FB: Region 3 fan poll

[jknezek]

thanks to both.  where's the complete SOS list.

http://d3football.com/seasons/2017/schedule?tmpl=sos-template

[BerryCollegeFan]

thanks again... I found it just now.

[roocru]

With the regional rankings soon to be out, I thought I would show you guys my Week 9 spreadsheet that I use while picking my South Top 10 picks which combines the initial rankings by D3 Kickoff and the current rankings by LAZ. Born, Massey, Compughter.com and Hansen.  I do not go just by these rankings but use winning percentages and my own observations as well.  The discrepancies in each poll are sometimes quite large, although many pick the teams in a similar order to the other pickers in the or Top 10 Regional poll.

I know I sound like a homer when I am always putting a third ASC school in my picks but hopefully this sheet will explain that as well.  I believe that the 3, 4, 5 and 6 teams in the ASC are all pretty darn good and suffer from what the ODAC calls "ODACity".  That is they all beat each other up. However they have played the top two ASC teams of #1 ranked UMHB and #5 ranked Hardin Simmons pretty close.  ETBU with two losses appears to be able to score a lot of points but need more defense.  TLU beat ETBU but still have Southwestern and Sul Ross left to play. Sul Ross lost by 2 to Southwestern and to high scoring ETBU.  Southwestern lost by 14 to Hardin Simmons and beats Sul Ross. My feelings are that each of the other ASC teams would be a handfull for many of the other south ranked teams and while I cannot in good conscience put several 2, 3 or 4 loss teams in my top 10 Poll picks, I think their results and their placement in all the rankings I list show their worthiness of consideration.

Once again this is just food for thought and one man's opinion baseed on some interesting facts.

I hope you can download my .txt file below but if anyone can show me how to attach and Excel file I will upload it again.

[jknezek]

With the regional rankings soon to be out, I thought I would show you guys my Week 9 spreadsheet that I use while picking my South Top 10 picks which combines the initial rankings by D3 Kickoff and the current rankings by LAZ. Born, Massey, Compughter.com and Hansen.  I do not go just by these rankings but use winning percentages and my own observations as well.  The discrepancies in each poll are sometimes quite large, although many pick the teams in a similar order to the other pickers in the or Top 10 Regional poll.

I know I sound like a homer when I am always putting a third ASC school in my picks but hopefully this sheet will explain that as well.  I believe that the 3, 4, 5 and 6 teams in the ASC are all pretty darn good and suffer from what the ODAC calls "ODACity".  That is they all beat each other up. However they have played the top two ASC teams of #1 ranked UMHB and #5 ranked Hardin Simmons pretty close.  ETBU with two losses appears to be able to score a lot of points but need more defense.  TLU beat ETBU but still have Southwestern and Sul Ross left to play. Sul Ross lost by 2 to Southwestern and to high scoring ETBU.  Southwestern lost by 14 to Hardin Simmons and beats Sul Ross. My feelings are that each of the other ASC teams would be a handfull for many of the other south ranked teams and while I cannot in good conscience put several 2, 3 or 4 loss teams in my top 10 Poll picks, I think their results and their placement in all the rankings I list show their worthiness of consideration.

Once again this is just food for thought and one man's opinion baseed on some interesting facts.

I hope you can download my .txt file below but if anyone can show me how to attach and Excel file I will upload it again.

I think there is a big difference here. In most conferences, 3, 4, 5, etc. beat each other up. That's normal. In the ODAC, the top team is often beat by a team that is out of contention. That simply doesn't happen in the ASC. Belhaven or HPU aren't close to the same competitive level as UMHB or HSU, but in the ODAC E&H is W&L lone conference loss and their lone conference win and Shenandoah's lone conference loss came to a then 0-2 in conference Guilford. It's just a completely different animal. There is nothing odd about a conference with parity in the middle, that's why most conference can't get 3 teams ranked. You have 2 losses at least by being the third team.

As for the ASC's 3rd team, I just don't see it this year. Now I've had 3 teams in my poll and another on my watch list earlier in the year, but at this point this year I've seen too many ugly results. The two that really stand out are one team getting 80 hung on them and another team getting easily beat by the third team in the SAA. Since the ASC doesn't usually play too many other South Region OOC games, this result really helps me measure the middle of the conference. And apparently the middle of the conference isn't better than the third team in the SAA since TLU isn't exactly lighting up SWX or ETBU.

