FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[jknezek]

I believe you are correct tigerfan. Eight instead of 16 at that time.

Here's hoping if the big boys take their money and run we don't end up back at 8...

[Pat Coleman]

I don't think that we'd go back that far but we'd probably have to ask schools to pick up the tab for the travel stuff that the NCAA pays for now.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I don't think that we'd go back that far but we'd probably have to ask schools to pick up the tab for the travel stuff that the NCAA pays for now.

Which has a huge downside as well.  Back when IWU was NAIA, I know some schools passed on the national tourney every year because they couldn't afford it.  (I doubt any of them were any serious threat to do much damage in the tourney anyway, but still.)

And if we bemoan the bracket every year because teams are not creatively matched (avoiding flights), imagine if the committee knew some schools would simply drop out due to costs.

[jknezek]

I'm assuming you'd have to opt in before seeding, kind of like applying to host. That way it doesn't get messy once the brackets come out.

[tigerfanalso]

could be difficult to opt in before you know where you are traveling and how much it will cost. I use HSC 2013 experience as an example. cross country to Linfield round 1 (no idea the cost). Had HSC won, would have been forced to travel next week to UWW, win that game and you travel to Texas the following week. I would suggest those three trips exceed $250,000 which is a budget buster for most schools. So how does a school blindly opt in with out knowing the financial burden ? CFO is not going to allow the AD to pad the budget to this degree, that I'm certain of. Hopefully it doesn't come to this but if it where to occur I believe the national tourneys are history or at minimum, force a different format. 

[jknezek]

could be difficult to opt in before you know where you are traveling and how much it will cost. I use HSC 2013 experience as an example. cross country to Linfield round 1 (no idea the cost). Had HSC won, would have been forced to travel next week to UWW, win that game and you travel to Texas the following week. I would suggest those three trips exceed $250,000 which is a budget buster for most schools. So how does a school blindly opt in with out knowing the financial burden ? CFO is not going to allow the AD to pad the budget to this degree, that I'm certain of. Hopefully it doesn't come to this but if it where to occur I believe the national tourneys are history or at minimum, force a different format.

I think you'd have to. But I also think you'd see a return to much more regional brackets just to avoid that scenario. You simply can't have a team in the tournament that forfeits round 2 because it costs too much. But again, I think you'd have seen a 16 team tournament with basically 4, 4 team pods. Using just the home teams from 2013 (which eliminates some good teams like Wesley and SJF) I would seed this way (using numbers and Pod using the letters):

1 UMU (A)
1 UWW (B)
1 UMHB (C)
1 Hobart (D)

2 Witt (A)
2 NCC (B)
2 Bethel (C)
2 JHU (D)

3) IWU (A)
3) UW-Plat (B)
3 JCU (C)
3 Rowan (D)

4) HSC (A)
4) Franklin (B)
4) Linfield (C)  (Bogus but for a reason if $ constrained)
4) Ithaca (D)

Round 1  -- 1 flight
UMU -- HSC
UMHB -- Linfield (elminate an orphan, 1 flight)
Hobart -- Ithaca
UWW -- Franklin

Witt -- IWU
JHU -- Rowan
Bethel -- JCU
NCC -- UW-Plat

Round 2 -- assumes highest seed wins (one flight)
UMU - Witt
Hobart -- JHU
UMHB -- Bethel 1 flight
UWW -- NCC

Round 3 -- assumes highest seed wins (one flight)
UMU - Hobart
UMHB -- UWW 1 flight

Final 1 or 2 flights depending on where staged and who arrives, etc. You could do away with at least one of these flights by doing away with the neutral site venue.

In group A only a match up between IWU and HSC would require an extra flight
Group B is all within 500 miles
Group C requires flights regardless of winners, but the number is fixed regardless of outcomes
Group D is all within 500 miles

Basically you could easily structure an entire 16 team tournament with 1 flight per round. It wouldn't be the most fair tournament, but you could assess those kinds of costs across the membership. While other sports will have bigger tournaments, you can keep smaller regions to start, even if it doesn't make the most competition sense. That will keep costs down and still get you to a national champion. Reseed as you approach 16 or 32 teams to keep costs down within the pods.

The real loss will be the AQ. There are simply too many conferences. I did away with the AQ as you can tell since UW-Plat and JCU both made the field over conference champions (a function of last year's playoff seeding). But you could require conference champions at a minimum and still put together a tournament with minimal flights if you wanted to.

