FB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Pat Coleman]

Monrovia Cat,

In the AFCA "coaches poll" Wheaton #7, LF #8, UR #25....I put more merit in this poll than D3.com poll...sorry Pat

Of course you do -- if we ranked your team better, you'd like ours, right? But the coaches' poll is usually very kind to the lower-tier conferences, and we're kind to the conferences whose teams win playoff games, which is why ours is more accurate every November.

It was nice to see the coaches poll finally got around to ranking UMHB No. 1.

That is not true Pat, I think coaches know more about football than the media. D1 to D99...

Then why is the coaches' poll not as accurate as ours?

No doubt, "coaches know more about football than the media" -- however, they are focused on their own team and conference and they generally (not always) don't do a very good job figuring out who the other strong teams are nationally. Coaches' poll in Division III football is more a measure of how good your win-loss record is, not how good your team is.

[D O.C.]

....and with that

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL

[USee]

Monrovia Cat,

In the AFCA "coaches poll" Wheaton #7, LF #8, UR #25....I put more merit in this poll than D3.com poll...sorry Pat

I agree Wheaton and LF are no where near the class of MU or Osh, this season. LF' qb was great but the RBs were slower than the past, the O line and D line we not as good as in the past. They lost an ALL American Guard and #55 a Redlands killer. Not the same team, sorry Kity Kats, just not...you got blown out by 39 this season. Who would have taken that bet.

Lets look at MHB run....UR was up at halftime and MHB was lucky it was only 7 point lead, the score was 37-28 with 11 minutes left and UR was on MHB goal line, MHB holds UR on the worse spot in the tournament ...UR was robbed. The game should have been a 37-35 game with 10 minutes left. This was a much more competitive game than LF or Wheaton gave MHB. LF was down and being manhandled 27-3, until they ran back a punt in garbage time. Wheaton was slightly more competitive but was down at half, and lost by 22. Never rallied in the fourth.

So as RFB says Polls sux, I agree the are stupid based on what I described above, but the facts above prove UR's quality of play at the end of the season was pretty competitive, and I argue better than Wheaton and LF. It does not matter what conference we play in or our away pant jersey's do not match. Maybe a 25 is too low....What I never talked about was UR lost their number one QB to a broken collar bone and #1 RB mid season to a broken foot and still finished strong. They made huge strides of improvement week to week. RFB witnesses it at the CLU game...

Sorry for being logical...I know this is a message board.

I am not a big fan of dissecting quality of losses. And your main point is that Redlands should be in the top 25 for the final poll. I have no disagreement there. But let's not distort the facts. Redlands, Wheaton and Linfield all lost @MHB by 22, 22, 17 in the playoffs. To say Redlands was somehow more competitive with MHB than the other two is subjective at best and borders on serious homerism. Forget the fact that Redland's offense scored exactly 7 points against MHB and had 80 yds, 4 first downs and a TD on the opening drive and had just 100 yds and 10 first downs the rest of the game. Don't worry about the fact that MHB racked up 356 yds rushing, 31 first downs and 50 points on Redlands. And your "worst spot in the tournament" came after Redlands special teams ran a kick return back to the MHB 25 and then gained just 23 yds in 6 plays and ran a fake FG on 4th down. In the fourth quarter of the game, when Redlands needed points, the offense produced 9 plays for 16 yds in 3 drives with 2 INT's. If not for a 100 yd KO Return TD and a 40 yd fumble recovery TD (235 return yds vs 184 offensive yards), Redlands got run out of the stadium in every other facet of the game.

Linfield put up 375 yds offense and 20 first downs while giving up 415 and just 16 first downs. Their offense only scored 3 points though and that was mainly because MHB's defense is brutally good, which every team in the tournament realized. Linfield lost because their offense couldn't score and they couldn't protect the long ball to TJ Losey. Their offense was productive and they held the MHB rushing attack well below their season average.

