East Region Fan Poll

[ExTartanPlayer]

Good point, SJF.

Most likely, it's just some laziness on the part of voters.  Many folks probably ranked the semifinal losers as #3 and #4, then put the quarterfinal losers in the top eight, et cet...without much further thought.  If it's outside the region that you follow, you may not remember off the top of your head that Fisher beat Hobart earlier this year.  All you know is that Hobart has a weird-looking record (7-2) and that they lost in the first round, while SJF just made a run to the quarterfinals.  If you don't look at the DETAILS, you'll never realize that Bart deserved to be ranked at least NEAR Fisher.

*I'm just stating the PERCEPTION, not the fact; I agree with you that Hobart should be ranked higher.

[pumkinattack]

82, I've found myself on the other side of you on a few topics, but thanks for pointing this out.  I was bummed, but not surprised, and think I noted that right after the Wesley game, that Bart would be long forgotten.  Too bad, but congrats to you guys - definitely don't begrudge SJF that.  More games, more experience against good (JHU/DelVal) to great competition (St Tom), more accolades like AA's.  I'd gladly take the other side of the situation (Fisher's) and hope to get that one day.  Interestingly, in all the playoff appearances over the past dozen years, Bart's almost always gotten suspect competion, or top 6 teams early.  Arguably the only matchups that were sort of middle of the road competition were 2004 (Cortland), 2006 (Rowan) and 2008 (Lyco, although even though Bart was predicted to be the underdog, I think that had more to do with the continous underappreciation of what Coach Cragg has built at Hobart). 

It's not only SJF vis a vis Hobart, but the entire East that are ranked. 
Salisbury 8
Kean 9
SJF 11
DelVal 13
Even JHU (CC schools are East in my book, even though for NCAA purposes they're south) only dropping to 18.  I would glady put Hobart, Union, RPI up against the top 3 in the CC any day. 
Hobart ORV

I only hope that our boys come back with a massive chip on their shoulders and rip a new one into the entire schedule next year.  Some talent graduates for Bart, but if they can fix the secondary, they should be right there with the top's in the East, and hopefully competitive with the top 6-8 nationally, next year.   

[SUADC]

I agree 100% with the post above. I believe that Hobart showed that they are and should have been rank at least top 12. Again, as SJF stated they played Wesley @ Wesley and only loss by seven, regardless of how Wesley played. All the odds were stack against them. If I had to vote, I would break it down by region then as a whole, being patient and looking at the whole picture for the year.
The Top 5 East: #1 Salisbury, #T2 Hobart, #T2 Kean, #4 St. John Fisher, #5 Delaware Valley
The Top 5 South: #1 Wesley College, #2 MH-B, #T3 Trinity (TX), #T3McMurry, #T3 Centre
The Top 5 North: #1 MUC, #2 Wabash, #3 Franklin, #4 North Central (Ill.), #T5 Baldwin-Wallace & #T5 Illinois Wesleyan
The Top 5 West: #1 UWW, #2 St. Thomas, #T3 Linfield, #T3 Bethel, #5 Cal Lutheran

[SJFF82]

82, I've found myself on the other side of you on a few topics, but thanks for pointing this out.  I was bummed, but not surprised, and think I noted that right after the Wesley game, that Bart would be long forgotten.  Too bad, but congrats to you guys - definitely don't begrudge SJF that.  More games, more experience against good (JHU/DelVal) to great competition (St Tom), more accolades like AA's.  I'd gladly take the other side of the situation (Fisher's) and hope to get that one day.  Interestingly, in all the playoff appearances over the past dozen years, Bart's almost always gotten suspect competion, or top 6 teams early.  Arguably the only matchups that were sort of middle of the road competition were 2004 (Cortland), 2006 (Rowan) and 2008 (Lyco, although even though Bart was predicted to be the underdog, I think that had more to do with the continous underappreciation of what Coach Cragg has built at Hobart). 

It's not only SJF vis a vis Hobart, but the entire East that are ranked. 
Salisbury 8
Kean 9
SJF 11
DelVal 13
Even JHU (CC schools are East in my book, even though for NCAA purposes they're south) only dropping to 18.  I would glady put Hobart, Union, RPI up against the top 3 in the CC any day. 
Hobart ORV

I only hope that our boys come back with a massive chip on their shoulders and rip a new one into the entire schedule next year.  Some talent graduates for Bart, but if they can fix the secondary, they should be right there with the top's in the East, and hopefully competitive with the top 6-8 nationally, next year.

Yep, we have...

nonetheless, I actually thought about you as I was typing that so glad you read it.  I was imagining how pissed the 'Bart fans must be and how much they prob. wanted to point out the Fisher game earlier in the year....so I did it for ya because its legit. 