Flight costs don't have to fall on the individual schools. All teams participating in the tournament or the sport could share the expenses working under the assumption that the tournament will do its best to limit the expense.

[wally_wabash]

The real loss will be the AQ. There are simply too many conferences. I did away with the AQ as you can tell since UW-Plat and JCU both made the field over conference champions (a function of last year's playoff seeding). But you could require conference champions at a minimum and still put together a tournament with minimal flights if you wanted to.

That's the piece that is pretty uncomfortable.  Without AQs, who decides who gets to play in the tournament?  Presumably a selection committee.  But with- what is it, 24?- leagues out there and 16 spots, there is a pretty sizeable chunk of the division that will NEVER get a chance to play in the postseason.  If you play in a league with teams that Duey and future Dueys look down their nose at, it really doesn't matter how good your team is- you won't get a chance to play.

[jknezek]

The real loss will be the AQ. There are simply too many conferences. I did away with the AQ as you can tell since UW-Plat and JCU both made the field over conference champions (a function of last year's playoff seeding). But you could require conference champions at a minimum and still put together a tournament with minimal flights if you wanted to.

That's the piece that is pretty uncomfortable.  Without AQs, who decides who gets to play in the tournament?  Presumably a selection committee.  But with- what is it, 24?- leagues out there and 16 spots, there is a pretty sizeable chunk of the division that will NEVER get a chance to play in the postseason.  If you play in a league with teams that Duey and future Dueys look down their nose at, it really doesn't matter how good your team is- you won't get a chance to play.

100% agree. I love the AQ. I'd hate to give it up. Absolutely hate to go back to the dark ages. But money runs the world. If the big guys take their money and run, it would be interesting to see how much the membership would support. There are probably a lot of schools more than willing and able to subsidize these tournaments, but I have to believe there are even more that would be unwilling. I kind of wonder if you'd end up with almost two groupings within D3. A membership that agrees to pay for and subsidize the tournaments they play sports for, and other teams that won't and therefore aren't eligible at season's end to keep playing. A NESCAC type model that exists within the framework of all the other conferences.

[tigerfanalso]

Alot of unanswered questions. Lets hope we never have to find out. I simply do not think the athletic budgets could support post season play. The cost for HSC to play Wabash is a tremendous burden on the budget, the idea of 4 playoff games, on the road (assuming the underdog keeps winning) is not realistic. I think most schools would retreat and decide to stay home.
Faculty would not support thinking those funds better spent in the classroom, budgeting gets to be very political at most schools.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I simply do not think the athletic budgets could support post season play....Faculty would not support thinking those funds better spent in the classroom, budgeting gets to be very political at most schools.

My point-of-view is certainly very "old school" despite my youthful age...but if the big schools broke away and kept all the money, and thus the NCAA ceased to foot the bill for Division III championship travels, then I would be fine with the Division III playoffs ceasing to exist.  Conference championships would become the Holy Grail.  Maybe some sort of one-round postseason games like the ECAC bowls would spring up around the country as a cost-controlled way to play some post-season games with decent regional matchups but not much need for flights.  It would be a bit of a bummer for schools like Mount, UWW, and the handful of nationally competitive schools for whom a conference title has become boring, but arguably a boon for schools that never have a chance to make the playoffs anyway, by putting some glamour back into a conference title.  Would it really be all that bad if every league below FBS was run like the NESCAC and Ivy League?

[Hawks88]

I simply do not think the athletic budgets could support post season play....Faculty would not support thinking those funds better spent in the classroom, budgeting gets to be very political at most schools.

My point-of-view is certainly very "old school" despite my youthful age...but if the big schools broke away and kept all the money, and thus the NCAA ceased to foot the bill for Division III championship travels, then I would be fine with the Division III playoffs ceasing to exist.  Conference championships would become the Holy Grail.  Maybe some sort of one-round postseason games like the ECAC bowls would spring up around the country as a cost-controlled way to play some post-season games with decent regional matchups but not much need for flights.  It would be a bit of a bummer for schools like Mount, UWW, and the handful of nationally competitive schools for whom a conference title has become boring, but arguably a boon for schools that never have a chance to make the playoffs anyway, by putting some glamour back into a conference title.  Would it really be all that bad if every league below FBS was run like the NESCAC and Ivy League?

How does the NAIA finance their playoffs? I wonder if we would we see a lot of the schools that have come from NAIA fairly recently migrating back and would there be enough going there to have a separate non-scholarship division?

