East Region Playoff Discussion

[Bombers798891]

Im not saying they go out of their way to "screw" the east bringing a better team in im saying make the brackets even in terms of strength.  It doesnt make sense to have 3/4 undefeated teams in one region only to have another region have their top 3 seeds possess 2 losses (combined)...

I would tend to disagree with this statement only because it doesn't speak to the question about parity.  A team in any conference might have a loss because all the teams are more equivalent in capability.  And if more teams in one region are going undeated then there are other teams in that same region that are losing more games.  I'd much rather see conferences and regions where the title is up for grab each year.

Separately I think it's a mistake for the NCAA to try to engineer the final four teams.  When they move teams from one region to another that is all they're trying to do.  Win your conference, get the AQ and stay in your region.  The Pool B and C teams should also only come from the region they belong to.

Imagine this scenario which we see happen.  A team moves from North to East, wins the East.  So we wonder, who is the best team in the East.  That just ain't right.

Anytime a sport tries to engineer a championship it's a disaster.  Division I Football BCS for example.  What a nightmare that is.  NASCAR Race for the Cup - there's a fan favorite.  How would you like to be Chicago, St. Louis, Columbus, and Nashville and be in the same division with the Detroit Redwings?  You don't make the playoffs and you don't get extra credit for playing the best team in the league.  Finishing second to the Redwings out to be worth something (BTW I'm a Pittsburgh Penguin fan, and yes the better team won last year).

Engineered playoffs are just wrong.

Good thoughts, but I respectfully disagree.   

Pool C bids are engineered for the playoffs.  The NCAA has determined that they will pay for one playoff bid for every 6.5 participants (in most sports.  The playoff ratio is slightly higher in other sports.)

Almost every fan on this site thinks that the expansion from 3 Pool C bids to 6 Pool C bids in 2005 was a big improvement.  Why do we have Pool C bids?  IMHO, to improve the playoffs.

In 2002, John Carroll (OAC) won the East as the #7 seed!  Parity?  That suggests that the East has parity, but wouldn't ever make the playoffs in the North  Region!  2002 Bracket

IN 2004 Pool C Mary Hardin-Baylor (ASC) made it to the Stagg Bowl back when there were only 3 Pool C bids.  D3football.com's (Week #11 Poll) #8 UMHB went on the road and beat   #7 Trinity by 29, #3 HSU by 14, #5 W&J by 36 and #1 Mount Union by 3 in Alliance.  They lost to Elliott's #2 Linfield in the Stagg, 21-28.

(Please remember that D3football.com Top 25 is an opinion of 25 knowledgeable SID's Coaches and Media of the best teams in the country.  The NCAA Selection process is the association's process to determine all playoff contenders.)

Let's get the best teams in the country as far apart as we can for as long as we can in the playoffs.  Moving a really top seed to a demonstrably weaker region is fine with me.

Also, with regard to Pool C bids...

Pool C bids are basically Wild Cards. And every sport who uses a playoff--to my knowledge--has Wild Cards. That's not really a major tweak in the system. And there's a difference between getting the best teams in, and helping the best teeams get as far as they can. Becuase don't the better teams already have advantages? They play home games, they play the lower seeded teams. Why do they need more advantages?

I guess I don't like it when any league does something that almost no other leagues do, because it's rarely a good idea:

NHL-- The only league where you can improve in the standings with a loss
MLB-- The only league with different sets of rules for different teams
NCAA D-1 football-- The only league not to use a playoff system to determine it's champion

[Bombers798891]

USee posted this in the General Football's Potential Playoff Selection/Seeds:

Found an article in a local Ohio paper interviewing Dick Kaiser, Head of the D3 playoff selection committee. Here is the link:

http://www.crescent-news.com/news/article/4466158

He says some interesting things that give insight into the committee's thinking.

On the top 4 seeds:

"I think we're going to try again to seed the top four teams," said Kaiser, who served as the defensive coordinator at Idaho State in 1981 when it won the Division I-AA national championship and before that coached outside linebackers at BYU. "Then take the teams and fill up the brackets so it won't be like North, East, South and West. It'll be like Team A's bracket, Team B's bracket and so on and so forth. That's how last year, everybody was all upset that all of sudden Mount Union was playing all of these East teams. Alliance is close (to the East coast) and can play all those East teams."

