East Region Playoff Discussion

[lewdogg11]

There are always 2-4 really f'ing good teams and no one fares well against them. 

I think the East probably has more Tier 2 teams than any other Region.  They just haven't produced a Tier 1 team in 10-12 years.(but the Tier 1's have been the same pretty much throughout that time frame)

Co-sign on the first part.

And honestly, I think this second part is really interesting. There's more to "strength" than having a team be a legit national title contender. The Empire 8 is annually considered one of the best conferences in D-III, and really, the 2006 Fisher team was probably the only one that had a realistic shot at a title. So why can't this logic be extended to regions as well?

I just have a really hard time saying the 'North', 'West', or 'South' are dominant Regions because they've produced some good teams.  I think the top teams in the East would do JUST fine in the ASC, WIAC or OAC. 

[AO]

watching the St. Thomas against St. John Fisher and Hobart, there is a big difference in talent, speed and strength at nearly every position.  The St. Thomas players last year were quoted as noticing the large gap in athletic talent between the MIAC-WIAC and Fisher. 

I don't see Hobart or Widener being able to physically match up with UW-Platteville, much less anybody in the top 10 in the West.

I'm not saying there should be less playoff bids for the East region or anything like that, just giving my subjective observations.  Hopefully the East will produce a national power like Rowan again soon.

[SUADC]

watching the St. Thomas against St. John Fisher and Hobart, there is a big difference in talent, speed and strength at nearly every position.  The St. Thomas players last year were quoted as noticing the large gap in athletic talent between the MIAC-WIAC and Fisher. 

I don't see Hobart or Widener being able to physically match up with UW-Platteville, much less anybody in the top 10 in the West.

I'm not saying there should be less playoff bids for the East region or anything like that, just giving my subjective observations.  Hopefully the East will produce a national power like Rowan again soon.

The same way Buff State who lost to Salisbury that loss to Widener, but beat UW-W who beat UW-Platteville.

[AO]

watching the St. Thomas against St. John Fisher and Hobart, there is a big difference in talent, speed and strength at nearly every position.  The St. Thomas players last year were quoted as noticing the large gap in athletic talent between the MIAC-WIAC and Fisher. 

I don't see Hobart or Widener being able to physically match up with UW-Platteville, much less anybody in the top 10 in the West.

I'm not saying there should be less playoff bids for the East region or anything like that, just giving my subjective observations.  Hopefully the East will produce a national power like Rowan again soon.

The same way Buff State who lost to Salisbury that loss to Widener, but beat UW-W who beat UW-Platteville.

yeah, well....
Div III   WI Platteville   beat    WI LaCrosse   40 - 10
   Div III   WI LaCrosse   beat    N Central IL   21 - 17
   Div III   N Central IL   beat    Cal Lutheran   41 - 21
   Div III   Cal Lutheran   beat    Pac Lutheran   37 - 23
   Div III   Pac Lutheran   beat    Willamette   41 - 27
   Div III   Willamette   beat    Hardin-Simmons   58 - 34
   Div III   Hardin-Simmons   beat    Texas Col   57 - 21
   NAIA   Texas Col   beat    Concordia AL   31 - 20
   USCAA   Concordia AL   beat    MS Valley St   20 - 19
   Div I - FCS   MS Valley St   beat    Southern Univ   6 - 0
   Div I - FCS   Southern Univ   beat    Florida A&M   21 - 14
   Div I - FCS   Florida A&M   beat    Hampton   44 - 20
   Div I - FCS   Hampton   beat    Norfolk St   28 - 14
   Div I - FCS   Norfolk St   beat    Liberty   31 - 24
   Div I - FCS   Liberty   beat    Stony Brook   28 - 14
   Div I - FCS   Stony Brook   beat    Army   23 - 3
   Div I - FBS   Army   beat    Boston College   34 - 31
   Div I - FBS   Boston College   beat    Maryland   20 - 17
   Div I - FBS   Maryland   beat    Wake Forest   19 - 14
   Div I - FBS   Wake Forest   beat    North Carolina   28 - 27
   Div I - FBS   North Carolina   is better than    LSU   because North Carolina beat Idaho 66 - 0
while LSU only beat Idaho 63 - 14
   Div I - FBS   LSU   beat    Texas A&M   24 - 19
   Div I - FBS   Texas A&M   beat    Alabama   29 - 24

[lewdogg11]

While AO has WAY too much time on his hands.


...and that brings it back to Kevin Bacon.

[repete]

There are always 2-4 really f'ing good teams and no one fares well against them. 

I think the East probably has more Tier 2 teams than any other Region.  They just haven't produced a Tier 1 team in 10-12 years.(but the Tier 1's have been the same pretty much throughout that time frame)

Co-sign on the first part.

