FB: Liberty League

[IC798891]

Guys...

St. Lawrence hasn't had a winning season since 2016

Which is a year later than Moravian's last winning season

Keystone is a 3rd year program with a 4-23 overall record

Since 2018, Buffalo State has gone 6-50, and honestly, considering two of those wins are against a winless Hilbert, they might be the worst program in D3 in that stretch

Like, I'm not really a fan of how often the d3football people just parrot "It's not a standings page" (reductive) or "It's better than the AFCA poll" (low bar) any time someone disagrees with their ranking placement of a team with a poor record, or vice versa, but they're 100% right that not all wins are created equal. Hobart's a very good team, with some good performances but this isn't *that* impressive of a resume.

(My personal belief is that your strongest result being a loss is not a ringing endorsement of greatness. And that's Hobart right now.)

[Jonny Utah]

Here's what a voter sees on Hobart's resume:

Hobart (6-1) Last week: # votes: 1 ()   
Sep. 6    7:00 PM    Alfred (3-3) •    W, 10-7
Sep. 14    12:00 PM    at Randolph-Macon (5-1) •    L, 14-7 OT
Sep. 21    1:00 PM    Moravian (4-2) •    W, 27-12
Sep. 28    12:00 PM    at Keystone (1-6) •    W, 52-9
Oct. 5    1:00 PM    Ithaca (3-3) * •    W, 16-7
Oct. 12    3:00 PM    at Buffalo State (2-4) * •    W, 31-3
Oct. 19    1:00 PM    at St. Lawrence (2-4) * •    W, 39-3
Oct. 26    1:00 PM    Union (2-4) * •   
Nov. 2    3:00 PM    at RPI (3-4) * •   
Nov. 16    1:00 PM    Rochester (5-1) * •   

Here's what a voter sees on 9th ranked Endicott's resume:

9/7    at St. Lawrence(2-4) •    W, 44-13    BX
9/14    at Ithaca(3-3) •    W, 13-7    BX RC
9/21    vs. Hilbert(0-7) •    W, 58-0    BX
9/28    vs. RPI(3-4) •    W, 28-20    BX
10/5    at Hardin-Simmons(6-0) •    L, 35-27    BX
10/19    at University of New England(2-4)* •    W, 39-7    BX
The rest of the schedule is worth about as much as the gum on the bottom of a dining room table.

Endicott is such a sexy name these days. But the 9th ranked team in the country could barely beat a couple lowly LL teams. But they sure did lose the close one to Hardin-Simmons.

Yea and this is kind of where my point about the week 1 ranking comes in.  Endicott was ranked 16 in week 1, and only loses one game to a top 5 team.  They have nowhere to go after this initial ranking no matter how their wins look against sub par competition (which is fine by the way)  Hobart on the other hand needs to smoke a few more teams. 

[Jonny Utah]

"Our Liberty League football-playing institutions look forward to partnering with the Empire 8 members through a football scheduling partnership," said Liberty League commissioner Tracy King. "We're appreciative of Empire 8 commissioner Chuck Mitrano as well as Hilbert College president Dr. Michael Brophy and director of athletics Tim Seil for their willingness to partner with us to strengthen Division III football in New York. As the Division III conference landscape has changed, football scheduling has become increasingly challenging. We have a natural scheduling partner in our region and it made perfect sense to work together to provide competitive opportunities for teams in both conferences."

And can we talk about this again?  Does this really "strengthen" d3 football in upstate NY?  Or is this just rhetoric for the league prez who wants to help out schools fill out schedules.  I envision LL and E8 teams looking for pool c bids in the future and I'm not sure this partnership helps out.

[Ice Bear]

Lots to talk about here. I agree with Mach's points but I also see the other side regarding hanging onto a close loss to RMC who is also not in the top #25 (and only receiving 21 votes). I can't imagine trying to pinpoint an accurate top 25 from all the D3 teams across the country. There is a lot of criteria to take into account. All good points here. Personally, I'd love to see an LL team surprise this season. I wholeheartedly believe that until a team from this conference makes the Stagg and/or semi's, it'll continue to be hard to get voters attention and keep that attention.

To Utah's point I'd love to scrap the E8/LL partnership (or whatever you call it) and see both conferences play teams from across the country. I LOVE how RPI played UWL. I realize in the world of D3 there really isn't the $ to do this consistently across conferences (I'm assuming this and don't have any real knowledge if this is the case or not). Man I would ****ing love to see an LL/MIAC, LL/NWC, LL/WIAC, LL/? slate of OOC games!

[Pat Coleman]

Like, I'm not really a fan of how often the d3football people just parrot "It's not a standings page" (reductive) or "It's better than the AFCA poll" (low bar) any time someone disagrees with their ranking placement of a team with a poor record, or vice versa, but they're 100% right that not all wins are created equal.