Wheaton had 315 yds offense and 189 first downs while giving up 334 yds and 15 first downs. Like Redlands Wheaton got to the MHB 15 yd line (after an 11 play 66 yd drive) in the 4th quarter hoping to make it a one score game and was stopped on downs. Wheaton lost the turnover and special teams battle (blocked punt for a TD and INT return for TD) and was equal to MHB in other areas.

The stats and the scores for Linfield and Wheaton were pretty balanced against MHB. For Redlands, the only thing that was close for any amount of time was the score and that was due to Redlands winning the battle of special teams. Redlands offense and defense was NOT as competitive with MHB as Linfield and Wheaton were. You can't give up 600 yds, 31 first downs and 50 points while gaining 180, 14 first downs and 7 pts in the playoffs and claim your team was more competitive IMO.

[D O.C.]

Now olddog, USee?

[olddog]

Last time I check it was about the score board, not the Stat-board. There are several facts that have surfaced, some really really  humorous to me

1) UR effort against MHB was more competitive than both LF and Wheaton, UR was in the game in the fourth quarter with 6+minutes left...I don't care what the stats say.....
          In fact UR had the biggest lead on MHB in the playoffs...I guess that stat does not matter, I guess the game is not about points, its about history and stats...throw in a few clever comments too..
2) I have been enlighten, When analyzing a game I guess special teams do not matter (thanks USee) and did we ever wonder why UR did better, because we have better team speed than Wheaton, LF, Osh, and MU....The difference in the last two teams was  they had better fronts. Osh front seven played great in stopping the run game. MHB started pooching it because they could not cover KO
3) Give UR another crack at MHB and their RPOs, we improve even better than LF,  as playoff went along team's game planned better and forced the pass, I did not like our defensive game plan, when we did force the pass, it created turn overs.
4) For some reason it really bothers LF fans, UR outplayed LF against MHB...LF had two cracks at MHB and got worked both times, no shame in loosing the kids played hard, just were not as good as LF,  it happens...not a big deal...cant win them all. It just goes to show you how loosing a couple studs up front change a team. LF really was never a true contender for the title this year as many experts writers thought, despite having the best QB...Game is still wont upfront a point a lot of sports writers miss in my opinion.

LF has by far had a better program than UR over than 1,000,000 years and next 1,000,000 for so many reasons, but this year was less competitive against the national champ than UR....simple fact..

Someone explain to my why LF can not admit it ? human nature is great...

Happy New Year


Enjoy Doc

[HansenRatings]

Certain stats are more prone to chance than others. Half of fumbles are recovered by the offense, and half by the defense. Return TDs are also particularly fickle--they greatly improve in-game win probabilities, but are not good predictors of future return TDs. That's why looking deeper into the box score is important to discerning true quality. Just like how point differential is more predictive than win-loss record, stats other than the score can be more descriptive than the score alone.

Also, Redlands and Linfield played more than just one game this season. We know more about these teams than just how they performed against UMHB. Their only other mutual opponent was Chapman, who Linfield beat by 16 more points than Redlands did. Thanks to the geography of DIII football, there was also a lot of interplay between their conferences, creating mutual opponents of opponents. The concept of most computer modelling systems is to develop a robust method for comparing teams based on mutual opponents, and of the 13 different sites that rate DIII football, not a single one ranks Redlands higher than Linfield, and none of them even think Redlands would be any less than a 2-touchdown underdog to them.

People think Linfield was better than Redlands because Linfield was better than Redlands.

[USee]

Last time I check it was about the score board, not the Stat-board. There are several facts that have surfaced, some really really  humorous to me

Redlands gave up 50 pts and lost by 22. Linfield gave up 27 pts and lost by 17, Wheaton gave up 38 pts and lost by 22. That's not statistics, that's your scoreboard.

If you want to make the assertion, based on the scoreboard, that Redlands was more competitive then look at the scores and help me understand. If you want to say you were "leading MHB" , both Linfield and Wheaton were leading MHB 3-0. Again, I don't think splitting hairs on losses is productive but you can't selectively argue you were more competitive. Your special teams won, your defense and offense lost decisively!

