East Region Fan Poll

[Yanks 99]

Yanks -

You didn't directly say it but you said they would be behind them unless IC destroys Fisher.  Deductive reasoning says that means you are saying you would jump them if that happens.  Maybe you didn't mean it but you said it.  And if they both went 9-1 that meant IC went undefeated in the 5th toughest conference in the nation (according to ATN).  But I don't have the time or patience to explain that situation...

You win man...Ithaca #1 FOREVER!!!

It's about time you caught on, other than Fisher week I just play along with the Ithaca guys to fluff up their collective egos...

Thanks Upstate...plus the good news is that win or lose on Saturday, I now see how I can keep SJF at #1 in my ERFP...

Enjoy the IC-SJF game on Saturday fellas...I will either be watching my kid, checking out SLU-Utica, or get stuck watching a high school game.  Man...families take up a lot of time...

[AUKaz00]

From the E8 Pick'em Board the week of the 25th:

Games week of 9/25
- 13 Ithaca  (3-0) @ Lycoming (1-1)
      
Alfred (2-0) @ -7 Springfield (3-0)             
      
Wilkes (1-1) @ -13 Utica (3-0)             
      
-10 St. John Fisher (3-0) @ Hobart (2-0)      

Obviously Ithaca being a 13 point favorite was wrong.  If Lyco and Ithaca were to play again, what would the "line" be set at?  My guess is it would still favor Ithaca and, as such, that is why I rank them higher in my poll.

[Doid23]

LOL and +k on 1000 posts Yanks. Go Yanks.

+K for the Yankees

[AUPepBand]

Pep is a bit disappointed he will miss Alfred's game at Hartwick this Saterday. Pep Jr. is coming home for this weekend for a birthday celebration, driving in Friday night from D.C. and returning on Sunday evening. He, understandably, doesn't wish to be on the road for six hours on Saturday.

So, Pep was elated to receive word today that the Alfred-Hartwick game will be webcast. Upon further investigation, Pep is excited by Saterday's schedule of Upstate NY D3 football webcasts. Look at this lineup:

12 noon--Union at Hobart
2 p.m.--Alfred at Hartwick
4 p.m. Ithaca at St. John Fisher
                                                                            family
Now Pep is delighted to stay at home and chill with the laptop and celebrate a birthday.

On Saxon Warriors!

[theoriginalupstate]

Pep is a bit disappointed he will miss Alfred's game at Hartwick this Saterday. Pep Jr. is coming home for this weekend for a birthday celebration, driving in Friday night from D.C. and returning on Sunday evening. He, understandably, doesn't wish to be on the road for six hours on Saturday.

So, Pep was elated to receive word today that the Alfred-Hartwick game will be webcast. Upon further investigation, Pep is excited by Saterday's schedule of Upstate NY D3 football webcasts. Look at this lineup:

12 noon--Union at Hobart
2 p.m.--Alfred at Hartwick
4 p.m. Ithaca at St. John Fisher
                                                                            family
Now Pep is delighted to stay at home and chill with the laptop and celebrate a birthday.

On Saxon Warriors!

Yeah that's a pretty sweet lineup!

Saterday is going to be a blast!

[AUKaz00]

Pep is a bit disappointed he will miss Alfred's game at Hartwick this Saterday. Pep Jr. is coming home for this weekend for a birthday celebration, driving in Friday night from D.C. and returning on Sunday evening. He, understandably, doesn't wish to be on the road for six hours on Saturday.

So, Pep was elated to receive word today that the Alfred-Hartwick game will be webcast. Upon further investigation, Pep is excited by Saterday's schedule of Upstate NY D3 football webcasts. Look at this lineup:

12 noon--Union at Hobart
2 p.m.--Alfred at Hartwick
4 p.m. Ithaca at St. John Fisher
                                                                            family
Now Pep is delighted to stay at home and chill with the laptop and celebrate a birthday.

On Saxon Warriors!

Funny, I was gonna back out on YOU, Pep!  Any chance we can move the Alfred webcast to our favorite conference room in Herrick and throw it up on the plasma?

[union89]

Unless your starting QB is out, injuries/missing players mean squat at this level...

Not directing this at you Upstate, but didn't we beat this topic to death a year or 2 ago....I was of the mindset that injuries are an excuse at this level.....if I remember correctly, PBR (or maybe PG) was pounding the drum that we should take injuries into consideration when ranking teams

[Bombers798891]

Unless your starting QB is out, injuries/missing players mean squat at this level...

Not directing this at you Upstate, but didn't we beat this topic to death a year or 2 ago....I was of the mindset that injuries are an excuse at this level.....if I remember correctly, PBR (or maybe PG) was pounding the drum that we should take injuries into consideration when ranking teams

I think it depends. Are we talking any one injury, or injuries period? I would agree that, QB's aside, there seem to be very few individual players who can have that kind of impact by themselves. But if you're missing 3-4 starters in one game, I think you'd see a drop off.

