FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[Bombers798891]

and by the way, a HSC victory over UWP would be as big as App over UM.

not going to debate, but it would be upset of decade (several decades) in D3 and you know I'm hoping it happens.

Cheers

I mean, if you're going to throw out a statement that's ripe for debate on a message board and then declare you're not going to debate it....it sort of defeats the purpose. But, it's a statement I find interesting, so I'll explore it.

I struggle with comparing cross division games to D-III only matchups.

But even if UWP is better than their record because of the conference they play in, and HSC is coming off a tough year, you're still talking about a mediocre team beating a ranked (but not super highly ranked) team. We don't need to act like that's never happened. In 2003, Ithaca finished the season ranked 10th in the country and won two playoff games on the road. They also lost, at home, to a 5-5 Cortland team.

HSC beating UWP is an upset, mind you, and a big one. But it's the kind of upset we've seen elsewhere in D-III. App St/Michigan was unheard of

[jknezek]

jk

Not sure how you debate UPW 2017 vs. Wabash 2015, Wabash was very good, I just don't think many teams compete well vs. top 3 in WIAC, outside of the obvious elite programs. HSC was not run off the field by Wabash in 2014, 2015 was ugly but wish that matchup could become an annual event. Expenses prohibit unfortunately.

You don't really, that's why I put the last line on there. But I think those Wabash teams in 14/15 were top 10 - 15 teams at least. The '14 loss to Witt is a bit odd as Witt did not fair well in the playoffs, but sometimes even really good teams lose to good rivals, especially on the road. Regardless, those Wabash teams were about the same area in ranking, in my opinion, as I expect UWP to be. Not exactly a scientific comparison, but it's the best I can do.

I have a lot of respect for the '14 HSC team. They definitely sputtered at the end of the year, and got destroyed by Wesley, but I think a lot of that was a depth problem. They rode their stars hard that year and by the end, they were injured, tired, and toasted. But at the beginning of the season when they hosted Wabash? That was a pretty good HSC team that beat a good CNU and hammered the front half of the ODAC schedule. What happened at the end of 2014 and in 2015 and 2016 showed that they needed to ride those stars hard. There just wasn't anywhere near the same quality behind them.

[jknezek]

and by the way, a HSC victory over UWP would be as big as App over UM.

not going to debate, but it would be upset of decade (several decades) in D3 and you know I'm hoping it happens.

Cheers

I mean, if you're going to throw out a statement that's ripe for debate on a message board and then declare you're not going to debate it....it sort of defeats the purpose. But, it's a statement I find interesting, so I'll explore it.

I struggle with comparing cross division games to D-III only matchups.

But even if UWP is better than their record because of the conference they play in, and HSC is coming off a tough year, you're still talking about a mediocre team beating a ranked (but not super highly ranked) team. We don't need to act like that's never happened. In 2003, Ithaca finished the season ranked 10th in the country and won two playoff games on the road. They also lost, at home, to a 5-5 Cortland team.

HSC beating UWP is an upset, mind you, and a big one. But it's the kind of upset we've seen elsewhere in D-III. App St/Michigan was unheard of

I don't know. I think we kind of over-rate App State/Michigan because we were so very wrong about 2007 Michigan. Sure they went 9-4 and finished around 20th in a final poll. They were good. But they weren't as good as we expected. App State, on the other hand, was the National Champion in IAA or FCS or whatever they called it then. Was it a big upset? Absolutely. But given what we knew by the end of the season, it was nowhere near the upset we thought it was the day it happened. I mean that Michigan team also got blown out by Oregon, who was a pedestrian 5-4 in PAC play, and hammered by 5-3 Big 10 Wisconsin.  That opening week #5 ranking for UM was a serious f up by the people that know football.

[HSCTiger fan]

No one was arguing (outside of Ohio) that Michigan was not top 5 until they lost to ASU. No one is arguing UWP is not deserving of their position at 18. My point is after losing nearly all of their offense- Maybe they're not 18. Maybe they're number 1. Maybe their number 80. The season will tell the tell.

[Bombers798891]

I don't know. I think we kind of over-rate App State/Michigan because we were so very wrong about 2007 Michigan. Sure they went 9-4 and finished around 20th in a final poll. They were good. But they weren't as good as we expected. App State, on the other hand, was the National Champion in IAA or FCS or whatever they called it then. Was it a big upset? Absolutely. But given what we knew by the end of the season, it was nowhere near the upset we thought it was the day it happened. I mean that Michigan team also got blown out by Oregon, who was a pedestrian 5-4 in PAC play, and hammered by 5-3 Big 10 Wisconsin.  That opening week #5 ranking for UM was a serious f up by the people that know football.

It is overrated, in the sense that Michigan was clearly not #5 in the country. But you still have an ultimately top 20 team losing, at home, to an FCS team. That's happened a handful of times, ever.