ExTartan made a good pt also....the voters categorized based on the Final 8, and how many remembered, or even knew in the first place that HOBART triple-monkey stomped us.  They SHOULDA remembered though that Hobart went on the road to Wesley and gave em a great game and then Wesley rode all the way to almost beating MUC who, in case the voters didnt know is like 100-5 in the last 105 gmes with 4 losses to the same team.

[Pat Coleman]

This is worth an entire blog post unto itself and I might or might not get a chance to write it in the near future, but here's my take. It's really hard to equate a September game to a November or December finish. Now, Hobart didn't get much of an opportunity to prove itself in November and passed up opportunities to do so in September, but it seems reasonable to believe that St. John Fisher changed over the course of the season.

And a word about comparative scores. (Yes, I know that's not what this is necessarily about.) What do the comparative scores mean for the Puple Powers against UW-Oshkosh? Nothing. Part of the finesse of voting in a Top 25 is knowing which results to give greater weight to. The fact that UWO almost beat UWW weeks after getting blown out by Mount Union turned out to predict absolutely nothing.

[BoBo]

The Top 5 North: #1 MUC, #2 Wabash, #3 Franklin, #4 Illinois Wesleyan, #T5 Baldwin-Wallace & Wheaton (Ill.)

Seriously, no NCC?   

[SJFF82]

This is worth an entire blog post unto itself and I might or might not get a chance to write it in the near future, but here's my take. It's really hard to equate a September game to a November or December finish. Now, Hobart didn't get much of an opportunity to prove itself in November and passed up opportunities to do so in September, but it seems reasonable to believe that St. John Fisher changed over the course of the season.

And a word about comparative scores. (Yes, I know that's not what this is necessarily about.) What do the comparative scores mean for the Puple Powers against UW-Oshkosh? Nothing. Part of the finesse of voting in a Top 25 is knowing which results to give greater weight to. The fact that UWO almost beat UWW weeks after getting blown out by Mount Union turned out to predict absolutely nothing.

Well that is a good opening 2 paragraphs to the blog post...be sure NOT to mention the triple monkey stomping of SJF by Hobart, cuz like you said that was a loooong time ago 

[Bombers798891]

I have no problem with Hobart there. I know seedings and they can play a role in a playoff run, but part of the reason Hobart got that seeding was because of an unimpressive regular-season slate. I mean, heading into the playoffs, you had a 7-1 Hobart who had a Fisher win and...what exactly? Hobart had two wins all season against teams with winning records, and at the risk of getting Frank's ire up, Union wasn't that great of a win.

Sure, they played Wesley tough. But considering where they were when the regular season ended, it's tough to move Hobart up that much based on a loss.

At the end of the day Hobart had seven wins. I'm looking at prior polls, and the last 7-win team to finish ranked was Union in 2006. But that Union team had a better body of work (IMO) and even then, they were 25th, receiving fewer votes than Hobart did. So Hobart got the same treatment that Union team did

The last team with 7 wins to finish highly ranked? La-Crosse who was 13th and 7-4. Again, a better body of work. (Tougher conference, Playoff win, games against upper-division schools OOC.)

[Jonny Utah]

I have no problem with Hobart there. I know seedings and they can play a role in a playoff run, but part of the reason Hobart got that seeding was because of an unimpressive regular-season slate. I mean, heading into the playoffs, you had a 7-1 Hobart who had a Fisher win and...what exactly? Hobart had two wins all season against teams with winning records, and at the risk of getting Frank's ire up, Union wasn't that great of a win.

Sure, they played Wesley tough. But considering where they were when the regular season ended, it's tough to move Hobart up that much based on a loss.

At the end of the day Hobart had seven wins. I'm looking at prior polls, and the last 7-win team to finish ranked was Union in 2006. But that Union team had a better body of work (IMO) and even then, they were 25th, receiving fewer votes than Hobart did. So Hobart got the same treatment that Union team did

The last team with 7 wins to finish highly ranked? La-Crosse who was 13th and 7-4. Again, a better body of work. (Tougher conference, Playoff win, games against upper-division schools OOC.)

Yea but if Mount Union played Hobarts schedule they would have only had 8 wins.  Unless you are saying pollsters are punishing the team because of the schedule they had to play?

[Frank Rossi]

It's not a question of getting my ire up here... It's just a little unfortunate that you tend to cherry pick in that analysis.  Hobart had 8 sacks vs. a Union team that had a Second Team All-East OL (Smith) and was obviously turning the corner at that point in the season into a much-improved team.  I've heard more than one coach say that Union was actually the best team in the LL by the end of the season once the defense shored up and got comfortable.  In retrospect now, the Union win and SJF win by Hobart are actually a lot more impressive when you look at how both teams proved themselves to be better than what we considered at the time of the matchups.