On the criteria for selection:


"The very first thing we always look at is there any head-to-head meetings," said Kaiser, a Boulder, Colo. native. "Head-to-head is one of the primary criteria we always look at in ranking teams and putting teams into the field. If they didn't play each other, then you have to go to the numbers about their opponents, their in-region record, their opponents in-region record, their opponents, opponents in-region record. Then you also look at the secondary criteria, their opponents in-division record and their opponents, opponents in-division record. Those are four numbers that we have to take into play."
Using a common opponent that teams played can also be used in the Pool B and C situations.
"Last year we had a Pool C team make it in by five to sixth one-thousand of a point," explained Kaiser. "Kind of like Defiance High School got into the playoffs this year."

On Travel problems with 1st round mathchups:

Kaiser and the committee have the challenging task of matching up teams in the playoffs so the don't have to fly to play games, with the cost coming out of the NCAA's pocket. The NCAA requires teams to fly if they're traveling 500 miles or more and requires teams to take a bus if the trip is 499 miles or closer.
"That's not ever real easy, not at all," said Kaiser about trying to keep flights to a minimum for the playoffs. "This year there's a strong possibility that there will be a potential No. 1 (regional) seed out of Oregon, an undefeated team out of California, a one-loss league champion out of Texas and undefeated team out of Jackson, Miss. There's no schools close, so you're going to have to fly."
________________________________________________________________________________



Thoughts?

I still think MUC could go east regardless of the Cortland outcome...

He LIES!!!!! IC lost out on the playoffs in 1998 when they topped TCNJ in a H2H. LIES I tell you!!!!

[theoriginalupstate]

Dude that was 10 years ago, that playoff format is like latin to these guys...

[Bombers798891]

Dude that was 10 years ago, that playoff format is like latin to these guys...

I know....I'm just saying....

[redswarm81]

USee posted this in the General Football's Potential Playoff Selection/Seeds:

Found an article in a local Ohio paper interviewing Dick Kaiser, Head of the D3 playoff selection committee. Here is the link:

http://www.crescent-news.com/news/article/4466158

He says some interesting things that give insight into the committee's thinking.

On the top 4 seeds:


On the criteria for selection:


On Travel problems with 1st round mathchups:

________________________________________________________________________________

Thoughts?

I still think MUC could go east regardless of the Cortland outcome...

Yeah, I posted some thoughts on the General Football's Potential Playoff Selection/Seeds board.

[TheGrove]

NCAA D-1 football-- The only league not to use a playoff system to determine it's champion

Not so fast my friend... don't forget D1 FCS uses a playoff. And that's why I like it better. 

[labart96]

Im not saying they go out of their way to "screw" the east bringing a better team in im saying make the brackets even in terms of strength.  It doesnt make sense to have 3/4 undefeated teams in one region only to have another region have their top 3 seeds possess 2 losses (combined)...

I would tend to disagree with this statement only because it doesn't speak to the question about parity.  A team in any conference might have a loss because all the teams are more equivalent in capability.  And if more teams in one region are going undeated then there are other teams in that same region that are losing more games.  I'd much rather see conferences and regions where the title is up for grab each year.

Separately I think it's a mistake for the NCAA to try to engineer the final four teams.  When they move teams from one region to another that is all they're trying to do.  Win your conference, get the AQ and stay in your region.  The Pool B and C teams should also only come from the region they belong to.

Imagine this scenario which we see happen.  A team moves from North to East, wins the East.  So we wonder, who is the best team in the East.  That just ain't right.

Anytime a sport tries to engineer a championship it's a disaster.  Division I Football BCS for example.  What a nightmare that is.  NASCAR Race for the Cup - there's a fan favorite.  How would you like to be Chicago, St. Louis, Columbus, and Nashville and be in the same division with the Detroit Redwings?  You don't make the playoffs and you don't get extra credit for playing the best team in the league.  Finishing second to the Redwings out to be worth something (BTW I'm a Pittsburgh Penguin fan, and yes the better team won last year).

Engineered playoffs are just wrong.

Good thoughts, but I respectfully disagree.   

Pool C bids are engineered for the playoffs.  The NCAA has determined that they will pay for one playoff bid for every 6.5 participants (in most sports.  The playoff ratio is slightly higher in other sports.)