I guess I'm just struggling with the significance of UWP losing. We're looking at the 15th ranked team in the country, losing on the road to a mediocre/below average HSC team. Here are some recent losses by the 15th (or higher) ranked teams in the country (final rankings)

2011: #10 Kean to a 3-7 Brockport
2010: #13 Alfred to a 4-5 Rochester
2009: #11 John's Hopkins to a 6-5 Ursinus
2008: #10 Wartburg to a 5-5 Augsburg
2007: #15 TCNJ to a 5-5 Kean, #13 Capital to a 5-5 Otterbein
2004: #13 UW-L to a 5-4 UW- Stout
2003: #10 Ithaca to a 5-5 Cortland

You get my point. I'm sure there are others, I just looked at teams in that range with at least three losses. It's not this unheard of thing for a team in the 15 or so range to lose to a meh kind of team in D3 (And I'm drawing a hard line at 15)

[Bombers798891]

No one was arguing (outside of Ohio) that Michigan was not top 5 until they lost to ASU.

Yeah, but the three other games they lost that year showed us that they weren't a top 5 team even without that loss

[jknezek]

I don't know. I think we kind of over-rate App State/Michigan because we were so very wrong about 2007 Michigan. Sure they went 9-4 and finished around 20th in a final poll. They were good. But they weren't as good as we expected. App State, on the other hand, was the National Champion in IAA or FCS or whatever they called it then. Was it a big upset? Absolutely. But given what we knew by the end of the season, it was nowhere near the upset we thought it was the day it happened. I mean that Michigan team also got blown out by Oregon, who was a pedestrian 5-4 in PAC play, and hammered by 5-3 Big 10 Wisconsin.  That opening week #5 ranking for UM was a serious f up by the people that know football.

It is overrated, in the sense that Michigan was clearly not #5 in the country. But you still have an ultimately top 20 team losing, at home, to an FCS team. That's happened a handful of times, ever.

I guess I'm just struggling with the significance of UWP losing. We're looking at the 15th ranked team in the country, losing on the road to a mediocre/below average HSC team. Here are some recent losses by the 15th (or higher) ranked teams in the country (final rankings)

2011: #10 Kean to a 3-7 Brockport
2010: #13 Alfred to a 4-5 Rochester
2009: #11 John's Hopkins to a 6-5 Ursinus
2008: #10 Wartburg to a 5-5 Augsburg
2007: #15 TCNJ to a 5-5 Kean, #13 Capital to a 5-5 Otterbein
2004: #13 UW-L to a 5-4 UW- Stout
2003: #10 Ithaca to a 5-5 Cortland

You get my point. I'm sure there are others, I just looked at teams in that range with at least three losses. It's not this unheard of thing for a team in the 15 or so range to lose to a meh kind of team in D3 (And I'm drawing a hard line at 15)

I do. But even if you assume this happens once a year for teams 10-15, that's 5 teams, 10 games a year. 50 games a year, you are looking at 13 seasons of data, that's 650 games. So yeah, it happens about 2% of the time. Not quite fat tail territory on a distribution graph, but pretty far out there...

[HSCTiger fan]

I don't know. I think we kind of over-rate App State/Michigan because we were so very wrong about 2007 Michigan. Sure they went 9-4 and finished around 20th in a final poll. They were good. But they weren't as good as we expected. App State, on the other hand, was the National Champion in IAA or FCS or whatever they called it then. Was it a big upset? Absolutely. But given what we knew by the end of the season, it was nowhere near the upset we thought it was the day it happened. I mean that Michigan team also got blown out by Oregon, who was a pedestrian 5-4 in PAC play, and hammered by 5-3 Big 10 Wisconsin.  That opening week #5 ranking for UM was a serious f up by the people that know football.

It is overrated, in the sense that Michigan was clearly not #5 in the country. But you still have an ultimately top 20 team losing, at home, to an FCS team. That's happened a handful of times, ever.

I guess I'm just struggling with the significance of UWP losing. We're looking at the 15th ranked team in the country, losing on the road to a mediocre/below average HSC team. Here are some recent losses by the 15th (or higher) ranked teams in the country (final rankings)

2011: #10 Kean to a 3-7 Brockport
2010: #13 Alfred to a 4-5 Rochester
2009: #11 John's Hopkins to a 6-5 Ursinus
2008: #10 Wartburg to a 5-5 Augsburg
2007: #15 TCNJ to a 5-5 Kean, #13 Capital to a 5-5 Otterbein
2004: #13 UW-L to a 5-4 UW- Stout
2003: #10 Ithaca to a 5-5 Cortland

You get my point. I'm sure there are others, I just looked at teams in that range with at least three losses. It's not this unheard of thing for a team in the 15 or so range to lose to a meh kind of team in D3 (And I'm drawing a hard line at 15)

It's only happened twice. JMU beat a ranked VTech and the Appalachian Michigan game. Those are the only times a ranked FBS team have lost to a lower division team.