Similarly, I'm not really a fan of how often people complain that their unbeaten team isn't ranked while teams with losses are. (And yes, I understand that nobody here is advocating for ranking based on winning percentage alone.)

[unionpalooza]

Here's what a voter sees on Hobart's resume:

Hobart (6-1) Last week: # votes: 1 ()   
Sep. 6   7:00 PM   Alfred (3-3) •   W, 10-7
Sep. 14   12:00 PM   at Randolph-Macon (5-1) •   L, 14-7 OT
Sep. 21   1:00 PM   Moravian (4-2) •   W, 27-12
Sep. 28   12:00 PM   at Keystone (1-6) •   W, 52-9
Oct. 5   1:00 PM   Ithaca (3-3) * •   W, 16-7
Oct. 12   3:00 PM   at Buffalo State (2-4) * •   W, 31-3
Oct. 19   1:00 PM   at St. Lawrence (2-4) * •   W, 39-3
Oct. 26   1:00 PM   Union (2-4) * •   
Nov. 2   3:00 PM   at RPI (3-4) * •   
Nov. 16   1:00 PM   Rochester (5-1) * •   

I see a team that is two feet wide left from being undefeated and has one of the top defenses in D3 and deserves your vote instead of all those PAC teams.... But I'm just a non voting homer

Yeah, but a voter looks and thinks, they lost to Randolph-Macon, and I'm not voting for Randolph-Macon (since 20 of 25 voters are not), so I can't vote for Hobart.

Only 5 voters have Randolph-Macon on their ballot. Of those, one has them 22nd and three have them 23rd. That doesn't leave a lot of room for Hobart at the moment.

Wheaton or Johns Hopkins could drop out but a lot of those votes would get taken up by WashU or Ursinus.

Pat, while I don't doubt that you and some of the better voters think this way, I don't think many (most?) do.  There is a huge bias towards prior year's results that gets imbedded in the preseason poll, and many voters are just moving teams up/down based on isolated week-to week results.  If Hobart had started the season at #20, I think voters would have actually moved them UP after a squeaker loss to then-#10 Randolph Macon.  And sure, RM loses to Berry the following week and drops, and maybe a few voters would have been thoughtful enough to drop Hobart to the very low 20s (just below where RM landed after that loss), but they'd absolutely still be ranked or close to it, not where they stand today, which is receiving ZERO VOTES.

I don't think this is actually a LL bias; rather, it's a bias towards prior year results that gets baked into the preseason poll.  But since the best team in the LL tends to change year to year with some frequency, that means that most years, the LL's best teams are starting from very low/zero votes in the polls and don't get accurately ranked until the very end of the season. Last year, Union (finished #21) won a playoff game but started with no votes, and didn't get ranked until the final poll.  In 2021, RPI (finished #13) won a playoff game but started the year with no votes and didn't crack the Top 25 until week 9.  The 2019 Union team (finished #12) won a playoff game but started the season with no votes and didn't crack the Top 25 until week 8.  And the 2018 RPI team (finished #11) that won two playoff games started at No. 25.  The only team the polls seem to get "right" earlier in the season is Ithaca; they went into 2023 #9 and finished #18, and went into 2022 #17 and finished #10.  I don't think Ithaca gets special treatment, they just happen to be the team that is most consistent over multiple years.  (Both years, their preseason ranking was basically the final ranking from the prior year.)

The single silliest thing in the poll is the fact that Case Western is receiving votes and sitting at #29, well above Hobart (at no votes).  Talk about PAC coat tails; they haven't played a team with a winning record and their opponents are a combined 9-31.

[unionpalooza]

"Our Liberty League football-playing institutions look forward to partnering with the Empire 8 members through a football scheduling partnership," said Liberty League commissioner Tracy King. "We're appreciative of Empire 8 commissioner Chuck Mitrano as well as Hilbert College president Dr. Michael Brophy and director of athletics Tim Seil for their willingness to partner with us to strengthen Division III football in New York. As the Division III conference landscape has changed, football scheduling has become increasingly challenging. We have a natural scheduling partner in our region and it made perfect sense to work together to provide competitive opportunities for teams in both conferences."

And can we talk about this again?  Does this really "strengthen" d3 football in upstate NY?  Or is this just rhetoric for the league prez who wants to help out schools fill out schedules.  I envision LL and E8 teams looking for pool c bids in the future and I'm not sure this partnership helps out.

I am much grumpier about adding Hilbert to the LL than I am about the scheduling agreement.  Hilbert has zero natural ties to the LL schools and simply adds a terrible W-L record to everyone's schedule.  I understand that was the quid pro quo to get the E8 to agree to the scheduling agreement, but I hate it.

