FB: Liberty League

['gro]

I'm pretty sure this video is going to give Mr. T's 'Treat your mama right' video a run for it's money...

http://2nuff.multiply.com/video/item/8/Dont_Bite_Your_Friends_-_Yo_Gabba_Gabba

it's catchy, can't wait for the remix with wyclef.

[Caz Bombers]

I'm pretty sure this video is going to give Mr. T's 'Treat your mama right' video a run for it's money...

http://2nuff.multiply.com/video/item/8/Dont_Bite_Your_Friends_-_Yo_Gabba_Gabba

it's catchy, can't wait for the remix with wyclef.

Caz thinks if Gro likes remixes, Gro and the whole LLPP will dig these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWi1-AgA5g4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Pj2PqSFug&feature=related

[Senor RedTackle]

I mean, they are getting more votes than RPI and Hobart COMBINED!

Probably a remnant of having more playoff wins than the two combined last season. Makes it a little easier to believe in them. I notice they're not really climbing in the poll, though.

RT doesnt usually say much about this topic but agrees w/ LD completely. Curry has no place in the polls ahead of RPI or Hobart unless there's a requirement to have a New England team in there. RPI would probably beat Curry by 3 TDs if they played on a neutral field tomorrow.

[dewcrew88]

I mean, they are getting more votes than RPI and Hobart COMBINED!

Probably a remnant of having more playoff wins than the two combined last season. Makes it a little easier to believe in them. I notice they're not really climbing in the poll, though.

RT doesnt usually say much about this topic but agrees w/ LD completely. Curry has no place in the polls ahead of RPI or Hobart unless there's a requirement to have a New England team in there. RPI would probably beat Curry by 3 TDs if they played on a neutral field tomorrow.

RT,

DC agrees as well on the 'RPI would beat Curry by 3 TDs' part, but also believes that it might be like a past performance thing... they haven't lost, right? So if they start in the poll or in the receiving votes list, you can't take them out if they haven't lost, right? DC doesn't punish a team playing in a weak conference if they are undefeated.

[Frank Rossi]

I mean, they are getting more votes than RPI and Hobart COMBINED!

Probably a remnant of having more playoff wins than the two combined last season. Makes it a little easier to believe in them. I notice they're not really climbing in the poll, though.

RT doesnt usually say much about this topic but agrees w/ LD completely. Curry has no place in the polls ahead of RPI or Hobart unless there's a requirement to have a New England team in there. RPI would probably beat Curry by 3 TDs if they played on a neutral field tomorrow.

RT,

DC agrees as well on the 'RPI would beat Curry by 3 TDs' part, but also believes that it might be like a past performance thing... they haven't lost, right? So if they start in the poll or in the receiving votes list, you can't take them out if they haven't lost, right? DC doesn't punish a team playing in a weak conference if they are undefeated.

DC -

This is a constant issue I have with your assessments that I have read on this and other boards -- this "punishment" principle that you always espouse.  Unfortunately, this would mean that there would be no need to vote just about every week if the Top 25 all played unranked opponents and won -- we should just mail in our ballots as-is if we were voters. 

Yet, there is a huge difference if the #1 team skirts by a the #100 team in the Division by 1 point and the #2 team slams the #26 team by 50 points in the same week.  I don't look at it as "punishing the #1 team" if I move them down on my ballot -- I look at it as rewarding the #2 team for a great performance that week, especially if it is representative of that team's trend over the past weeks.

