FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[AO]

On the topic of St. Thomas, athletic dominance, and enrollment figures, I've been doing some research into what actually constitutes as a competitive advantage in D3FB. Here's a plot of relative 2015 enrollment figures for every football-playing D3 school versus their average rating in my system over the last 16 seasons. Compared to cost of attendance, acceptance rate, graduation rate, and pretty much every other quantitative stat you can find on D3 schools, enrollment has by far the strongest correlation to on-field success.

D3 is not D1; size does matter, but it's not as simple as "going into the cafeteria and finding the best football players." Cherry-picking UW-Eau Claire's (recent) or other large schools competitive struggles as anecdotes for why it doesn't matter isn't a fair argument (commenters on the Star Tribune article may not be as informed as posters here).

I don't think anyone was making the argument that enrollment was less important to football success than graduation rate.  On a list of the top ten factors that affect college football success, recruiting would be 1-9.  Enrollment is generally only important as a factor in recruiting when a recruit chooses a larger program as the smaller school is so small it doesn't offer the academic program the recruit is looking for.  The MIAC schools are all well above the median D3 enrollment of 1500 and have a wide variety of majors.  When you're just looking at the football players, I'm sure we would find that a vast majority of the players could find their major at every MIAC college.

[AUPepBand]

Pep's trip would not be complete without a stop at Perkins Stadium home of the UW-WHITEWATER WARHAWKS.  It's a really nice facility and it would be easy to check out the rest of our facilities which are located adjacent to the stadium.

Pep did pay Perkins (huge!) a visit during a whirlwind 7-day, 7-theme park tour with Pep Jr. and one of his peers back in 2009. Pep has friends in Milton, WI and visited Milton College for Seventh Day Baptist Church conferences on a couple of occasions when just a teen.

Perkins is special to Pep because, just as prophesied on the Empire 8 boards in May 2012, the Buffalo State Bengals went there and snapped the D3 title threepeat Warhawks' 46-game win streak, 7-6. The very next week, in the Bengals' Empire 8 debut at home on Coyer Field, Pep's Saxons, trailing 10-7 at halftime, unleashed the beast known as Chuck Beckwith, who, from the wildcat formation single-handedly beat the Bengals in a 40-17 AU win.

On Saxon Warriors!

[AUPepBand]

Pep enjoys visiting D3 stadiums...given Pep's tentative itinerary, are there any D3 venues that are "must see"?

Pep, is this a trick question?

Clemens Stadium of course.......
http://www.gojohnnies.com/sports/2009/5/19/FOOTBALL_0519091156.aspx

During your trip,you won't experience the game day atmosphere but the photo kind of gives you an idea.

Of course it's a trick question. Clemens Stadium has been on my bucket list since....since they invented buckets!   

Definitely want to see it albeit sans game day atmosphere. Pep has an imagination and is fully capable of creating a roaring crowd in his mind. Heck, during serendipitous impromptu tour of Notre Dame Stadium back in 2001, after having slapped the "Play Like A Champion Sign" going down to the field level, once in the tunnel, Pep could hear the crowd chanting "SNY DER" "SNY DER" "SNY DER" and when running out onto the field, the chanting was rudely interrupted by the gruffly voice of (legendary) Coach Alex Yunevich hollering from the field house at the north end of Merrill Field, "Get the hell off the field!"

On Saxon Warriors!

Hey Pep, welcome aboard the MIAC board...

You do know, don't you, that driving from the twin cities out to see Clemens Stadium is like driving from Alfred to Houghton, only about three or four times longer, right? Both destination schools are in the middle of nowhere, but have a great atmosphere once you get on campus.

