FB: Empire 8

[wally_wabash]

I'm speaking nationally and not regionally.  When there are so precious few pool C bids they are taking a spot away from a team that will almost certainly be stronger than them.  Last year Wabash didn't make it in the field or St. Thomas.  Fisher made it in by the hair on their chinny chin chins.  Once the MASCAC comes along and nabs another - all 3 of those teams will be left out in such a scenario.  I'd take a 3 loss MIAC team over Framingham State.

Yeah. I mean, this has been talked about a lot, but at some point, if we ever get a semblance of parity in D-III football, we're going to leave out teams that could contend for a national championship. That hasn't happened in forever,, but eventually (I hope) D-III football's going to get to the spot where you could have more than a couple teams with a legit shot to win it all, and some of those schools are going to get the squeeze, because they're in a conference with another such team, and only one can make it.

This is interesting and I get the hypothetical and the scare it causes BUT: when was the last time a national champion wasn't also a conference champion (hint: have to go back aways)?  Maybe an even better exercise would be to find out how many regional champions have not been conference champions in the AQ era?  I'd bet it's a really small number. 

If the tournament to determine a national champion eventually turns into a tournament of conference champions exclusively, I'd be fine with that.  I don't think that's unfair in any way.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I'm speaking nationally and not regionally.  When there are so precious few pool C bids they are taking a spot away from a team that will almost certainly be stronger than them.  Last year Wabash didn't make it in the field or St. Thomas.  Fisher made it in by the hair on their chinny chin chins.  Once the MASCAC comes along and nabs another - all 3 of those teams will be left out in such a scenario.  I'd take a 3 loss MIAC team over Framingham State.

Yeah. I mean, this has been talked about a lot, but at some point, if we ever get a semblance of parity in D-III football, we're going to leave out teams that could contend for a national championship. That hasn't happened in forever,, but eventually (I hope) D-III football's going to get to the spot where you could have more than a couple teams with a legit shot to win it all, and some of those schools are going to get the squeeze, because they're in a conference with another such team, and only one can make it.

This is interesting and I get the hypothetical and the scare it causes BUT: when was the last time a national champion wasn't also a conference champion (hint: have to go back aways)?  Maybe an even better exercise would be to find out how many regional champions have not been conference champions in the AQ era?  I'd bet it's a really small number. 

If the tournament to determine a national champion eventually turns into a tournament of conference champions exclusively, I'd be fine with that.  I don't think that's unfair in any way.

Offhand, I can think of a couple: 2006 St. John Fisher (Springfield was the E8 Pool A), 2007 St. John Fisher (Hartwick was the E8 Pool A), 2008 Wheaton (North Central was CCIW Pool A).  That's not necessarily a comprehensive list, but that's what I got offhand.  We also have a couple of years where some really good OAC runners-up (1999 Ohio Northern, 2000 Ohio Northern, 2005 Capital, 2006 Capital) were knocked out of the playoffs in Mount Union rematches, although I don't know that they were all "regional champions" - but several made deep playoff runs that only ended because they hit Mount.

Now, despite all that...I've actually made the point before about being okay with it if the tournament to determine a national champion turns into a tournament of conference champions.  I stand by that.  Sure, a team that might be capable of winning it all might be left out, but if they wanted to win the damn thing so bad, they should have made sure that they won their conference.  I hated it when Alabama got to play LSU for the national title a few years ago after LSU had beaten them in the regular season.

[Bombers798891]

This is interesting and I get the hypothetical and the scare it causes BUT: when was the last time a national champion wasn't also a conference champion (hint: have to go back aways)? r. 

That logic works out fine when you have two teams dominating the sport at an unheard of level, winning 15 of 18 championships. But, as I said, if we ever get something even resembling parity in the sport again, you're not going to be able to hide behind that. What you're going to have instead is some 7-3 team making the playoffs over a 9-1 team who lost to the #1 team in the country by three points.