And honestly, I think this second part is really interesting. There's more to "strength" than having a team be a legit national title contender. The Empire 8 is annually considered one of the best conferences in D-III, and really, the 2006 Fisher team was probably the only one that had a realistic shot at a title. So why can't this logic be extended to regions as well?

However ... another way to look at the regions is by the number of different teams from the same region that have won title since Ithaca in 1991. A lot of these teams were at one point "Tier 2" but found a way to rise.

WEST
UW-LAX (2)
PLU
SJU
Linfield
UWW (4)
NORTH
Mount (10)
Albion

[lewdogg11]

There are always 2-4 really f'ing good teams and no one fares well against them. 

I think the East probably has more Tier 2 teams than any other Region.  They just haven't produced a Tier 1 team in 10-12 years.(but the Tier 1's have been the same pretty much throughout that time frame)

Co-sign on the first part.

And honestly, I think this second part is really interesting. There's more to "strength" than having a team be a legit national title contender. The Empire 8 is annually considered one of the best conferences in D-III, and really, the 2006 Fisher team was probably the only one that had a realistic shot at a title. So why can't this logic be extended to regions as well?

However ... another way to look at the regions is by the number of different teams from the same region that have won title since Ithaca in 1991. A lot of these teams were at one point "Tier 2" but found a way to rise.

WEST
UW-LAX (2)
PLU
SJU
Linfield
UWW (4)
NORTH
Mount (10)
Albion

Yeah but how sustained are any of those?  Some of those teams aren't even playoff quality right now.

[boobyhasgameyo]

watching the St. Thomas against St. John Fisher and Hobart, there is a big difference in talent, speed and strength at nearly every position.  The St. Thomas players last year were quoted as noticing the large gap in athletic talent between the MIAC-WIAC and Fisher. 

I don't see Hobart or Widener being able to physically match up with UW-Platteville, much less anybody in the top 10 in the West.

I'm not saying there should be less playoff bids for the East region or anything like that, just giving my subjective observations.  Hopefully the East will produce a national power like Rowan again soon.

Yeah they can totally tell based off one game too.  I don't know where you get your strength information on.  Did they do a bench pressing competition before the game?  It certainly wasn't the case of Fisher being physically dominated by St. Thomas.  Size was not our issue that day.  But back to your ridiculous assertion for a moment that there was a large talent gap between Fisher and the MIAC-WIAC.  So let's see Fisher lost after traveling half the country by 35.  With an injured QB mind you and like it or not with St. Thomas pulling out a trick play and airing it out at the end of the game with it already in hand.  I don't care that they did it, whatever we couldn't stop it.  But it wasn't like we were down 60 and battled our way back in the end to shrink the margin to 35.  It expanded to that margin late. 

So with your statement how do you explain St. John's who lost to them by 56 points and finished 3rd in the conference standings?  How do you explain St. Olaf who lost to them by 35 points as well and finished tied for 2nd in the MIAC?  Oh that's right you can't.  Unless maybe those teams are allowed to have bad games but we aren't allowed to?  Maybe that's it? 

You guys just like to act like St. Thomas never blew out an opponent before they play against a team from the east.  We would do just fine in the MIAC and WIAC.  We wouldn't win it as we couldn't beat a team like St. Thomas or Whitewater last year (and you are a fool if you think teams in the E8 couldn't beat Whitewater this year...since well we did).  But don't say because of a blowout loss that we are sooooo inferior to your conference.  Give me a break.   

[AO]

There are always 2-4 really f'ing good teams and no one fares well against them. 

I think the East probably has more Tier 2 teams than any other Region.  They just haven't produced a Tier 1 team in 10-12 years.(but the Tier 1's have been the same pretty much throughout that time frame)

Co-sign on the first part.

And honestly, I think this second part is really interesting. There's more to "strength" than having a team be a legit national title contender. The Empire 8 is annually considered one of the best conferences in D-III, and really, the 2006 Fisher team was probably the only one that had a realistic shot at a title. So why can't this logic be extended to regions as well?

However ... another way to look at the regions is by the number of different teams from the same region that have won title since Ithaca in 1991. A lot of these teams were at one point "Tier 2" but found a way to rise.

WEST
UW-LAX (2)
PLU
SJU
Linfield
UWW (4)
NORTH
Mount (10)
Albion

Yeah but how sustained are any of those?  Some of those teams aren't even playoff quality right now.

They're all playoff quality if they played in the East.

[lewdogg11]

There are always 2-4 really f'ing good teams and no one fares well against them. 

I think the East probably has more Tier 2 teams than any other Region.  They just haven't produced a Tier 1 team in 10-12 years.(but the Tier 1's have been the same pretty much throughout that time frame)

Co-sign on the first part.

And honestly, I think this second part is really interesting. There's more to "strength" than having a team be a legit national title contender. The Empire 8 is annually considered one of the best conferences in D-III, and really, the 2006 Fisher team was probably the only one that had a realistic shot at a title. So why can't this logic be extended to regions as well?