More importantly, though, name another team that, in the First Round, played a better game while losing.  Ironically, I placed Hobart 17th (I looked at the 16 Second Round teams and basically considered level of strength before placing all 16 Second Round teams ahead of Hobart -- yet, the 8 quarterfinalists were not my top 8, in case you're wondering if I just used the playoffs as a proxy).  The thing that irks me a bit is that 9 of Hobart's points came from me.  The average position for all other pollsters was 24th for Hobart.  That provided for both some unfortunate math here (since average position of 24th leading to a 26th place ranking is a little sad) and some questioning as to how bad the perception is regarding the region.  Looking at the sum total of Hobart, they have to be the LL favorite next year, without a doubt in my mind, especially with their returning starters on defense.  If our job is to rank the teams as they stand as of Friday night, then Hobart is, indeed, a Top 20 team.  Their resume, although limited, supports that assessment, and the team itself is still very much intact looking forward.

[Pat Coleman]

Yea but if Mount Union played Hobarts schedule they would have only had 8 wins.  Unless you are saying pollsters are punishing the team because of the schedule they had to play?

One team's punishing is another team's rewarding. It's rewarding another team that played a more complete schedule.

[Jonny Utah]

Yea but if Mount Union played Hobarts schedule they would have only had 8 wins.  Unless you are saying pollsters are punishing the team because of the schedule they had to play?

One team's punishing is another team's rewarding. It's rewarding another team that played a more complete schedule.

Ok then, what if Hobart scheduled Colgate and Cornell and beat those teams instead of playing SJF and Bruce Dickinson?  Would they still have been punished by playing the best schedule in the country?  Or what if they replaced SJF and Bruce with MIT and Anna Maria, Caselton and Husson?  That would be a 10 game schedule that is worse than their 8 game schedule, and much worse if they had played Colgate and Cornell.

[Jonny Utah]

_{Hobart has a fever.......and the only cure if more football games......}

[Bombers798891]

It's not a question of getting my ire up here... It's just a little unfortunate that you tend to cherry pick in that analysis.  Hobart had 8 sacks vs. a Union team that had a Second Team All-East OL (Smith) and was obviously turning the corner at that point in the season into a much-improved team.  I've heard more than one coach say that Union was actually the best team in the LL by the end of the season once the defense shored up and got comfortable.  In retrospect now, the Union win and SJF win by Hobart are actually a lot more impressive when you look at how both teams proved themselves to be better than what we considered at the time of the matchups.

More importantly, though, name another team that, in the First Round, played a better game while losing.  Ironically, I placed Hobart 17th (I looked at the 16 Second Round teams and basically considered level of strength before placing all 16 Second Round teams ahead of Hobart -- yet, the 8 quarterfinalists were not my top 8, in case you're wondering if I just used the playoffs as a proxy).  The thing that irks me a bit is that 9 of Hobart's points came from me.  The average position for all other pollsters was 24th for Hobart.  That provided for both some unfortunate math here (since average position of 24th leading to a 26th place ranking is a little sad) and some questioning as to how bad the perception is regarding the region.  Looking at the sum total of Hobart, they have to be the LL favorite next year, without a doubt in my mind, especially with their returning starters on defense.  If our job is to rank the teams as they stand as of Friday night, then Hobart is, indeed, a Top 20 team.  Their resume, although limited, supports that assessment, and the team itself is still very much intact looking forward.

Union was still their second best win, by a considerable margin. And if we're looking at a body of work, things like that are relevant. It's not a bad win by any means. But for being the second-best win a team had, it's a little thin. Absolutely, Union was better at that point then they were when they lost to Ithaca, especially on offense. It was a solid win, but I don't think it was a resume-supporting one

I still think it's relevant also that Hobart had three weeks to get ready for Fisher. It doesn't explain 56-20 completely, but for a good team—and Hobart is good, no doubt—will take advantage of that. Yes, there is a rust argument to be made, but I think it's a considerable advantage that most teams don't get before playing what was probably the toughest game of their season.

I guess here's how I view Hobart: They're a team that won a mediocre conference, and lost in the first round of the playoffs. To some degree, that's out of their control. They had some scheduling issues, and the LL being down isn't their fault. But that's still their season. I think you're right that sometimes teams are playing better than their seeding/record might indicate, but I don't think 26th is an insult to the team.

[Bombers798891]

Yea but if Mount Union played Hobarts schedule they would have only had 8 wins.  Unless you are saying pollsters are punishing the team because of the schedule they had to play?

One team's punishing is another team's rewarding. It's rewarding another team that played a more complete schedule.

Ok then, what if Hobart scheduled Colgate and Cornell and beat those teams instead of playing SJF and Bruce Dickinson?  Would they still have been punished by playing the best schedule in the country?  Or what if they replaced SJF and Bruce with MIT and Anna Maria, Caselton and Husson?  That would be a 10 game schedule that is worse than their 8 game schedule, and much worse if they had played Colgate and Cornell.

Here's the thing: We've seen teams play weak schedules. We've seen teams play shortened schedules. But Hobart did both. Eight games, and an SOS good for 128th in the country. That strikes me as unique, (although maybe Frank or Pat know of some other instances where something similar occurred?)