Almost every fan on this site thinks that the expansion from 3 Pool C bids to 6 Pool C bids in 2005 was a big improvement.  Why do we have Pool C bids?  IMHO, to improve the playoffs.

In 2002, John Carroll (OAC) won the East as the #7 seed!  Parity?  That suggests that the East has parity, but wouldn't ever make the playoffs in the North  Region!  2002 Bracket

IN 2004 Pool C Mary Hardin-Baylor (ASC) made it to the Stagg Bowl back when there were only 3 Pool C bids.  D3football.com's (Week #11 Poll) #8 UMHB went on the road and beat   #7 Trinity by 29, #3 HSU by 14, #5 W&J by 36 and #1 Mount Union by 3 in Alliance.  They lost to Elliott's #2 Linfield in the Stagg, 21-28.

(Please remember that D3football.com Top 25 is an opinion of 25 knowledgeable SID's Coaches and Media of the best teams in the country.  The NCAA Selection process is the association's process to determine all playoff contenders.)

Let's get the best teams in the country as far apart as we can for as long as we can in the playoffs.  Moving a really top seed to a demonstrably weaker region is fine with me.

That 2002 JCU example is a bad one in my opinion.  They were ranked the #11 team in the country at that time.  Why they were seeded 7th made no sense.  

Not to mention 2 flukey plays helped them get out of the first round.  Nevermind - sour grapes.

And JCU won an OT game to defeat the #4 seed that upset the #1 the week before.  

Regardless, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the #11 team in the nation won that bracket - and most people who saw them play would say that they didn't overmatch anyone they played.

['gro]

If Utica on your schedule was instead Hartwick... or if Endicott on your schedule was instead Plymouth St. or Curry... We wouldn't be having nearly as much argument to try to convince people that RPI should be in as a Pool C.  Either they might be ahead of Monclair at this point (which would be important to avoid the "freeze out" that's happening right now to RPI) or they would be assured the final Pool C slot with only one of the eight scenarios I posed happening.  A subtle change in scheduling could go a long way down the road to help RPI build up a much better insurance policy.  Right now, Wooster fans think a two-loss Wooster has a shot over a one-loss RPI team.  I'm trying to beat them back, but such an argument shouldn't even be capable of happening.

Not sure if anyone in the East cares, but here's my two cents.

I'm beyond shocked that there are people out there who honestly believe Wooster should be in the field with 2 losses.  Are you kinding me?  Wooster?  They'd be one of my last ranked 9-1 teams, let alone 8-2.   I'd take an 8-2 Ithaca before I'd take a 9-1 Wooster.  Outside of Wabash, their conference is horrible. 

oh snap. where da wooster fans at?

['gro]

Teams in D-III have to play such regional schedules, and recruiting is so regional, it's not like most other sports where you have national reach. Why not leave the East to the East? Yes, it's unfortunate for good teams in the North who could probably pound a lot of East teams and get stuck losing to MUC in the regionals, but how is that the East's fault? Sure, if the East wasn't so atrocious, they wouldn't have to worry about having teams moved over, but what's the ultimate goal here? So some team can lose to MUC or Whitewater in the national semis instead of the national quarters?

The last 15 National Title games have had either Rowan or MUC in 13 of them. D-III football is top-heavy enough. We've had the same NC game three years in a row. Why do we need to go out of our way to ensure we get more of the same? If that's the way the cookie crumbles, I'm cool with it. But engineering the "best" matchups has, in my opinion, a bad side effect. It manufactures the same matchups. I honestly wish there was some more parity in D-III football. It'd be nice to see some different teams get some national exposure beyond the MUC's of the world...

Excellent post Bombers.  Also lets not forget the high number of football programs in New England, NY, NJ, and PA.  HS kids have more D3 choices then say Minnesota or Wisconsin (didn't do any research on this, but I'm pretty confident).  The regional talent gets spread out more in the east, especially with programs putting money into becoming nationally recognized - SJF for example.

[HScoach]

Teams in D-III have to play such regional schedules, and recruiting is so regional, it's not like most other sports where you have national reach. Why not leave the East to the East? Yes, it's unfortunate for good teams in the North who could probably pound a lot of East teams and get stuck losing to MUC in the regionals, but how is that the East's fault? Sure, if the East wasn't so atrocious, they wouldn't have to worry about having teams moved over, but what's the ultimate goal here? So some team can lose to MUC or Whitewater in the national semis instead of the national quarters?