However ... another way to look at the regions is by the number of different teams from the same region that have won title since Ithaca in 1991. A lot of these teams were at one point "Tier 2" but found a way to rise.

WEST
UW-LAX (2)
PLU
SJU
Linfield
UWW (4)
NORTH
Mount (10)
Albion

Yeah but how sustained are any of those?  Some of those teams aren't even playoff quality right now.

They're all playoff quality if they played in the East.

Well you just went and lost any credibility that we may have given you.  Move along now.

[lewdogg11]

Then again, I guess if I had just looked at your karma rating, I would have figured it out. 

[AO]

There are always 2-4 really f'ing good teams and no one fares well against them. 

I think the East probably has more Tier 2 teams than any other Region.  They just haven't produced a Tier 1 team in 10-12 years.(but the Tier 1's have been the same pretty much throughout that time frame)

Co-sign on the first part.

And honestly, I think this second part is really interesting. There's more to "strength" than having a team be a legit national title contender. The Empire 8 is annually considered one of the best conferences in D-III, and really, the 2006 Fisher team was probably the only one that had a realistic shot at a title. So why can't this logic be extended to regions as well?

However ... another way to look at the regions is by the number of different teams from the same region that have won title since Ithaca in 1991. A lot of these teams were at one point "Tier 2" but found a way to rise.

WEST
UW-LAX (2)
PLU
SJU
Linfield
UWW (4)
NORTH
Mount (10)
Albion

Yeah but how sustained are any of those?  Some of those teams aren't even playoff quality right now.

They're all playoff quality if they played in the East.

Well you just went and lost any credibility that we may have given you.  Move along now.

I've watched St. John's and Hobart play St. Thomas.  The Johnnies appeared to me to be faster and more balanced than Hobart.  It goes beyond score comparison, though obviously the Johnnies are better there too.

[gordonmann]

Showing the list of champions since 1991 reinforces Lew's point.

Thirteen of the last 16 titles were won by two schools.  You can extend the period of comparison back 21 years to get more variety, but some teams that get added haven't been national title contenders in over a decade. 

Drop Albion and UW-La Crosse whose last title came before most of their current players entered kindergarten. That leaves you with Mount Union, UW-Whitewater and a few teams from the west who broke through for a year. That's a good summary of Division III's truly elite programs since 2000.

The west region has more than one title winner, which shows its capacity to generate title contenders.  That makes sense given that the WIAC, MIAC and NWC are part of that region.  But no one on that list demonstrates the region's ability to generate sustained elite play except for Whitewater.  As good as the West region is, only one team besides UWW has played in the Stagg Bowl multiple times (SJU) and that program hasn't been tier two for a couple seasons now. 

That list doesn't provide much more to measure the regions' comparative strength.  There's nothing in that list to suggest any North team other than Mount Union is elite. You have to rely on the more subjective analysis for that ("I saw X and Y play Mount Union and lose by multiple touchdowns and X is definitely better.")

Until we see someone actually beat Mount Union and reach the Stagg Bowl multiple times, we won't know if there's a new elite team to challenge Mount Union or if this is just a return to the pre-Whitewater era when Mount squashed a different team in the Stagg Bowl each year.

[ITH radio]

The biggest talent gap we noticed in watching the game Saturday btw HOB and UST was the speed and closing abilities of the Tommies DBs.  Their special teams players (punter and FG PK) were also better than their HOB counterparts.  Otherwise both the OL and DLs for both teams were similar in size and strength.  Webb is a better RB than Braddock IMO, O'Connell and Strang seemed pretty even talent wise too.

Bad games happen, it's just a shame when it's at this level of visibility.  Not saying Hobart wins the game if it's played again (in fact they'd probably lose by a couple of scores), but it wouldn't have gotten so out of hand if so many bad plays and breaks (losing #5) didn't happen all at once so early in the game.  The Statesmen return a good deal of players from this year's team and should be ranked in the Top 10 going into the preseason, and deservedly so. 

We predicted a UST-UMU Stagg Bowl on ITH last night (check out the 12/2 archive), so there's no shame to losing to the potential national champs / runner up.  It's just a shame HOB played so poorly on their biggest stage, but knowing Coach Cragg, they'll learn from their mistakes and move on. 

Keep in mind UST wasn't exactly a world beater 4 years ago.  That fact should give all teams, not just HOB and WID, hope.

[Bombers798891]

Thirteen of the last 16 titles were won by two schools. 

And not much seems to be changing either. It's also worth pointing out that Mount especially, has been practically untouchable in many playoff runs after finishing the year undefeated. Heck, Jim Butterfield took the Bombers to seven Stagg Bowls and Ithaca NEVER finished undefeated with him as the Head Coach. They certainly were never perceived as invincible the way Mount has been.

This blows my mind: Ithaca's best point differential in any season under Butterfield was +326. That's less than HALF of what Mount Union's was in 2007.