You must be a Houghton grad, same as Mrs. Pep? +K

[jknezek]

On the topic of St. Thomas, athletic dominance, and enrollment figures, I've been doing some research into what actually constitutes as a competitive advantage in D3FB. Here's a plot of relative 2015 enrollment figures for every football-playing D3 school versus their average rating in my system over the last 16 seasons. Compared to cost of attendance, acceptance rate, graduation rate, and pretty much every other quantitative stat you can find on D3 schools, enrollment has by far the strongest correlation to on-field success.


https://static.wixstatic.com/media/21a7bc_8958abf1e6e94931a97001e023124abb~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_371,al_c/21a7bc_8958abf1e6e94931a97001e023124abb~mv2.png


D3 is not D1; size does matter, but it's not as simple as "going into the cafeteria and finding the best football players." Cherry-picking UW-Eau Claire's (recent) or other large schools competitive struggles as anecdotes for why it doesn't matter isn't a fair argument (commenters on the Star Tribune article may not be as informed as posters here).

If I remember my statistics correctly, and using some explanatory terms to help facilitate the discussion, your correlation coefficient is .175 correct? Scale of -1 to 1 with a -1 being a perfect inverse relationship (size is a perfect detriment to your rankings) and 1 being a perfect positive relationship (size is always related positively to your rankings). So there is some positive correlation, but is it really significant? As I'm sure you know, there is no true agreed upon "this is significant" level for R^2, so while this is clearly a simple application (limited variables), it appears there is a correlation, but not a strong one. If this is the greatest correlation you were able to calculate, I would say that you haven't found the true X axis factor that correlates to a high ranking, probably because successful recruitment and coaching aren't easily measurable.

I won't bother with the potential problems of your Y axis, which could be the other significant issue, because I'm not sure how it would be solved. Your rankings are probably fair enough to be as good as D3football.com's for this application, but the limited cross pollination of games among the pool of teams leaves the rankings as a crude approximation... especially outside the top 10. Those top 10 generally have some useful data given the last rounds of the NCAA tournament, but 10-25 the quality of the rankings is much more suspect.

Please understand I'm not knocking your rankings or this fun bit of data you provided, I'm just exploring and explaining what I see as the limits in terms of stating, as a fact, that enrollment size does or does not matter.

[AUPepBand]

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that reads this that will know what a Hodag is without looking it up. I've been among the mythical creatures as they live in the forest areas around Rhinelander. They devour white bulldogs as a delicacy.

BDB - maybe just you and me - as we travel through Hodag country going back and forth between our family cabin in Conover, WI - North of Eagle River.

So Art, you did your freshman year at Houghton, then transferred to Bethel? Pep has a dear friend who did graduate work at Alfred, then went on to seminary at Bethel. Last I knew, he was pastoring the largest Seventh Day Baptist Church in the country, located in Milton, Wisconsin.

[OzJohnnie]

[USTBench]

On the topic of St. Thomas, athletic dominance, and enrollment figures, I've been doing some research into what actually constitutes as a competitive advantage in D3FB. Here's a plot of relative 2015 enrollment figures for every football-playing D3 school versus their average rating in my system over the last 16 seasons. Compared to cost of attendance, acceptance rate, graduation rate, and pretty much every other quantitative stat you can find on D3 schools, enrollment has by far the strongest correlation to on-field success.


https://static.wixstatic.com/media/21a7bc_8958abf1e6e94931a97001e023124abb~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_371,al_c/21a7bc_8958abf1e6e94931a97001e023124abb~mv2.png


D3 is not D1; size does matter, but it's not as simple as "going into the cafeteria and finding the best football players." Cherry-picking UW-Eau Claire's (recent) or other large schools competitive struggles as anecdotes for why it doesn't matter isn't a fair argument (commenters on the Star Tribune article may not be as informed as posters here).

If I remember my statistics correctly, and using some explanatory terms to help facilitate the discussion, your correlation coefficient is .175 correct? Scale of -1 to 1 with a -1 being a perfect inverse relationship (size is a perfect detriment to your rankings) and 1 being a perfect positive relationship (size is always related positively to your rankings). So there is some positive correlation, but is it really significant? As I'm sure you know, there is no true agreed upon "this is significant" level for R^2, so while this is clearly a simple application (limited variables), it appears there is a correlation, but not a strong one. If this is the greatest correlation you were able to calculate, I would say that you haven't found the true X axis factor that correlates to a high ranking, probably because successful recruitment and coaching aren't easily measurable.