The last 15 National Title games have had either Rowan or MUC in 13 of them. D-III football is top-heavy enough. We've had the same NC game three years in a row. Why do we need to go out of our way to ensure we get more of the same? If that's the way the cookie crumbles, I'm cool with it. But engineering the "best" matchups has, in my opinion, a bad side effect. It manufactures the same matchups. I honestly wish there was some more parity in D-III football. It'd be nice to see some different teams get some national exposure beyond the MUC's of the world...

Excellent post Bombers.  Also lets not forget the high number of football programs in New England, NY, NJ, and PA.  HS kids have more D3 choices then say Minnesota or Wisconsin (didn't do any research on this, but I'm pretty confident).  The regional talent gets spread out more in the east, especially with programs putting money into becoming nationally recognized - SJF for example.

Definitely an advantage in Wisconsin as the only D1 football playing school is the Badgers of Wisc-Madison.  The rest of the state universities are in the WIAC.  Which in my opinion is a huge advantage when it comes to recruiting due to state school tuition rates compared to the rest of D3.

However the number of school isn't an advantage in Ohio as there are a ton of schools ranging from D1 to D3.  Here's the run down of football programs in Ohio off the top of my head:

( 8 ) D1 = Ohio State, Cincinnati, Bowling Green, Akron, Kent State, Toledo, Ohio U and Miami.

(2) D1-AA = Youngstown State and Dayton

(3) D2 = Ashland, Tiffin and Findlay

(20) D3 = Baldwin Wallace, Capital, Heidelberg, Marietta, Mount Union, Muskingum, Otterbein, Ohio Northern, Wilmington, Bluffton, Wittenberg, Wooster, Defiance, Denison Mt. St. Joe, Case, Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan, Hiram and Kenyon

(2) NAIA = Malone, Walsh

[Ralph Turner]

hscoach, I think that the big advantage that you have in Ohio is not that you have so many really talented, physically gifted players in the state.

The big advantage that you have is the decades-old tradition of fundamentally sound, 4" too short, 40 lbs too light and 0.5 sec too slow players who anticipate and value the experience of the D3 model.

I consider Ohio vastly superior to Texas in the state's attitude to D3football as something worthy of a high school player's continued efforts.  Let's face it.  The "gene pool" is full of kids who are too short, too light or too slow for D1 ball.  We in Texas just need to capture more of them so that they value the D3 experience.

Let's face it, too, parents.

We see our high school kids succeeding by the model of:

1)  go to class
2)  go to practice
3)  come home and study to keep the grades eligible
4)  go to the game
5)  play and come home tired
6)  stay in in-season condition throughout the week
7)  start the routine over on Monday and then continue in the off-season.

Well that model carries over to D3 athletics.

1)   go to class (because many coaches have their spies out with the teachers to make sure their athletes are there and even sitting in the first three rows)
2)  go to practice (and college practice is usually more organized than what some had in high school.  Besides the bodies are bigger, faster and stronger than they were in high school, even in D3.)
3)  go back to the dorm or the apartment or library and study because you cannot slack off like you did in high school
4)  go to the game... (And as a D3 student-athlete, the coach does not own your kid's body, his/her scholarship or his/her curriculum.)

How many parents have seen their own kids or their neighbors' kid go off to college and

1)  miss class
2)  party late
3)  get hungover and over sleep the next morning
4)  party the next night
5)  finish the first semester with a GPA of 0.15

The difference in so many cases is that the discipline that we learned in high school sports, to do things that you are too tired or unpleasant but necessary to do get done, because that is what is expected of you!

Everyone of us in D3 can defend this model to our friends in the community.  This is why we can be so vociferous in support of the D3 model as building the citizens of the next generation.

[met_fan]

Teams in D-III have to play such regional schedules, and recruiting is so regional, it's not like most other sports where you have national reach. Why not leave the East to the East? Yes, it's unfortunate for good teams in the North who could probably pound a lot of East teams and get stuck losing to MUC in the regionals, but how is that the East's fault? Sure, if the East wasn't so atrocious, they wouldn't have to worry about having teams moved over, but what's the ultimate goal here? So some team can lose to MUC or Whitewater in the national semis instead of the national quarters?

