each week, when in reality they'll be heavy favorites in every game for the rest of the regular season. To win the Stagg you'll have to beat very good and elite teams. To do that, you can't afford to ease up for even a minute. So Thorne is looking for anything he can find to stoke the motivational desires of 18-22 year old young men.

Teams and coaches do it differently. UWW is all about its "Pound the Rock" slogan. It works for them, it creates an identity, and drives motivation. Wheaton will no doubt be drilling to their team, we are in playoff mode right now. We have to win out, and win convincingly each week to show we deserve a Pool C bid. If Mount Union beats JCU Saturday, for all we know, they might be calling out that Mount hasn't won the national title since 2017, to drive some motivation over the rest of the OAC schedule.

[lfter]

As the rankings are debated, one team which has not been mentioned is St. Johns.  If you watched the St. Johns vs Aurora game, you saw two teams competing to the end and both with visual flaws during the game.  A week later, Aurora got waxed and probably would not have scored if it weren't for a NCC fumble inside the 10.  I don't think there is any question Wheaton and the rest Top 5 teams are in a group by themselves.

Then again, you have the NCAA Division III rankings and St. Johns is listed 5th.  https://twitter.com/NCAADIII/status/1440030808157220872?s=20 .  Just goes to show you many voters don't pay attention and that is sad as they are no where near the team they have been the past couple years.

I'm a North Central fan through and through and yes NCC is a much better team than Aurora but making comparisons between Aurora's game with St Johns and NCC is like comparing apples with oranges, not only do they match up differently but NCC came in fresh while Aurora played two tough teams in a row and that first game with St. Johns had to have taken something out of them