[ECoastFootball]

Offhand, I can think of a couple: 2006 St. John Fisher (Springfield was the E8 Pool A), 2007 St. John Fisher (Hartwick was the E8 Pool A), 2008 Wheaton (North Central was CCIW Pool A).  That's not necessarily a comprehensive list, but that's what I got offhand.  We also have a couple of years where some really good OAC runners-up (1999 Ohio Northern, 2000 Ohio Northern, 2005 Capital, 2006 Capital) were knocked out of the playoffs in Mount Union rematches, although I don't know that they were all "regional champions" - but several made deep playoff runs that only ended because they hit Mount.

Now, despite all that...I've actually made the point before about being okay with it if the tournament to determine a national champion turns into a tournament of conference champions.  I stand by that.  Sure, a team that might be capable of winning it all might be left out, but if they wanted to win the damn thing so bad, they should have made sure that they won their conference.  I hated it when Alabama got to play LSU for the national title a few years ago after LSU had beaten them in the regular season.

Those games will still happen, I think. Last year Framingham was in there, and you still had a playoff game where two teams were playing each other and neither was a conference champ (SJF v JC). If the MASCAC had an autobid, Framingham would have just used that to get instead of stealing a Pool B bid. So a pool B/C bid may disapear, but so will the need for that group of teams to use it.

[wesleydad]

Great conversation guys.  If it comes down to only conference champs getting in because all the C bids are gone and the B bids will likely still only be 1 or 2, then I am glad Wesley got in a Conference.  They will likely still schedule a top notch game for the O of C game and win or lose know that they control there own destiny as far as getting in the tournament.  Having a loss as a pool B team has made them sweat several times recently.  In the end there will be a chance that someone who could win it all gets left out, but that is much less likely to happen.  Seldom are the 2 best teams in the country in the same conference.  Sometimes maybe in the same region, but not likely the same conference.  This year there is a chance that UMHB and Wesley could be the 2 best teams but have to meet for the South Region championship game.  To me that would be more of a travesty than the second place team in a conference not getting in.  As has been stated before, win and you are in, lose and it is up to someone else.

[wally_wabash]

This is interesting and I get the hypothetical and the scare it causes BUT: when was the last time a national champion wasn't also a conference champion (hint: have to go back aways)? r. 

That logic works out fine when you have two teams dominating the sport at an unheard of level, winning 15 of 18 championships. But, as I said, if we ever get something even resembling parity in the sport again, you're not going to be able to hide behind that. What you're going to have instead is some 7-3 team making the playoffs over a 9-1 team who lost to the #1 team in the country by three points.

And?  If you're a team that shares a league with Mount Union or Whitewater or whoever else is the 500-lb gorilla in your league, beat them.  You get a crack at them every single year...figure out how to beat them. 

Win your league.  That's been the name of the D3 game since 1999.  Was Wabash better than a lot of teams that qualified automatically last year?  Hell yes they were.  But they didn't win their league and they didn't get an 11th game.  That's how the cookie crumbles in Division III and that's perfectly fine.  Trust me, it sucked not seeing Wabash in that bracket.  But everybody knows how to get in.  And everybody has the same opportunity.  That's part of what makes this division and this tournament great. 

[Bombers798891]

And?  If you're a team that shares a league with Mount Union or Whitewater or whoever else is the 500-lb gorilla in your league, beat them.  You get a crack at them every single year...figure out how to beat them. 

Win your league.  That's been the name of the D3 game since 1999.  Was Wabash better than a lot of teams that qualified automatically last year?  Hell yes they were.  But they didn't win their league and they didn't get an 11th game.  That's how the cookie crumbles in Division III and that's perfectly fine.  Trust me, it sucked not seeing Wabash in that bracket.  But everybody knows how to get in.  And everybody has the same opportunity. That's part of what makes this division and this tournament great.

See, that's where you and I (respectfully) disagree. Yes, the opportunity to win your conference exists for every team in D-III. But it isn't the "same" opportunity.

[D3MAFAN]

And?  If you're a team that shares a league with Mount Union or Whitewater or whoever else is the 500-lb gorilla in your league, beat them.  You get a crack at them every single year...figure out how to beat them. 

Win your league.  That's been the name of the D3 game since 1999.  Was Wabash better than a lot of teams that qualified automatically last year?  Hell yes they were.  But they didn't win their league and they didn't get an 11th game.  That's how the cookie crumbles in Division III and that's perfectly fine.  Trust me, it sucked not seeing Wabash in that bracket.  But everybody knows how to get in.  And everybody has the same opportunity. That's part of what makes this division and this tournament great.

