FB: Liberty League

[pumkinattack]

the change in ESPN coverage indicates a lot...

Of all the things you said that don't make much sense, this is the one I can't even interpret. Huh?

Don't worry about it, it'll all be over soon

[Bombers798891]

At the end of the day, Hobart will have their shot this week. Some great games between the two teams these last few years, so I'm looking forward to this one.

And if Ithaca does manage to get by Hobart, then it's probably a pair of 7-0 teams going at it in Union. Can't imagine the Bombers losing to Rochester

I'm less concerned about RPi. All the contending teams in the E8 have their share of wins over lousy competition, but RPI is the only one that has two losses outside of that.

[Bartman]

At least RPI is still getting votes. I don't know who that voter is, but he can stay in my room.

With Mach hospitality ....RPI top ten this week

[Ice Bear]

Ice Bear says in all honesty he knows voters don't get paid and have busy lives like the rest of us (apparently not that busy as we have time to post here often) however IB believes obvious discrepancies/inaccuracies and/or inconsistencies are fair game for debate and fun review/comparison to horse****.

Ice Bear says LL season getting interesting as both Traboh and U get their shot at IC.

[Bartman]

At the end of the day, Hobart will have their shot this week. Some great games between the two teams these last few years, so I'm looking forward to this one.

And if Ithaca does manage to get by Hobart, then it's probably a pair of 7-0 teams going at it in Union. Can't imagine the Bombers losing to Rochester

I'm less concerned about RPi. All the contending teams in the E8 have their share of wins over lousy competition, but RPI is the only one that has two losses outside of that.

Bombers,
        A good game coming up at Butterworth as Hobart has its confidence on offense peaking after the RPI performance which is the key to beating an IC team with Germinerio . IC will get points , for sure, but the stong Hobart D should stop a decent % of the IC drives...and the reality is the Hobart offense will need to outscore the Bombers on Saturday and the RPI game performance just made that possibility more likely. Looking forward to a good D3 football game.

[Oline89]

Well since the end of last season, and particularly since the Spring, we all knew that the LL championship was going through Ithaca this year.  Hobart gets the first shot this weekend.  RPI game was surprisingly easy for the Pumkins, so they were able to rest their starters for the last quarter.  They are clearly battle tested, and banged up, but peaking both on O and D this week.  IC has put up some serious offensive stats this year, but hasn't seen a defense as fast as Hobart yet.  Looking forward to a big week.  Battle of the Lakes!!

[Bartman]

Well since the end of last season, and particularly since the Spring, we all knew that the LL championship was going through Ithaca this year.  Hobart gets the first shot this weekend.  RPI game was surprisingly easy for the Pumkins, so they were able to rest their starters for the last quarter.  They are clearly battle tested, and banged up, but peaking both on O and D this week.  IC has put up some serious offensive stats this year, but hasn't seen a defense as fast as Hobart yet.  Looking forward to a big week.  Battle of the Lakes!!

Seneca is bigger and deeper than baby sister Cayuga and her Seamonsters are much more deadly.

[pumkinattack]

At the end of the day, Hobart will have their shot this week. Some great games between the two teams these last few years, so I'm looking forward to this one.

And if Ithaca does manage to get by Hobart, then it's probably a pair of 7-0 teams going at it in Union. Can't imagine the Bombers losing to Rochester

I'm less concerned about RPi. All the contending teams in the E8 have their share of wins over lousy competition, but RPI is the only one that has two losses outside of that.

It's not about Hobart per se it's about all these east teams.  Got two NJAC teams
In the top 15 who beat Rowan and MSU by a combined 4pts who'll hang their hat on awin over a possibly/probably overrated del val and as the supposed expert states maybe 3rd or 4th best wIAC team.  Meanwhile IC has floated into the top 10 and no one else in the LL is sniffing distance by this collective wisdom.  News flash, top ten teams smoke ORV teams 9/10 times which means he odds of them not smoking (ie 3tds, other large statistical margins) at least 1/2 of Union/Hobart is minimal.  Cortland hasn't done anything of note and getting all this love and there's votes for BPort, Alfred, RPI and wPI-3 of four teams who've lost big.  One of whom has two losses.

This stuff is so midwest centric even though the NE dominates the D3 football population that they just lazily toss around consideration to the east.  It's not that the Midwest or west doesn't have the best teams, although largely at the top as a JCU 90-0 win over capital demonstrates.  It's just not representative of the landscape and that's what's tired, but so is the product overall.