The last 15 National Title games have had either Rowan or MUC in 13 of them. D-III football is top-heavy enough. We've had the same NC game three years in a row. Why do we need to go out of our way to ensure we get more of the same? If that's the way the cookie crumbles, I'm cool with it. But engineering the "best" matchups has, in my opinion, a bad side effect. It manufactures the same matchups. I honestly wish there was some more parity in D-III football. It'd be nice to see some different teams get some national exposure beyond the MUC's of the world...

Excellent post Bombers.  Also lets not forget the high number of football programs in New England, NY, NJ, and PA.  HS kids have more D3 choices then say Minnesota or Wisconsin (didn't do any research on this, but I'm pretty confident).  The regional talent gets spread out more in the east, especially with programs putting money into becoming nationally recognized - SJF for example.

There may be more choices here in the northeast, but there is also a much bigger population to draw from.

[Pat Coleman]

That 2002 JCU example is a bad one in my opinion.  They were ranked the #11 team in the country at that time.  Why they were seeded 7th made no sense.  

Not to mention 2 flukey plays helped them get out of the first round.  Nevermind - sour grapes.

And JCU won an OT game to defeat the #4 seed that upset the #1 the week before.  

Regardless, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the #11 team in the nation won that bracket - and most people who saw them play would say that they didn't overmatch anyone they played.

But they did win. On the road. Far on the road. With a quarterback on one knee.

I believe JCU was the seventh seed in that bracket because their home field was under construction and they couldn't have hosted a game anyway.

[dewcrew88]

USee posted this in the General Football's Potential Playoff Selection/Seeds:

Found an article in a local Ohio paper interviewing Dick Kaiser, Head of the D3 playoff selection committee. Here is the link:

http://www.crescent-news.com/news/article/4466158

He says some interesting things that give insight into the committee's thinking.

On the top 4 seeds:

"I think we're going to try again to seed the top four teams," said Kaiser, who served as the defensive coordinator at Idaho State in 1981 when it won the Division I-AA national championship and before that coached outside linebackers at BYU. "Then take the teams and fill up the brackets so it won't be like North, East, South and West. It'll be like Team A's bracket, Team B's bracket and so on and so forth. That's how last year, everybody was all upset that all of sudden Mount Union was playing all of these East teams. Alliance is close (to the East coast) and can play all those East teams."

On the criteria for selection:


"The very first thing we always look at is there any head-to-head meetings," said Kaiser, a Boulder, Colo. native. "Head-to-head is one of the primary criteria we always look at in ranking teams and putting teams into the field. If they didn't play each other, then you have to go to the numbers about their opponents, their in-region record, their opponents in-region record, their opponents, opponents in-region record. Then you also look at the secondary criteria, their opponents in-division record and their opponents, opponents in-division record. Those are four numbers that we have to take into play."
Using a common opponent that teams played can also be used in the Pool B and C situations.
"Last year we had a Pool C team make it in by five to sixth one-thousand of a point," explained Kaiser. "Kind of like Defiance High School got into the playoffs this year."

On Travel problems with 1st round mathchups:

Kaiser and the committee have the challenging task of matching up teams in the playoffs so the don't have to fly to play games, with the cost coming out of the NCAA's pocket. The NCAA requires teams to fly if they're traveling 500 miles or more and requires teams to take a bus if the trip is 499 miles or closer.
"That's not ever real easy, not at all," said Kaiser about trying to keep flights to a minimum for the playoffs. "This year there's a strong possibility that there will be a potential No. 1 (regional) seed out of Oregon, an undefeated team out of California, a one-loss league champion out of Texas and undefeated team out of Jackson, Miss. There's no schools close, so you're going to have to fly."
________________________________________________________________________________



Thoughts?

I still think MUC could go east regardless of the Cortland outcome...

re: Kaiser. Maybe he read my "Keep MUC out of the east" column last year.
re: thoughts. Keep MUC out of the east. If cortland wins, they deserve the one seed.

[Ralph Turner]

Yes, a 10-0 Cortland is a creditable #1 seed.

As I have posted elsewhere, why not make NCC a #2 seed in the West?

They might prefer to catch Willamette as opposed to MUC in the Regional Finals.