See, that's where you and I (respectfully) disagree. Yes, the opportunity to win your conference exists for every team in D-III. But it isn't the "same" opportunity.

Bombers,

The opportunity, plain and simple, is that if you win your conference, you have the right to participate in the playoff (subject to AQ). You are trying to state that everyone opportunity is not the same due to conference strength, which many teams can't control in Division III unlike our counterparts in Division I, where we saw teams leave an another conference for the various reasons that had nothing to do with winning a national championship, it appears that you want somewhat of a BCS approach. I think it is fair within the DIII spectra. Many teams can't control whom they play. Maybe we get rid of the conference AQ overall and tell teams to schedule the best 10 teams that they possibly can and have the best 32 teams with the best SOS go to the playoffs, which is very unlikely due to budget constraints...

[Bombers798891]

The opportunity, plain and simple, is that if you win your conference, you have the right to participate in the playoff (subject to AQ).

Look, I understand the logic of the AQ, and the logistical challenges that make eliminating it impossible. I just don't like the way it's panned out in recent years. Teams like Norwich can go from 1-23 in the E8 from 2005-08 to the NCAA playoffs in 2011. 

It's not that "good" teams are left home while "inferior" teams make the playoffs. There's this idea that you're "earning" a spot in the playoffs if you win your conference. To me, that spot should be earned by improving your on the field talent to the point where you're one of the best teams in the country. Norwich didn't do that. They were an E8 doormat, and in 2011, lost 37-14 to a Hartwick team that went 0-7 in the E8. Earned it, my left foot. If they never left the conference, they'd have gone winless in it.

This is the way D-III wants it, which I understand. But it still results in ridiculous things. Like the first three years of ECFC AQ's in the playoffs, before Gallaudet played a decent game against Hobart

[boobyhasgameyo]

The opportunity, plain and simple, is that if you win your conference, you have the right to participate in the playoff (subject to AQ).

Look, I understand the logic of the AQ, and the logistical challenges that make eliminating it impossible. I just don't like the way it's panned out in recent years. Teams like Norwich can go from 1-23 in the E8 from 2005-08 to the NCAA playoffs in 2011. 

It's not that "good" teams are left home while "inferior" teams make the playoffs. There's this idea that you're "earning" a spot in the playoffs if you win your conference. To me, that spot should be earned by improving your on the field talent to the point where you're one of the best teams in the country. Norwich didn't do that. They were an E8 doormat, and in 2011, lost 37-14 to a Hartwick team that went 0-7 in the E8. Earned it, my left foot. If they never left the conference, they'd have gone winless in it.

This is the way D-III wants it, which I understand. But it still results in ridiculous things. Like the first three years of ECFC AQ's in the playoffs, before Gallaudet played a decent game against Hobart

This is what I was pointing towards.  Not even that you are leaving a potential championship contender out of the field, but that you are leaving teams who deserve to play in the tournament out, replaced by teams that are of lesser quality and happened to win their inferior conference.  Norwich is the perfect example of that.  They robbed a more deserving team. 

[D3MAFAN]

So how should the playoff be presented then? I understand the Norwich situation, but other than having a BCS type model, there is no other way to do it. I think they joined a conference for the betterment of the program, which any program would do. Do you put them on a restriction for a couple years and exclude them from playoff consideration (maybe), would you have been upset if another team that was in the ECFC played and got beat just as bad? It is what it is? If Hobart, SJF, Ithaca (Never going to happen) wants to leave their perspective conference to play in the ECFC and obtains a spot, is it any different? 

[boobyhasgameyo]

So how should the playoff be presented then? I understand the Norwich situation, but other than having a BCS type model, there is no other way to do it. I think they joined a conference for the betterment of the program, which any program would do. Do you put them on a restriction for a couple years and exclude them from playoff consideration (maybe), would you have been upset if another team that was in the ECFC played and got beat just as bad? It is what it is? If Hobart, SJF, Ithaca (Never going to happen) wants to leave their perspective conference to play in the ECFC and obtains a spot, is it any different?