[jknezek]

I've been doing Mock South Regional Rankings over in the SAA thread based on a question there earlier this year. I'm going to move it over to here from now on as it is a more logical fit.

First Regional Rankings are out:

South Region 
1. Mary Hardin-Baylor 8-0
2. Hardin-Simmons 6-1 +
3. Berry 9-0
4. Washington & Jefferson 8-0
5. Johns Hopkins 7-1
6. Centre 7-1
7. Case Western Reserve 8-0
8. Franklin & Marshall 7-1
9. Huntingdon 6-1
10. Westminster (Pa.) 6-2


Versus my last set:
1) 8-0 UMHB (2-0 RRO South and West, 41 SOS)
2) 9-0 Berry (2-0 RRO, 114 SOS)
3) 6-1 HSU (0-1 RRO, 35 SOS)
4) 8-0 W&J (1-0 RRO, 163 SOS)
5) 8-0 CWRU (0-0 RRO, 235 SOS)
6) 7-1 Centre (1-1 RR, 76 SOS)
7) 7-1 JHU (1-0 RRO, 17 SOS) --
8) 7-1 F&M (0-1 RRO, 94 SOS)
9) 6-1 Huntingdon (0-0 RRO, 128 SOS)
10) 5-2 Hendrix (0-2 RRO, 13 SOS)


Kind of interesting. They have HSU in second. That's a SOS decision and it helps that they didn't rank Hendrix. How they chose Westminster over Hendrix is beyond me. There is nothing in the criteria right now to justify that other than Westminster having played an extra game. Hendrix has a far stronger SOS right now. JHU seems to have benefited from their SOS, to the detriment of CWRU. I'm guessing the theory here is that Case has the next two weeks to move up, so they aren't getting credit for being undefeated against mainly a pile of bad, bad, teams.

So the upshot is, they clearly went with SOS twice, giving the nod to HSU and JHU, and then for some reason completely dropped the SOS for the 10 spot. Not that it matters much except it cost Berry and Centre an extra RRO and shifted it over to W&J. Case and Westminster play this weekend, so that will sort out some of this.

[BerryCollegeFan]

I've been doing Mock South Regional Rankings over in the SAA thread based on a question there earlier this year. I'm going to move it over to here from now on as it is a more logical fit.

First Regional Rankings are out:

South Region 
1. Mary Hardin-Baylor 8-0
2. Hardin-Simmons 6-1 +
3. Berry 9-0
4. Washington & Jefferson 8-0
5. Johns Hopkins 7-1
6. Centre 7-1
7. Case Western Reserve 8-0
8. Franklin & Marshall 7-1
9. Huntingdon 6-1
10. Westminster (Pa.) 6-2


Versus my last set:
1) 8-0 UMHB (2-0 RRO South and West, 41 SOS)
2) 9-0 Berry (2-0 RRO, 114 SOS)
3) 6-1 HSU (0-1 RRO, 35 SOS)
4) 8-0 W&J (1-0 RRO, 163 SOS)
5) 8-0 CWRU (0-0 RRO, 235 SOS)
6) 7-1 Centre (1-1 RR, 76 SOS)
7) 7-1 JHU (1-0 RRO, 17 SOS) --
8) 7-1 F&M (0-1 RRO, 94 SOS)
9) 6-1 Huntingdon (0-0 RRO, 128 SOS)
10) 5-2 Hendrix (0-2 RRO, 13 SOS)


Kind of interesting. They have HSU in second. That's a SOS decision and it helps that they didn't rank Hendrix. How they chose Westminster over Hendrix is beyond me. There is nothing in the criteria right now to justify that other than Westminster having played an extra game. Hendrix has a far stronger SOS right now. JHU seems to have benefited from their SOS, to the detriment of CWRU. I'm guessing the theory here is that Case has the next two weeks to move up, so they aren't getting credit for being undefeated against mainly a pile of bad, bad, teams.

So the upshot is, they clearly went with SOS twice, giving the nod to HSU and JHU, and then for some reason completely dropped the SOS for the 10 spot. Not that it matters much except it cost Berry and Centre an extra RRO and shifted it over to W&J. Case and Westminster play this weekend, so that will sort out some of this.

pretty close otherwise.  it is clear that you have an extremely good understanding of how most of the stats work out.  The fine details are all about how people chose to apply those statistics in their decision making.

