Pool C -- 2009

[Ralph Turner]

Please remember that UWW was Pool C in 2008.

http://www.d3football.com/school/UWW/2008

[Mr. Ypsi]

Please remember that UWW was Pool C in 2008.

http://www.d3football.com/school/UWW/2008

Good point, Ralph.  And Wheaton made the Final Four in 2008 as a Pool C as well.

Has a Pool C ever won the Stagg?

[K-Mack]

Please remember that UWW was Pool C in 2008.

http://www.d3football.com/school/UWW/2008

Good point, Ralph.  And Wheaton made the Final Four in 2008 as a Pool C as well.

Has a Pool C ever won the Stagg?

PLU in 1999.

UMHB lost 28-21 in 2004, but very well could've won.

I think St. John's in 2000 might have been a Pool C. One of the early runners-up was a Pool C, as well as UWW last year.

In the end, people very rarely remember how a team gets in

[Mr. Ypsi]

With that success of Pool Cs, we probably can't be too confident that a potential national champion didn't get left out.  With Pool As going to 25 very soon, and zero chance of the total pool going beyond 32, I have to wonder if a potential national champion will be left out sometime soon.

Alas, I have no solution, yet I wonder ...

[Ralph Turner]

Please remember that UWW was Pool C in 2008.

http://www.d3football.com/school/UWW/2008

Good point, Ralph.  And Wheaton made the Final Four in 2008 as a Pool C as well.

Has a Pool C ever won the Stagg?

PLU in 1999.

UMHB lost 28-21 in 2004, but very well could've won.

I think St. John's in 2000 might have been a Pool C. One of the early runners-up was a Pool C, as well as UWW last year.

In the end, people very rarely remember how a team gets in

Yes, the Johnnies finished in 2nd place at 8-1 behind Bethel at 9-0 in the MIAC.

[Ralph Turner]

With that success of Pool Cs, we probably can't be too confident that a potential national champion didn't get left out.  With Pool As going to 25 very soon, and zero chance of the total pool going beyond 32, I have to wonder if a potential national champion will be left out sometime soon.

Alas, I have no solution, yet I wonder ...

The 2 extra Pool A bids will come from Pool B.  There should be no net change in 6 Pool C bids in 2011.

Salisbury will move to Pool A (Empire 8).

The concern that I have is the NEFC splitting into 2 Pool A conferences ro the UAA acquiring affiliates to become a Pool A conference to take a bid from Pool C by that time.

If the number of Pool B candidates ever got below the number of schools determining the access ratio, would we see no Pool B bid awarded that year?   (I assume that Pool B schools would be considered with the Pool C schools.)

[altor]

The 2 extra Pool A bids will come from Pool B.  There should be no net change in 6 Pool C bids in 2011.

I guess that depends on how you look at it.  Let's do a little thought experiment.

Use the pools from 2011 in this years playoff selections.  Pool A now adds the ECFC and UMAC champions.  The lone Pool B is likely Wesley.  While it's true that Pool C is still technically 6 deep, now you add CWRU and Huntingdon in there.  Undefeated CWRU is likely in, leaving Wash & Jeff(?) on the outside.  Huntingdon has two losses, but I don't think either are in-region.

I guess my point is that, except for a few strange possibilties, Pool C teams from AQ conferences almost certainly will have 1 or more losses.  It's entirely possible to see multiple undefeated Pool B teams.  So while technically the new Pool A's came from Pool B, you can see how they will also make Pool C that much more tight.

[Ralph Turner]

The 2 extra Pool A bids will come from Pool B.  There should be no net change in 6 Pool C bids in 2011.

I guess that depends on how you look at it.  Let's do a little thought experiment.

Use the pools from 2011 in this years playoff selections.  Pool A now adds the ECFC and UMAC champions.  The lone Pool B is likely Wesley.  While it's true that Pool C is still technically 6 deep, now you add CWRU and Huntingdon in there.  Undefeated CWRU is likely in, leaving Wash & Jeff(?) on the outside.  Huntingdon has two losses, but I don't think either are in-region.

I guess my point is that, except for a few strange possibilties, Pool C teams from AQ conferences almost certainly will have 1 or more losses.  It's entirely possible to see multiple undefeated Pool B teams.  So while technically the new Pool A's came from Pool B, you can see how they will also make Pool C that much more tight.

Altor, you make a very good point.

I think that neither CWRU nor Huntingdon was as good as the 6th Pool C team.  They are definitely better than the UMAC and ECFC champion.  By criteria, they were able to host first round games as determined by the criteria in the Handbook, but they also lost to "inferior" seeds, too.

I agree that it makes Pool C tighter, but I also think that Huntingdon would have a head-to-head loss in the 2011 season versus Wesley.  I also think that the USA South will have accepted affiliation with the GSAC schools when Shenandoah leaves the USA South.  When those GSAC schools move to the USA South, and the Empire 8 accepts affiliation with Salisbury and Frostburg, we might only have 8 Pool B schools.

[Pat Coleman]

PLU in 1999.

PLU was Pool B.

[1990 Champs]

Mr. Ypsi, Raplh, et al -

One of the reasons I enjoy these boards is because the posters here are very well-informed.  I stand corrected, to some degree, regarding my take on the Pool C teams.  Although I don't have the stats, seedings etc. available from the years mentioned, I do not believe that any of the teams that went deep into the tournament were controversial picks.  Thus, I still think it's not very likely that a potential national champion has been left out. 