[Bartman]

I just looked at the Top 25 poll and PA's comments are certainly valid, but Wesley always gets the votes based on past rep and Delaware Valley gets some of that based on some very credible teams in the past, despite the fact that they are both one loss teams although losing to strong competition by fairly close scores. Ithaca is getting about a 5 slot bump because of the Germinerio transfer, I gurarantee you that if Nabi was the starting QB and the scores were the same, including the escape from Fisher, they would be ranked lower. So reputation and attention counts , just a fact, voters are human and not robots.  It is always difficult to do polls unless you have spent time watching film or seeing the teams compete in person, so East fans are frustrated by most of the voters not having enough data to make a more fine tuned assessment . The RPI win over Germinerio's  Brockport last year was big for the LL, and D3Football.com has raised the LL conference rankings off the back of that and Hobart's OOC 4-0 results, IMO. Union not being ranked after beating Hobart, seeing how Hobart just blasted RPI, makes absolutely no sense based on performance to date. Ranking 4-1 Delaware Valley and Wesley ahead of Union is just past program performance bias in my opinion. I think Hobart got a  little of that program fairy dust from voters at times in the past, but with the Germinerio transfer I think that dust falls on the Bombers this year . Union has no special program voting dust/bias, because the glory days were  long ago. So other than Ithaca , the LL remaining contenders will have to beat Ithaca plain and simple. IF Union and Hobart can do it, Union should be in the top 10. IF Hobart can do that, then the LL should have 3 teams in the top 25, because we just might have 3 rocking teams in the league....A big IF for Hobart this week, as I am sure there isn't  anyone other than a Hobart fan that would bet against  Germinerio...but then again, ITH thought RPI had a 10 point advantage over Hobart....so screw the rankings and the experts and win your games cause the NCAA Regional Rankings will be the only ones that ultimately count.

[unionpalooza]

Eh, polls are for strippers. 

I wouldn't take any of it too seriously — the real business will ultimately get settled on the field. 

[Pat Coleman]

Every human poll has past performance bias in it -- the trick is finding the right balance, enough to keep Mary Hardin-Baylor and Mount Union at the top of the poll while not holding onto Trine last week or RPI this week.

Not every pollster approaches the job the same way. And not every pollster is invited back the following year, either.

[AUPepBand]

Every human poll has past performance bias in it -- the trick is finding the right balance, enough to keep Mary Hardin-Baylor and Mount Union at the top of the poll while not holding onto Trine last week or RPI this week.

Not every pollster approaches the job the same way. And not every pollster is invited back the following year, either.

You mean perhaps there's room for Pep in Pat's Prospective Pack of Prolific Pollsters?

[Bartman]

Every human poll has past performance bias in it -- the trick is finding the right balance, enough to keep Mary Hardin-Baylor and Mount Union at the top of the poll while not holding onto Trine last week or RPI this week.

Not every pollster approaches the job the same way. And not every pollster is invited back the following year, either.

You mean perhaps there's room for Pep in Pat's Prospective Pack of Prolific Pollsters?

Pat,
What's the pay?....sounds intimidating,  probably have a complex Hansen algorithm to track efficacy of voters....I think with Pep Band's credentials , he should be a shoe-in

[Oline89]

Every human poll has past performance bias in it -- the trick is finding the right balance, enough to keep Mary Hardin-Baylor and Mount Union at the top of the poll while not holding onto Trine last week or RPI this week.

Not every pollster approaches the job the same way. And not every pollster is invited back the following year, either.

You mean perhaps there's room for Pep in Pat's Prospective Pack of Prolific Pollsters?

Pat,
What's the pay?....sounds intimidating,  probably have a complex Hansen algorithm to track efficacy of voters....I think with Pep Band's credentials , he should be a shoe-in
[/quote

Please, No Hansen!   The creator of that algorithm doesn't realize that life exists east of the Allegheny River

[Bombers798891]

Last Saturday, there were 18 games played that featured Top 25 teams, and I don't even know how many featuring teams that were also receiving votes, and other fringe teams a voter may want to consider.

It just seems like figuring out a national poll is probably orders of magnitude harder than we're giving it credit for. It's pretty easy for all of us to point out the one or two things we don't agree with, particularly when it relates to one of the half-dozen teams we follow closely. Sure, we might be able to pretty easily say "Huh, RPI is 4-2 and someone thinks they're Top 25?" or "I don't think IC is that much better than the rest of the LL." But the national picture? Forget it.

Pat asked me to be a guest picker one week for the site, and it was incredibly stressful, and all I could think about was "Please don't let me pick some North Region upset that I don't realize is the East equivalent  of Hartwick beating Brockport." If fact, I think I gave him permission to change my pick if he realized I did that.