I won't bother with the potential problems of your Y axis, which could be the other significant issue, because I'm not sure how it would be solved. Your rankings are probably fair enough to be as good as D3football.com's for this application, but the limited cross pollination of games among the pool of teams leaves the rankings as a crude approximation... especially outside the top 10. Those top 10 generally have some useful data given the last rounds of the NCAA tournament, but 10-25 the quality of the rankings is much more suspect.

Please understand I'm not knocking your rankings or this fun bit of data you provided, I'm just exploring and explaining what I see as the limits in terms of stating, as a fact, that enrollment size does or does not matter.

[art76]

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that reads this that will know what a Hodag is without looking it up. I've been among the mythical creatures as they live in the forest areas around Rhinelander. They devour white bulldogs as a delicacy.

BDB - maybe just you and me - as we travel through Hodag country going back and forth between our family cabin in Conover, WI - North of Eagle River.

So Art, you did your freshman year at Houghton, then transferred to Bethel? Pep has a dear friend who did graduate work at Alfred, then went on to seminary at Bethel. Last I knew, he was pastoring the largest Seventh Day Baptist Church in the country, located in Milton, Wisconsin.

Actually a year and a half, then Jamestown Community College for a semester (picked up my AA) and then on to Bethel College (now University). Never took any Seminary classes while there. Played a lot of racquet-ball on their courts though, as they usually were less busy and worth the walk. And my wife and I were wed in the chapel there, as her dad was the director of admissions there for over 20 years. He probably knows your friend.

I was at Houghton fall of 77 through fall of 78, and at Bethel fall of 79 to spring of 82, when I graduated.

If you want to follow up on the possible connections PM me or e-mail me here: art dot gibbens at gmail dot com.

[Boys of Fall]

On the topic of St. Thomas, athletic dominance, and enrollment figures, I've been doing some research into what actually constitutes as a competitive advantage in D3FB. Here's a plot of relative 2015 enrollment figures for every football-playing D3 school versus their average rating in my system over the last 16 seasons. Compared to cost of attendance, acceptance rate, graduation rate, and pretty much every other quantitative stat you can find on D3 schools, enrollment has by far the strongest correlation to on-field success.


https://static.wixstatic.com/media/21a7bc_8958abf1e6e94931a97001e023124abb~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_371,al_c/21a7bc_8958abf1e6e94931a97001e023124abb~mv2.png


D3 is not D1; size does matter, but it's not as simple as "going into the cafeteria and finding the best football players." Cherry-picking UW-Eau Claire's (recent) or other large schools competitive struggles as anecdotes for why it doesn't matter isn't a fair argument (commenters on the Star Tribune article may not be as informed as posters here).

I hope my wife doesn't peruse this site, I've been telling her for years size doesn't matter.

[HSCTiger74]

On the topic of St. Thomas, athletic dominance, and enrollment figures, I've been doing some research into what actually constitutes as a competitive advantage in D3FB. Here's a plot of relative 2015 enrollment figures for every football-playing D3 school versus their average rating in my system over the last 16 seasons. Compared to cost of attendance, acceptance rate, graduation rate, and pretty much every other quantitative stat you can find on D3 schools, enrollment has by far the strongest correlation to on-field success.


https://static.wixstatic.com/media/21a7bc_8958abf1e6e94931a97001e023124abb~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_371,al_c/21a7bc_8958abf1e6e94931a97001e023124abb~mv2.png


D3 is not D1; size does matter, but it's not as simple as "going into the cafeteria and finding the best football players." Cherry-picking UW-Eau Claire's (recent) or other large schools competitive struggles as anecdotes for why it doesn't matter isn't a fair argument (commenters on the Star Tribune article may not be as informed as posters here).