[Jonny Utah]

Unless your starting QB is out, injuries/missing players mean squat at this level...

Not directing this at you Upstate, but didn't we beat this topic to death a year or 2 ago....I was of the mindset that injuries are an excuse at this level.....if I remember correctly, PBR (or maybe PG) was pounding the drum that we should take injuries into consideration when ranking teams

I think it depends. Are we talking any one injury, or injuries period? I would agree that, QB's aside, there seem to be very few individual players who can have that kind of impact by themselves. But if you're missing 3-4 starters in one game, I think you'd see a drop off.

Yea if Mt. Union had 6 offensive starters suspended for one game and lost to a 5-5 OAC team, do you drop MUC out of the top 10 or 20?  Would you do the same (or rank them the same I should say) if they lost to that 5-5 team and the players weren't suspended?  Those are the questions you need to ask yourself.

[Bombers798891]

Yea if Mt. Union had 6 offensive starters suspended for one game and lost to a 5-5 OAC team, do you drop MUC out of the top 10 or 20?  Would you do the same (or rank them the same I should say) if they lost to that 5-5 team and the players weren't suspended?  Those are the questions you need to ask yourself.

That's an interesting argument that gets into the debate of what's truly "representative" of a team. I think some of it comes down to how long the player will miss time for. Just as an example, your suspension example would probably be one where I wouldn't drop MUC--much--because, in my mind, who they were in the game wasn't representative of who they'd be at full strength, it was one game, and there'd be little reason to think a performance like that would continue when those players returned, which we knew they would.

If a bunch of players were say, all out for the season, and they lost, I would drop them more because that team would be more representative of that team going forward.

The difficulty is the multitude of gray areas which make it impossible to really set criteria. And unfortunately, the people who probably know the impact of all these are the least likely to be objective in that matter. And of course, everyone has injuries, so when you're talking about one game, it's really impossible.

But I will say this: What team would want injuries? I mean, obviously we don't want people hurt, but from a pure performance standpoint, I can't think anyone would want starters to get hurt, at any level. The Bombers are loaded at LB, but no-one would say Gilfedder being out doesn't affect the team or make them not as strong. Heck, Fisher was pretty good with James Reile, but I can't imagine saying to a Fisher fan in 2005 or 2006, "Hey, Mark Robinson's out for the year" and that being met with a "No big deal"

[pg04]

Unless your starting QB is out, injuries/missing players mean squat at this level...

Not directing this at you Upstate, but didn't we beat this topic to death a year or 2 ago....I was of the mindset that injuries are an excuse at this level.....if I remember correctly, PBR (or maybe PG) was pounding the drum that we should take injuries into consideration when ranking teams

Don't think it was me... or at least I can't remember beating that drum 

[Frank Rossi]

Unless your starting QB is out, injuries/missing players mean squat at this level...

Not directing this at you Upstate, but didn't we beat this topic to death a year or 2 ago....I was of the mindset that injuries are an excuse at this level.....if I remember correctly, PBR (or maybe PG) was pounding the drum that we should take injuries into consideration when ranking teams

I think it depends. Are we talking any one injury, or injuries period? I would agree that, QB's aside, there seem to be very few individual players who can have that kind of impact by themselves. But if you're missing 3-4 starters in one game, I think you'd see a drop off.

Yea if Mt. Union had 6 offensive starters suspended for one game and lost to a 5-5 OAC team, do you drop MUC out of the top 10 or 20?  Would you do the same (or rank them the same I should say) if they lost to that 5-5 team and the players weren't suspended?  Those are the questions you need to ask yourself.

Personally, it really depends on whether the game was at the beginning or end of the season (i.e., whether the team for that season already had a body of work for me to evaluate and compare).  If it happened tomorrow, I'd probably knock MUC down to the 9-10 range since my belief would be that MUC is still a Top 10-echelon team, but a drop is warranted since Top 10 teams should have depth enough to still beat that 5-5 team.  If it were in the first weeks of the season, I'd probably drop MUC down 13-15 slots, depending on the state of affairs elsewhere in the poll that weekend.  Tough to get specific, but the depth issue is what matters to me.  Ask Texas after last year's National Championship Game when Colt McCoy got knocked out -- their depth at QB was disappointing, although he seemed to turn a corner in the second half.

[AUPepBand]

Injuries, no doubt, at the D3 level, can become a major factor in a team's success. When Yunevich started at Alfred, it was before the "platoon" system so his players usually played 60 minutes. You see a lot of this even today in the smaller high schools that continue to play 11-man football with a mere 18 to 25 players.