Let's look at Curry, Hobart and RPI:

Curry:

Sep. 5  7:00 PM  at Worcester State •  W, 28-21 OT     
Sep. 13  1:00 PM  Fitchburg State •  W, 41-34     
Sep. 20  12:00 PM  Westfield State •  W, 42-16     
Sep. 27  12:00 PM  Western New England * •  W, 40-7   

RPI:

Sep. 13  1:00 PM  at Endicott •  W, 36-7     
Sep. 20  1:30 PM  at Utica •  W, 24-10     
Sep. 27  1:00 PM  Worcester Polytech * •  W, 35-21   

Hobart:

Sep. 13  1:00 PM  Dickinson •  W, 28-21     
Sep. 20  1:00 PM  at Carnegie Mellon •  W, 21-16     
Sep. 27  1:00 PM  Susquehanna * •  W, 27-14   

Curry wins narrowly against two opponents that were marginal in many people's views

RPI wins against WPI, who beat Worcester St. handily, and RPI beat an E8 team by a score that would denote an OK performance -- granted, Utica threatened RPI at home, but many won't realize that when they vote.

Hobart beat two quality Pennsylvania teams and handled Susquehanna.

Out of these three teams, Hobart deserves some benefit of recognition for its schedule.  It won a hard-fought game against CMU and another one the week before against Dickinson.  What is Curry's resume this season, and how did Curry perform against those teams on its resume?  Your argument is that if Curry chooses to play 10 (11) creampuffs every season, then Curry should always stay at the same or better ranking as long as it wins?  BULL. 

You reward teams for schedules and performances -- with margin of victory coming into play when the team lets a lower opponent nearly knock them off.  Does RPI deserve to be above Curry based on performance and schedule?  Maybe -- I'd use the WPI/Worcester State connection a bit more here to justify it and the fact that RPI DID play an E8 team instead of yet another NEFC team (and barely won), granted RPI played a weaker E8 team.  But to let Curry's win against Hartwick carry them to the cusp of the Top 25 this year... No.  Not justified I don't think. 

Hopefully this week's poll will wake up voters as to that fact if they look at what nearly happened this week.  Hobart deserves a spot in the Top 25, if you ask me -- and that might require leapfrogging some teams, which I have no problem seeing happen if teams above Hobart underperform.

[dewcrew88]

Frank,

I'm no lawyer... so my debate skills are questionable 

I agree with you on the Hobart thing.. you do have to take schedule (weakness or strength of) into consideration. Maybe it should be a different idea when teams are playing all their OOC games in the beginning of the year, but for the major chunk of the schedule, Curry has to face league teams, same as RPI, same as Hobart.


And I'm not a d3 voter, so it's a little bit skewed, but you do have to take consideration in margin of victory too, as you have said.

[Pat Coleman]

I'm not saying the LL is any better than the E8 this year -- so far, the LL hasn't proven this either.  

But you were advocating that the LL move up in our conversation.

[Pat Coleman]

RPI would probably beat Curry by 3 TDs if they played on a neutral field tomorrow.

Then they should prove it and play them. But if RPI is going to play the weakest of the weak then they are not going to get any poll love. Plain and simple.

And while I enjoyed seeing the Curry run last year, I have to agree with LD at this point that the justification of it being on the cusp of the Top 25 is a bit weak right now.

Think it should be noted that although Curry has continued to win, the Colonels have been passed by teams that have more impressive resumes each week and despite being 26th in the preseason with 70 votes they have lost ground.

So I would say that Curry being on the cusp of the Top 25 is a little misleading. In fact, they would've needed to get 75% more votes to get into the Top 25 this week.

[Frank Rossi]

I'm not saying the LL is any better than the E8 this year -- so far, the LL hasn't proven this either.  

But you were advocating that the LL move up in our conversation.

Actually, no.  I specifically said exactly what I said here - I said that the E8 should fall closer to the LL, but I haven't seen enough evidence since the beginning of the season to support some leap by the LL -- Union beating Springfield I brought up to support the fact that the E8 is missing some of its mid-tier-team umph this season.

[Frank Rossi]

So I would say that Curry being on the cusp of the Top 25 is a little misleading. In fact, they would've needed to get 75% more votes to get into the Top 25 this week.

I look at it more as Curry being 4 teams away from being in the Top 25 -- so if 4 teams within 7-10 spots of them fell or underperformed, they would be there... and on Saterdays, that's not out of the question over the next few weeks.  But the bigger point is why Hobart hasn't generated any focus, comparatively?