If I remember my statistics correctly, and using some explanatory terms to help facilitate the discussion, your correlation coefficient is .175 correct? Scale of -1 to 1 with a -1 being a perfect inverse relationship (size is a perfect detriment to your rankings) and 1 being a perfect positive relationship (size is always related positively to your rankings). So there is some positive correlation, but is it really significant? As I'm sure you know, there is no true agreed upon "this is significant" level for R^2, so while this is clearly a simple application (limited variables), it appears there is a correlation, but not a strong one. If this is the greatest correlation you were able to calculate, I would say that you haven't found the true X axis factor that correlates to a high ranking, probably because successful recruitment and coaching aren't easily measurable.

I won't bother with the potential problems of your Y axis, which could be the other significant issue, because I'm not sure how it would be solved. Your rankings are probably fair enough to be as good as D3football.com's for this application, but the limited cross pollination of games among the pool of teams leaves the rankings as a crude approximation... especially outside the top 10. Those top 10 generally have some useful data given the last rounds of the NCAA tournament, but 10-25 the quality of the rankings is much more suspect.

Please understand I'm not knocking your rankings or this fun bit of data you provided, I'm just exploring and explaining what I see as the limits in terms of stating, as a fact, that enrollment size does or does not matter.

                                                     

                                          https://youtu.be/M9d7oG4WTyY

                                             

[OzJohnnie]

Ha! +k times a number, 74!

[carletonknights]

An interesting read in the Trib today:

http://www.startribune.com/st-thomas-is-dominating-the-miac-as-never-before/380666931/

Hamline AD Jason Verdugo said Wisconsin-Superior's recent move from the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference prompted him to do an analysis of the benefits of the switch, which he estimates would mean 55 more victories a year across all sports. Verdugo said he was only being "inquisitive," but added that winning helps in attracting prospective students and "keeping kids once they get on campus. Certainly, you want to have an environment that's very positive and very good and makes their experience worthwhile."

Do we get Mac too if the Pipers move?  Those two seem like a package deal.

The more likely scenario, as the article noted, would be the academic "elites" (St Olaf, Carleton, Mac) leaving and lining up with Grinnell and a few others of the same kind in the region. If an opening were to happen St Scholastica would jump on a moments notice into the MIAC, based on what I have heard, and be fairly competitive in many sports too. Duluth would be a nice extension for the conference to move into.

I hope Hamline isn't considering anything based on what UW Superior is doing. Thats not a remotely comparable academic outpost to anyone in the MIAC. Heck, they had trouble with WIAC standards. It would be like Indiana looking at a move Ball State makes and considering it for themselves.

Carleton is very content to remain in the MIAC and will remain as such for the foreseeable future.  While there are many at the college who would wish to see football join a conference they'd be much more competitive in, the administration is willing to sacrifice (so to speak) the football team to ensure that the other varsity teams (which can actually compete in the MIAC) don't have to miss more class than absolutely necessary.  No man is a more avid supporter of football freedom from the MIAC than President P. who wishes that the Knights could play the likes of UChicago and WashU, but it's just not worth pursuing if the rest of the teams would have to leave too.  Also, I believe there are many at the college who believe that the less is spent on athletics, the better.

[sowilson]

The other sports at Carleton wouldn't have to leave the MIAC if the football team left.  Take a look at Macalester.

[DuffMan]

The other sports at Carleton wouldn't have to leave the MIAC if the football team left.  Take a look at Macalester.

According to the article, that is no longer allowed by the MIAC.

Macalester's football program left the MIAC in 2001, which prompted a rule change prohibiting conference members from leaving in a sport the conference offers.

[carletonknights]

Apparently when Mac first joined the MIAC they were worried about the competition for their football team so they had a clause built into their membership contract allowing for football to leave and their other sports to remain.  Kudos to them, it seems to have worked out well so far: one conference championship that they never would've gotten if they were still in the MIAC.