[olddog]

The only game that was not over in the fourth quarter was UR/MHB....LF and Wheaton games were over....why is it so hard to admit...

UR was on the 1 yard line in the fourth and going to make it a two point game...until the worse spot in playoffs...UR kept finding a way to get back in the game, LF and Wht could not...

So hard to swallow....come on just give it up...UR game was more competitive than both LF and Wheaton...UR was the only team up on MHB and MHB was very lucky the lead was only 7 at half...It is ok, LF still has a great program, better than URs...just not this tournament

[RFB]

Hi RFB!

Meaningless fun drivel we have here.
OK, olddog, Redlands connects on that W  I  D  E   open receiver and he scores! The field gooooooooaaaaaall is good. Mary cannot come all the way back. They were really, really overlooking those dawgs.  Redlands pulls off the upset of the season.
Where does the ncaa set the next game?

And if my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle. The only fact that remains is that UMHB beat everyone and are national champions. I'm proud of Redlands effort against the Cru, they played hard and showed heart. Having said that they have a long way to go, but the foundation to build off of is very solid.

[USee]

The only game that was not over in the fourth quarter was UR/MHB....LF and Wheaton games were over....why is it so hard to admit...

UR was on the 1 yard line in the fourth and going to make it a two point game...until the worse spot in playoffs...UR kept finding a way to get back in the game, LF and Wht could not...

So hard to swallow....come on just give it up...UR game was more competitive than both LF and Wheaton...UR was the only team up on MHB and MHB was very lucky the lead was only 7 at half...It is ok, LF still has a great program, better than URs...just not this tournament

I'll have some of what you are smoking....UR MHB game was over in the 3rd quarter. Look at the Redlands offense in the second half:

4 plays -9 yds (safety)
3 plays -1 yds (Punt)
6 plays 23 yds (Downs)
6 plays 14 yds (Downs)
1 play 0 yds (INT)
2 plays 2 yds (INT)

That's 22 plays for 29 yds in the second half. Who are you going to beat? Running back Kickoffs for TD's is not a winning offensive strategy.

Meanwhile your defense was giving up 43 plays and 332 yds and 36 pts.

Redlands was not competitive in the second half, there was never a doubt MHB would win convincingly.

[olddog]

USee,

Dude give it up...LF was down by 400 game one and game two down 27-3 in the middle of the fourth (3:10 exactly) one poster said game LF was more dominated in game two than one.... UR was down 37-28, and had just got screwed on the goal line trying to score and then ran a crapping fake fg where if our kicker puts his head down like a man he scores (bad call Maynard) .....LF was not even past the 50....Stats loose to the scoreboard every time. In fact against UR, MHB was up and kept the offensive gas pedal down in order to insure the win, against LF the second string was in for MHB in the fourth for both games...Scoreboard matters the most!

Remember UR did all this with out their starting QB and RB....LF would have been beaten by 100 both games.

Why is it so hard to digest? please answer my question, this is awesome you care and find a snippets to rationalize.....UR played MHB better than LF both times. Man you are more loyal than my old lab.

Old Dog

[HansenRatings]

You know USee isn't even a Linfield fan right?

[wildcat11]

You know USee isn't even a Linfield fan right?

[Mr. Ypsi]

olddog,

You have now posted 'loose' 17 consecutive times when you meant 'lose'.  PLEASE learn the difference before Redlands revokes your degree!   (And, as Hansen indicated, USee is a Wheaton guy, not Linfield.)

Yes, UR kept the scoreboard reasonably close, but only due to a couple of special teams plays that cannot be planned or counted on.  They were never really in the game.  Anyone watching even 10 random minutes of the game would know they were going to lose. 

[D O.C.]

No, he doesn't.
Lemme tell him...
psst! olfdawg... as much as we'd like to have him, USee lives east of the Rockies and knows many teams from many places.
MonroviaCat and CalCat quit before Christmas. Wildcat11 chimed in and left.  I only check in to see if you've and answered CalCats question about which West Coast team the UMHB staff would want for that mythical next game.