[jknezek]

Not the end of the world, but I do think you lose something. The big national tournament is the only way to really see how you stand. Granted for the vast majority of teams that standing is somewhere in the "not competitive" column, but it's about the only way you'll see a Linfield vs HSC (which was competitive) match up. Those games are good experiences for the kids. I wouldn't go so far as to say the athletes deserve a pay off like a national tournament for all the work they put in during the season, but I do think it is a nice bonus and something to strive for.

As for the regional post-season match ups it's an interesting concept, but I wonder how much buy in you'd actually get. The ECAC's are the only ones in the entire country right now, and schools sometimes don't opt in or opt to host for various reasons, usually involving money. I just don't see more of those kinds of things springing up if the tournament were pared down or eliminated.

I do think the conference championship is already the goal for the vast majority of schools. Other than a few that have higher aspirations, that conference championship is about all you are going to do. I don't think too many teams would trade the conference championship for a "Pool C" bid and an extra round in the tournament. I guess you could ask the SJF guys since I think they've played that scenario once or twice recently...

[CNU85]

I simply do not think the athletic budgets could support post season play....Faculty would not support thinking those funds better spent in the classroom, budgeting gets to be very political at most schools.

My point-of-view is certainly very "old school" despite my youthful age...but if the big schools broke away and kept all the money, and thus the NCAA ceased to foot the bill for Division III championship travels, then I would be fine with the Division III playoffs ceasing to exist.  Conference championships would become the Holy Grail.  Maybe some sort of one-round postseason games like the ECAC bowls would spring up around the country as a cost-controlled way to play some post-season games with decent regional matchups but not much need for flights.  It would be a bit of a bummer for schools like Mount, UWW, and the handful of nationally competitive schools for whom a conference title has become boring, but arguably a boon for schools that never have a chance to make the playoffs anyway, by putting some glamour back into a conference title.  Would it really be all that bad if every league below FBS was run like the NESCAC and Ivy League?

How does the NAIA finance their playoffs? I wonder if we would we see a lot of the schools that have come from NAIA fairly recently migrating back and would there be enough going there to have a separate non-scholarship division?

V. Traveling Teams Transportation and Housing
All arrangements for the traveling team's official party (maximum of 60 persons for expense purposes) must be approved by the NAIA Department of
Championships. The traveling team will receive and pay the transportation bill (air and/or ground) and any meal and housing bills incurred to and from, and
while at the game site. Exceptions will not be made to these policies unless approved in advance in writing by the NAIA Department of Championships.
A. TRANSPORTATION AND HOUSING
There are three categories for transportation, reimbursement:
1. For trips under 400 miles, the NAIA would reimburse no more than:
• Pre-approved expenses for one 55 passenger bus & one additional vehicle (e.g. 15-
passenger van).
• If it has been determined by the Department of Championships that an institution will bus to the site of a championship series game,
and be reimbursed for those expenses, that institution will be responsible for arranging ground transportation.
• Pre-approved hotel for 30 rooms (one night). The Department of Championships in coordination with the host institution arranges
housing for the traveling team's official party while at the game site.
• All participating teams must stay at the designated headquarters hotel or assigned property in order to be eligible for the event and
any reimbursement funds.
2. For trips between 400 and 800 miles:
• Pre-approved expenses for two 55 passenger buses (no additional vehicle)
• If it has been determined by the Department of Championships that an institution will bus to the site of a championship series game,
and be reimbursed for those expenses, that institution will be responsible for arranging ground transportation.
• Pre-approved hotel for 30 rooms (maximum of two nights). The Department of Championships in coordination with the host institution
arranges housing for the traveling team's official party while at the game site.
• All participating teams must stay at the designated headquarters hotel or assigned property in order to be eligible for the event and
any reimbursement funds.
3. For trips over 800 miles, air transportation will typically be used and reimbursement is as follows:
• Air transportation costs (see information below)
• Pre-approved hotel for 30 rooms (maximum of two nights). The Department of Championships in coordination with the host institution
arranges housing for the traveling team's official party while at the game site.

[jknezek]

An 800 mile bus ride is one long ride to have on either side of a game. Especially the ride home if you lose. Uggh. Doable, but you're talking 12 hours on a bus. I'm not sure that ExTP doesn't have the right idea if that is the alternative...

[tigerfanalso]

Lets hope we never have to find out. National Championship tourney's greatly enhance the D3 experience and I'd hate to see D3 without same, regardless of the fact the same 4 teams are going to play for the championship (in football) most every year.