That's a good question on what you can do to rectify the situation.  I've always thought of adapting a variation of the European soccer models that relegate teams, but instead apply that to automatic bids for conferences.  So let's say each year you have only 16 bids to distribute to conference winners.  Then you could define criteria for what will include you in one of the 16.  For instance the total out of conference winning %.  You could weight the % to give more credit or emphasis if you beat a team that made the playoffs the previous year and other metrics that will incentivize playing tougher OOC schedules so that everyone then doesn't look to schedule matches against a bottom dwelling conference.  If you could develop a system in that fashion, then it would be a much better step in the right direction than just handing a bid to the winner of the world's worst conference simply because they had 12 crappy teams contained within it. 

[Bombers798891]

So how should the playoff be presented then? I understand the Norwich situation, but other than having a BCS type model, there is no other way to do it. I think they joined a conference for the betterment of the program, which any program would do. Do you put them on a restriction for a couple years and exclude them from playoff consideration (maybe), would you have been upset if another team that was in the ECFC played and got beat just as bad? It is what it is? If Hobart, SJF, Ithaca (Never going to happen) wants to leave their perspective conference to play in the ECFC and obtains a spot, is it any different?

If those three teams left, the difference would be we wouldn't have legitimate questions about the quality of the team, unlike with Norwich. Look, all the talk of the AQ system is that teams earn their spot in the playoffs by winning the conference. And mostly, that's true. But the ECFC was such a lousy collection of teams it was insulting. Seriously, here's the recent history of the teams  when that conference was formed. I've already shown you details on Norwich's awfulness. Here are the others:

Becker: 4-31 as an independent previous four years
Anna Maria: 1st year program in D-III (Well, there's no records going back prior to 2009 on d3football)
Castleton State: Same as Anna Maria
Husson: 23-14 as independent previous four years
Maritime: 7-19 as independent previous three years (nothing on D3 football prior to then)
Mount Ida: 13-22 as independent previous four years
Gallaudet: 4-21 as independent previous four years

Look, I've got no problem with a bunch of independents and recently started teams wanting to play in a conference. And Husson was actually pretty decent in 2008, losing to Fisher by just 10, and beating Springfield quite soundly. But the fact remains that 7 of these 8 teams couldn't be classified as even mediocre.

If you want to promote access to championships as a Division, I'm all for it. But there has to be something to prevent a bunch of lousy teams from forming a conference for the sake of getting a Pool A bid. I don't really know what the solution is. BCS style? Maybe. Maybe they have to establish a certain record OOC.

All I know is, absolutely no one took the ECFC seriously for four years, and their playoff games were embarrassments for the first three—60-0, 62-10, 73-14, and they weren't playing the Linfield's, Mount's, MHB's and UWW's either—before Gallaudet took a solid first step last year.

[jackson5]

The issue is the lack of at-larges. It's an issue across D-3. In every sport top 25 teams don't make the tournament because of lack of at-larges. Maybe have 16 teams play in a play-in round to move the current number from 32 to 40 teams is a solution. It'll get the ECFC and NEFC teams wasting space cut in half and will allow the committee to hand out 14 at-larges instead of 6. Granted this will violate the 1 in 7 or whatever the number is rule and push the end of the season a week back. But it'll solve the issue of very good teams being left out because a great team is in the conference without watering down the bracket by going to 64 teams.

[dlippiel]

The issue is the lack of at-larges. It's an issue across D-3. In every sport top 25 teams don't make the tournament because of lack of at-larges. Maybe have 16 teams play in a play-in round to move the current number from 32 to 40 teams is a solution. It'll get the ECFC and NEFC teams wasting space cut in half and will allow the committee to hand out 14 at-larges instead of 6. Granted this will violate the 1 in 7 or whatever the number is rule and push the end of the season a week back. But it'll solve the issue of very good teams being left out because a great team is in the conference without watering down the bracket by going to 64 teams.

Dlip likes this idea. He sees validity in both sides of the argument. Dlip would LOVE to see more at large bids if possible. There certainly are some excellent football teams that don't get to participate in the tourney each year which is disappointing. Yet if they won their conference.