[Jonny Utah]

Although I would rank RPI and Hobart above Curry, RPI should beat Curry by 3 tds as much as they should beat Utica by 5 tds......

still too early.  RPI knows what their doing.  Play a schedule where you have a 95% chance of winning non-league games and a 85% chance of winning the weaker LL teams (everyone except for Union, Hobart, and now Rochester).  Now with a 50% chance of beating both Union and Hobart in most seasons.....RPI has a 40% chance of going to the playoffs in any given year.  And theres a 25% chance that doesn't happen.

[PBR...]

Although I would rank RPI and Hobart above Curry, RPI should beat Curry by 3 tds as much as they should beat Utica by 5 tds......

still too early.  RPI knows what their doing.  Play a schedule where you have a 95% chance of winning non-league games and a 85% chance of winning the weaker LL teams (everyone except for Union, Hobart, and now Rochester).  Now with a 50% chance of beating both Union and Hobart in most seasons.....RPI has a 40% chance of going to the playoffs in any given year.  And theres a 25% chance that doesn't happen.

dang, thats a lot of math and % for this early in da morning...pbr's head hurts after reading this

[dlippiel]

I think the Curry argument (although I always participate) just beats a dead horse!

-RPI needs to play some OOC to get early year votes and top 25 consideration.

-Curry simply does not belong anywhere near the top 25 until they beat a "very good" football team. (To me, last years Hartwick club does not fit that description).

-E8 is the class of the east but overated on a national scale. I think the league is down this year.

-LL (although my heart is in the LL) needs to win a NCAA playoff game. Until that happens I think the LL has been going down a bit as well.

-A team performing "well" against very good competition will always mean more to me than a team being 4-0 playing absolutely nobody.

-Its early and I am just blabbing but I need this to get my day started at work.

[Senor RedTackle]

RPI would probably beat Curry by 3 TDs if they played on a neutral field tomorrow.

Then they should prove it and play them. But if RPI is going to play the weakest of the weak then they are not going to get any poll love. Plain and simple.

If you had listened to "ITH" on Sun night, you would've heard an interesting observation by WPI Coach Ed Zaloom talking about his first coaching clinic he ever went to where one of the D1 coaches giving a talk had said the three keys to winning are "schedule, schedule, and schedule".

RPI is pretty comfortable with thier LL schedule as a good test for them over the course of the long season....and RT doesn't have a problem with how they choose to schedule outside of conference. D1 programs have been doing that for years...look at Oklahoma or LSU's early OOC schedules. Unfortunately, D3 programs don't run their business based upon what the fans or "experts" would like to see to help them make their polling easier since the "experts" don't have the TV coverage to go by like in D-I.

Anyone who knows football in the northeast knows that RPI or Hobart are much deeper from top to bottom then a Curry and that the top LL teams would likely thump Curry 19 out of 20 times played. As much as anyone wants to bash RPI's OOC schedule, it doesn't hide the fact that Curry's regular season schedule is nowhere near the test of the LL schedule. RT thinks that pollsters who insist on ranking Curry ahead of the top LL teams lose credibility because it doesn't show an objective analysis of rosters, conf SOS, etc. Great...they went to the NCAAs and have piled up an impressive record over the last few seasons (against who, RT may add??)...they even beat Hartwick! Wow. Didn't Hartwick let Utica put on an offensive clinic in the regular season against them last year??
In any event, these are fun debates and don't cause RT much stress because the fact is that the NEFC gets an AQ, which Curry seems to have the lock on so LL teams have to focus on winning their own conference or battling for an at large as the 2nd best team in the LL....knowing that the 2nd best team in NEFC isn't going to get an at large. It is what it is.

[Senor RedTackle]

I think the Curry argument (although I always participate) just beats a dead horse!

Rare archival footage ...RPI "over" Curry c1886