[jknezek]

Absolutely. The only thing I really don't get is Westminster, but the 10 spot is always a pick between a bunch of options. Overall, I think they did a good job. I'm surprised, but pleased, that H-SU is ahead of Berry. I think the criteria states Berry should be ahead, but I think it's hard to make a case that Berry, or almost anyone, wouldn't have an extra loss if they played UMHB.

I also don't mind that they punished Case for the schedule at this point. Overall, I think they did a really good job, and that's not always something I say at this first ranking.

[wally_wabash]

Hendrix vs. RROs:
42-52 L @ 6S Centre
10-34 L @ 3S Berry

Westminster vs RROs:
14-20 L vs. 2N Wittenberg
33-34 OT L @ 4S W&J

I think Westminster has substantially better results against ranked teams than Hendrix does, which I think influences the order. 

[jknezek]

Hendrix vs. RROs:
42-52 L @ 6S Centre
10-34 L @ 3S Berry

Westminster vs RROs:
14-20 L vs. 2N Wittenberg
33-34 OT L @ 4S W&J

I think Westminster has substantially better results against ranked teams than Hendrix does, which I think influences the order.

Again, I don't think it matters because of who Westminster plays this weekend, but the committee seems to have focused on SOS for Case and H-SU, then seemed to drift off it for this decision. It's not a big deal, but it's that kind of inconsistency that has me scratching my head. Hendrix is listed as an SOS of 13... the only higher team in the south is Guilford who played 2 up in division games.

But this weekend will solve it one way or the other I suspect. Hendrix's SOS will drop. Westminster will win or Case will, and this little sideline will not matter one bit.

[Ralph Turner]

I think that the South-West sub-bracket has been set.

(Unranked #7 or #8 in the West) Pool A Chapman  at Pool A UMHB ( a legitimate overall #1 seed)

Pool C HSU ( a South Region #2 or #3) at Pool A Linfield (a West Region #2 or #3)

In the current Top 25, UMHB is #1, HSU is #5 and Linfield #8.

If we have "March Madness" for D3, then we can project Linfield meeting UMHB in the 3rd round and HSU possibly meeting UMHB in the Semis, if they can get past #4 Tommies.

That would mean possibly 3 home playoff games for HSU and Linfield.

This is remarkable in that UWW and Mount Union could build a dynasty by playing 3-4 extra games per year.  The "geographic proximity" philosophy hurts the teams in the periphery.

[Kelly Boggs]

I like your thinking, Ralph. I sure hope you are right. 

[Ralph Turner]

I like your thinking, Ralph. I sure hope you are right. 

Unfortunately, we do not have the March Madness travel budget.

[Kelly Boggs]

Of course we don't... 

[jknezek]

Let's give it another go. We have some clarity from the committee, so I think I'll be close again this week. Again, this is what I think the committee will do, not how I actually rank them for my SRFP.

1) 9-0 UMHB (2-0 RRO South and West, 86 SOS) -- SOS drop does not matter
2) 7-1 HSU (0-1 RRO, 66 SOS)  -- Committee showed a preference last week and I don't think it's going to change. Rightly so.
3) 9-0 Berry (2-0 RRO, 129 SOS) -- Trinity will provide a slight boost to SOS, but not enough to move up.
4) 9-0 CWRU (0-0 RRO, 231 SOS) -- not much of an SOS boost, but that's a big comparative score vs W&J
5) 9-0 W&J (0-0 RRO, 207 SOS) -- SOS plummeting plus common opponent score moves them below Case
6) 8-1 JHU (1-0 RRO, 25 SOS) --  I don't see how Case can stay below, despite SOS. JHU was above Centre, I think that stays the case
7) 8-1 F&M (0-1 RRO, 43 SOS) -- huge SOS boost should push them above Centre this week
8) 8-1 Centre (1-1 RR, 143 SOS) -- unfortunately SOS keeps plummeting
9) 7-1 Huntingdon (0-0 RRO, 178 SOS) -- Not much of a way to move. SOS will drop again
10) 6-2 Hendrix (0-2 RRO, 21 SOS) -- I don't know who else you put here? That resume is pretty good. 2 RRO games, a huge SOS.

Drops: none for me, Westminster for the committee.

Long shots: How can you go these over Hendrix?
7-2 W&L, 0-1, 55 SOS
7-2 CMU, 0-1, 206 SOS
6-2 ETBU, 0-1, 205 SOS
6-3 Westminster 0-2, 18 SOS


*** Modified to account for Wally's timely correction! ***

[wally_wabash]

I don't think CWRU or W&J have an RRO result if Westminster drops (they will).