Until Coach Murray's appearance at Alfred, injuries to starters was most difficult for the Saxons. Today, Alfred has more depth than ever in the history of the program. While not close to Alliance, OH, Pep would contend that the University of Mount Union (or whatever they're calling that purple monster out there today) can attribute much of its success to the fact that the second and maybe even third strings are not far from the starters in terms of talent and effort.

That is not to say that AU has backups at every skill postion that can match what the starters bring to the turf. They are different and bring different strengths to the position--and likely some different weaknesses. Pep can think of no greater example than the 2009 AU-Fisher game at Growney when Secky went down in the second quarter. Kilcarr is not Secky. But Secky is not Kilcarr, either. When Kilcarr scrambled and went for a 17-yard run late in the game, Pep was thinking that's not how Secky would have gotten the Saxons in field goal range. But Kilcarr got the job done and did it using his strengths.

D3 football is not the same these days. Anyone who looked at that 1968 Union-Alfred game that Pep posted can see a major difference. Nevertheless, like days gone by, football is the quintessence of the spirit of an institution of higher learning.

On Saxon Warriors!!

[clandfan]

Injuries, no doubt, at the D3 level, can become a major factor in a team's success. When Yunevich started at Alfred, it was before the "platoon" system so his players usually played 60 minutes. You see a lot of this even today in the smaller high schools that continue to play 11-man football with a mere 18 to 25 players.

Until Coach Murray's appearance at Alfred, injuries to starters was most difficult for the Saxons. Today, Alfred has more depth than ever in the history of the program. While not close to Alliance, OH, Pep would contend that the University of Mount Union (or whatever they're calling that purple monster out there today) can attribute much of its success to the fact that the second and maybe even third strings are not far from the starters in terms of talent and effort.

That is not to say that AU has backups at every skill postion that can match what the starters bring to the turf. They are different and bring different strengths to the position--and likely some different weaknesses. Pep can think of no greater example than the 2009 AU-Fisher game at Growney when Secky went down in the second quarter. Kilcarr is not Secky. But Secky is not Kilcarr, either. When Kilcarr scrambled and went for a 17-yard run late in the game, Pep was thinking that's not how Secky would have gotten the Saxons in field goal range. But Kilcarr got the job done and did it using his strengths.

D3 football is not the same these days. Anyone who looked at that 1968 Union-Alfred game that Pep posted can see a major difference. Nevertheless, like days gone by, football is the quintessence of the spirit of an institution of higher learning.

On Saxon Warriors!!

quintessence...now you're just showing off.  OK, I can hear it now...I am a C-Stater and don't even know what that means!

As far as the injury / ranking argument...I think there is no question that most teams don't have the depth at many positions to overcome season ending injuries.  I look only to Cortland last year with the losses at QB.  MUC carries 200 kids on their roster...about 10% of their entire student body and they attract higher level recruits with their history of success. Not many other teams have that.

As for the rankings, we keep W/L records for a reason.  Teams don't go to the playoffs based on their yds per carry or their passing efficiency.  The bottom line is that there will be a winner and a loser.  On a given weekend in a head to head game, I score more points, I win, you lose. I am better.  The season record will reflect the "body of work".  If I lose to a lower ranked team or an unranked team, my rank should drop, regardless of injury or last second field goal. If it's early in the season I will drop further, later in the season there will be greater weight placed on the body of work.  With that being said then...I don't really understand why St. Johns is still in the top 25 with a 3-2 record.  Obviously, I don't have a clue.

[Bombers798891]

As for the rankings, we keep W/L records for a reason.  Teams don't go to the playoffs based on their yds per carry or their passing efficiency.  The bottom line is that there will be a winner and a loser.  On a given weekend in a head to head game, I score more points, I win, you lose. I am better.  The season record will reflect the "body of work".  If I lose to a lower ranked team or an unranked team, my rank should drop, regardless of injury or last second field goal. If it's early in the season I will drop further, later in the season there will be greater weight placed on the body of work.  With that being said then...I don't really understand why St. Johns is still in the top 25 with a 3-2 record.  Obviously, I don't have a clue.

Well, they lost to the #4 and #17 ranked teams by a total of four points.

To me, I try to say, ok St. John's is #23 and Cortland is #25. If those two teams played today, who would win? To me, St. John's wins that game. So I am ok with that difference. Another way I sometimes think "Would Cortland be better than 3-2 if they played St. John's schedule?" Probably. And St. John's would absolutely be 4-0 if they played Cortland's schedule.

Yes, it stands to reason with similar/identical records and a H2H win, that we could tell. But until the NCAA admits they screwed IC in 1998, I guess we have to make do with what we got