[Bombers798891]

I do. But even if you assume this happens once a year for teams 10-15, that's 5 teams, 10 games a year. 50 games a year, you are looking at 13 seasons of data, that's 650 games. So yeah, it happens about 2% of the time. Not quite fat tail territory on a distribution graph, but pretty far out there...

But the 10th-15th ranked team in the country isn't going to play 10 games a year against that level of competition (or worse).

2008 Wartburg played 7-3 St. Norbert, 7-3 Simpson, 7-3 Buena Vista, 6-4 Loras, 6-4 Central
2010 Alfred played 9-2 Fisher, 9-2 Alfred, 6-4 Ithaca, 6-4 RPI.
2011 Kean: 12-2 Wesley, 9-2 Cortland, 7-3 TCNJ, 8-2 Montclair

(I'm using 2 games over .500 as a quick and dirty line of "Better than HSC might be considered" I understand someone has to be above .500 in these conferences, but I need a shorthand way to determine "meh" vs "better than meh")

So I bet it's more frequent than the 1-in-50 you're giving. Which is to say, it's a big upset, but it's not this sort of spit take "Is this the biggest upset ever?" sort of upset. Which, even after readjusting for the rest of Michigan's season, that game probably was.

[jknezek]

I do. But even if you assume this happens once a year for teams 10-15, that's 5 teams, 10 games a year. 50 games a year, you are looking at 13 seasons of data, that's 650 games. So yeah, it happens about 2% of the time. Not quite fat tail territory on a distribution graph, but pretty far out there...

But the 10th-15th ranked team in the country isn't going to play 10 games a year against that level of competition (or worse).

2008 Wartburg played 7-3 St. Norbert, 7-3 Simpson, 7-3 Buena Vista, 6-4 Loras, 6-4 Central
2010 Alfred played 9-2 Fisher, 9-2 Alfred, 6-4 Ithaca, 6-4 RPI.
2011 Kean: 12-2 Wesley, 9-2 Cortland, 7-3 TCNJ, 8-2 Montclair

(I'm using 2 games over .500 as a quick and dirty line of "Better than HSC might be considered" I understand someone has to be above .500 in these conferences, but I need a shorthand way to determine "meh" vs "better than meh")

So I bet it's more frequent than the 1-in-50 you're giving. Which is to say, it's a big upset, but it's not this sort of spit take "Is this the biggest upset ever?" sort of upset. Which, even after readjusting for the rest of Michigan's season, that game probably was.

See I just disagree with this. You not only have to adjust for Michigan being an around # 20 team, but you have to adjust for App State being the FCS National Champion. The BEST team in FCS. Where would that put them in FBS? About mid-pack likely. So really you have an inside the top 60 FBS team beating about the 20th ranked FBS team. It's an upset. It's just not that big. It's only that big because everyone severely over ranked Michigan that year and no one really concerns themselves with how good App State really was.

[jknezek]

Ok. Just because I got bored. At the end of the 2007 season, Massey had Michigan at 16, surrounded by TN and BC, and App State at 44, surrounded by Virginia and TCU. For example, Wisconsin shellacked Michigan that year, and they finished in the Massey ratings at 34, only 10 spots ahead of App State... How come that isn't one of the great upsets of all time?

[tigerFanAlso2]

so I go back to my original statement; HSC over UWP would be a bigger upset than the one we are beating to death. Michigan's reputation is driving the degree of the upset and I get that; App was a very good team that could have beaten many D1 schools in 2007; I can't say the 2017 edition of HSC football is going to be great, could be good, certainly better than last year, so if they pull the upset, it will be huge in the D3 world.

[jknezek]

so I go back to my original statement; HSC over UWP would be a bigger upset than the one we are beating to death. Michigan's reputation is driving the degree of the upset and I get that; App was a very good team that could have beaten many D1 schools in 2007; I can't say the 2017 edition of HSC football is going to be great, could be good, certainly better than last year, so if they pull the upset, it will be huge in the D3 world.

I would agree it will be a really big upset. And I really hope it happens!

[tigerFanAlso2]

How cool would that be if HSC upsets UWP and W&L upsets JH in the same year. obviously dreaming; if it were to happen odac would certainly earn respect. So with that in mind, I'll put you in charge of the JH upset and TigerFan in charge of the UWP upset !!!! I can't wait to see UWP play and how our guys match up/hold up.

[jknezek]

How cool would that be if HSC upsets UWP and W&L upsets JH in the same year. obviously dreaming; if it were to happen odac would certainly earn respect. So with that in mind, I'll put you in charge of the JH upset and TigerFan in charge of the UWP upset !!!! I can't wait to see UWP play and how our guys match up/hold up.

That's good delegation...