I don't mind the scheduling agreement itself. I think local cross-play fits with the values of D3 athletics, and while cross-country games are cool they exacerbate resource differences among programs and de-value regional competition.  I think there is way too much national focus in D3; I can still remember when even the tournament was regionalized, and the Lambert Cup was a real-deal prize that meant a lot, regardless of who made/won the Stagg Bowl.

[Pat Coleman]

There's definitely deference given to prior years' results, but the thing is, generally most of the student-athletes who achieved last year's result are still there. And in Division III, teams who were good last year really quite often are good the next year. So are people voting for Endicott until proven otherwise? Sure, OK. Do people vote for Mount Union until proven otherwise? For better or worse, that's generally true.

Should people re-evaluate Endicott's win against Ithaca? Yes. But there are also a hundred other results every week, a couple dozen of which are relevant to Top 25 voters. Is Wartburg better than Endicott? Is DePauw? Is Whitworth? Is Aurora? All great questions.

[Pat Coleman]

I think there is way too much national focus in D3; I can still remember when even the tournament was regionalized, and the Lambert Cup was a real-deal prize that meant a lot, regardless of who made/won the Stagg Bowl.

Yes, but it's not the 1990s anymore and we can do and are doing better.

[Bartman]

I guess the unanswerable has gone unanswered(although Wally gave it a shot) , how do 3 (5-1) teams from the PAC(only play within conference) get ranked while a 5-1 team from the better ranked conference gets 0 votes? That has to be based on magical thinking, gut assessments or some cool AI analysis applied to D3 Football games on the internet.

[Pat Coleman]

The entire PAC resume is based on Grove City beating Susquehanna on the road in last year's playoffs and giving Cortland a huge scare in the second round. But those were things that happened on the field of play.

I can't add to or do anything better than what Greg said about the conference rankings. That bottom six in the PAC is pretty bad.

[wally_wabash]

Here's what a voter sees on Hobart's resume:

Hobart (6-1) Last week: # votes: 1 ()   
Sep. 6    7:00 PM    Alfred (3-3) •    W, 10-7
Sep. 14    12:00 PM    at Randolph-Macon (5-1) •    L, 14-7 OT
Sep. 21    1:00 PM    Moravian (4-2) •    W, 27-12
Sep. 28    12:00 PM    at Keystone (1-6) •    W, 52-9
Oct. 5    1:00 PM    Ithaca (3-3) * •    W, 16-7
Oct. 12    3:00 PM    at Buffalo State (2-4) * •    W, 31-3
Oct. 19    1:00 PM    at St. Lawrence (2-4) * •    W, 39-3
Oct. 26    1:00 PM    Union (2-4) * •   
Nov. 2    3:00 PM    at RPI (3-4) * •   
Nov. 16    1:00 PM    Rochester (5-1) * •   

I see a team that is two feet wide left from being undefeated and has one of the top defenses in D3 and deserves your vote instead of all those PAC teams.... But I'm just a non voting homer

It's not worth poll votes exactly, but I'm featuring Hobart this week in ATN. I hope you'll enjoy that.   

[unionpalooza]

I think there is way too much national focus in D3; I can still remember when even the tournament was regionalized, and the Lambert Cup was a real-deal prize that meant a lot, regardless of who made/won the Stagg Bowl.

Yes, but it's not the 1990s anymore and we can do and are doing better.

Genuine question - better how, and for whom?

[Pat Coleman]

I think there is way too much national focus in D3; I can still remember when even the tournament was regionalized, and the Lambert Cup was a real-deal prize that meant a lot, regardless of who made/won the Stagg Bowl.

Yes, but it's not the 1990s anymore and we can do and are doing better.

Genuine question - better how, and for whom?

Better for at-large teams who couldn't make the 16-team field.
Better for all Division III conferences aside from the top 10 or so who would generally populate that field.
Better in terms of exposure on ESPN platforms.
Better in terms of competitive balance, travel restrictions aside.
Better for student-athletes who get to see someone else in the postseason other than the same teams from their region all the time.
Better for student-athletes who don't have their postseason hopes live in a proverbial smoke-filled room and can compete for an automatic bid on the field.

By the way, the Lambert Cup could still exist. It was run as a labor of love by one guy (a D-III guy at that) who passed away in 2019, and the ECAC took it over but apparently it did not come back for D-III after COVID.

[CNU85]

Interesting viewpoints. I love the dialogue!

Just for fun, I went to Massey and entered these matchups:

Hobart defeats Endicott 42-27

RMC defeats Endicott 42-21
CWRU also defeats Endicott 42-21

CWRU defeats Hobart 34-30
RMC defeats Hobart 35-31

So in this analysis....teams mentioned in posts below all beat Hobart and Endicott and Hobart wins the head-to-head vs Endicott.



I used neutral site matchups to avoid any home field advantage.

Just some more meaningless data points should anyone wish to discuss.

Cheers!