I would venture to guess that those teams you all mentioned fit the Pool C criteria to a tee.  I think the discussion this year (and others) has more to do with the selection committee apparently abandoning the criteria in some instances.  Transparency would make many of these arguments go away, but even with some controversy, the D3 Tournament field seems to balance the interest of ensuring that every team has a legitimate chance to get in with ensuring that the strongest field is in the bracket.

Although I am sympathetic to the likes of ONU and the schools that play in conferences with MUC and UWW, the fact is that taking only that one loss gets you in 99.9% of the time if you are in those conferences.  Thus, those teams still have the opportunity to take care of business on the field. 

I think the expansion has provided D3 with the best of both worlds - a bracket that gives every team an oppotunity to get in, and a selection committee that continues to baffle fans and generate intense debate!

[Ralph Turner]

Thanks for the comments, 1990.

I think these boards have a general attitude that we want to become better informed.  There is an underlying premise that our debates will be Socratic in the finest sense of the tradition.  We may disagree with the point made, but posters rarely disrespect the dignity of the poster with a contrary opinion.

During this season, I felt like the OAC teams (ONU especially) fell into a "logjam/quagmire/tarpit" with some other very good teams, at the #5-9 Pool C level, and they did little to distinguish themselves as a distinct #5.  We will almost always quibble about #6.  That is just the nature of the last spot.  Rarely is there a distinct separation between #6 and the rest of the field.

I wish that the statisticians would compare the OWP/OOWP by geographic areas, by the # of non-conference dates and the number of nearby conferences.  I think that we get distorted OWP/OOWP's in men's basketball in the northeast, becuase of the number of teams that are there.  That being the case, I don't think that the OWP/OOWP can evaluate the quality of the ball played in the ASC, the NWC and maybe the SCIAC as well as it can in the CCIW /WIAC /MWC /IIAC /NATHC /UMAC /HCAC /OAC /MIAA area.  Those conferences have 3/3/1/2/3/4/2/1/4 non-conference games to use in the OWP/OOWP calculation.  Whether a Massey MOV rating system could supplement the current OWP/OOWP would be interesting to study.

The problem that we have in the ASC is that we have 2 non-conference games, and we only have Millsaps, Trinity and Austin College nearby for non-conference games.  In the 18- non-conference games available, ASC teams played Redlands, Whittier, UWLacrosse, Whitworth, Linfield, Trinity twice, Austin College, Huntingdon, Millsaps -- 10 games against D3's.  That is lots of travel.  Plus UMHB couldn't find a D3 opponent.  Sul Ross State played a nearby D-2 Western New Mexico State.  TLU played D-2  Incarnate Word. The remaining games were versus NAIA schools.  This is where a Massey-like algorithm might help isolated conferences.

[Mr. Ypsi]

1990 Champs,

Wheaton last year was probably the last team selected (and would apparently not have been selected this year as they had two losses).  While they did not win the title, they did make the Final Four.

I'm not sure an actual national champ will get left out, but teams who would have won 2 or 3 games will (and probably already do) be going home.

Since expansion is extremely unlikely, and I would oppose any cuts to Pool A, I doubt there is any solution.  Though I think the selection process could be improved - there are five primary criteria, with no indication of relative importance, but this year regional winning % seemed to totally override the other four criteria.  IMO at least 3 or 4 two-loss teams would have been better choices than a couple of the one-loss teams.

[usee]

Mr Ypsi,

Last year was different than this year. Last year all the 1 loss teams got in and there was 1 spot left for a 2 loss team. Wheaton got the nod over DePauw, Wooster and a couple others. Thats a much different scenario than a 2 loss team getting in while a 1 loss team stays home.

[smedindy]

I think winning a conference is paramount to getting into the playoffs. If you can't do that, you takes your chances. Do quality teams get left out? Yes. But the key is winning the conference. Mt. Union HAS lost an OAC game in this decade. It CAN be done.

[bashbrother]

Smeds -

I have always agreed with that statement.  

I believe that many people are somewhat taking the NCAA Div I Basketball tourney selection process as an example of the way the Div III Football Selection should be.

This method is pounded into our heads yearly. Marginal teams have to win their conference tourney or reg. season conference title to get into the dance (period)  The balance of the bracket is at-large.

30 of the 65 get in by winning their conference tourney and 1, the Ivy League champion, gets in by winning the regular season title.
Leaving 34 teams for at-large consideration.   (that's 2 more than the entire DIII Bracket)

Typically 25 or 26 of these 34 at-large bids come from the six "Power Conferences" primarily because they are ranked high in RPI.

You can also figure money into Div. 1 selection process.   Named teams that may be 15-14, will bring better ratings (Money) then say a St. Mary's or TN Chattanooga that is 19-10 etc.  The NCAA makes so much money on this tourney that it virtually pays for a large part of what the NCAA does for everyone.

My point is, this is Division III Football.  Celebrate the difference and if teams don't like losing twice to quality teams and being on the bubble for the playoffs.... there are only two solutions for them.

1.  Get better and only lose once or even go undefeated.

OR

2.  Change your conference.

Because unless they expand the field or consolidate the AQ situation, quality 2-loss teams will be left out.  And don't forget, the DIII Football Tourney does not make a nickel for the NCAA.  We should be thankful it exists at all.