Pool C -- 2009

[Just Bill]

Do we know that the regional advisory committees have to use the same listed criteria that the NCAA uses for selection and seeding?  I can't find information on this. 

Yes, they do.  The 8 chairs of each regional advisory committee comprise the national committee. Same body, same rules.

[pg04]

Are the selections at 3pm or 2pm Eastern?? 

[Kohawk Krazy]

Are the selections at 3pm or 2pm Eastern?? 

3 p.m. Eastern

[K-Mack]

Would not be surprised in the least if ONU got in over St. Norbert.

We shall see.

What specific criteria is it that puts ONU on the board ahead of North Central, by the way?

In region record?  no
OWP?  NCC (.575 v. .544)
OOWP?  NCC (.568 v. .524)
NCAA?  NCC (.573 v. .537)

We will see what happens...

You're going to love this one:

HEAD TO HEAD

I'm with HSCoach on this one, but Bob.Gregg, you make some good points.

I realize Otterbein also has a h2h over ONU, but if you follow the h2h chain among those North teams, you get Ott > ONU > NCC. Then if you look at the other primary criteria, it seems to reverse that order.

This might be a case where primary doesn't result in a decision and they go down to secondary criteria, which can include out of region results and play in the last 25 percent of the season.

I didn't get in on the ground floor of this discussion, so I'm not sure why you seem so angry at HScoach or why you thought his team was ONU, but ...

I'm not as convinced as everyone else that OAC No. 2 is automatic. I think OAC No. 2 is automatic when the one loss is to MUC, but once you hit two losses, anything's possible.

The CCIW this year was six winning records deep, maybe as good as any conference in the country, so if a two-loss team from any conference should get in, esp. by the SOS numbers, it should be NCC.

But with ONU and Ott also on the board, I don't see how you can ignore the h2h results in NCC's favor. I can see how Otterbein's loss to a not-even-close team might be a disqualifier though.

[Bob.Gregg]

Not angry at HScoach specifically.  Didn't know who his team is and still don't care.
You just can't use hth to prove one point and dismiss it when it goes the other way.

IF ONU & NCC only are under consideration at the same time, ONU. hth.

IF ONU & OTT only are under consideration at the same time, OTT.  hth.

I don't think any of them will get on the board or in the field.  Two losses.

[K-Mack]

As far as whether ONU is as good as most of the teams in the tourney, that doesn't really matter.  That is NOT one of the criteria...

IF the AA is going to publish the qualifying criteria, they should follow them.
IF the AA isn't going to follow them, they should quit publishing them.
The AA really shouldn't be able to have it both ways, and neither should fans of any team.

mille125 makes some similar points on the dose, that there's a level of subjectivity to things.

I agree with both of you guys to an extent.

Subjective decision-making was what I hated about the 16-team system. Too much of it. And every year, some team from a "weak" conference beats a team in the playoffs from a "strong" one. So it's tough to rely solely on conference strength for playoff worthiness (which technically we don't, but by SOS we kind of do).

The thing I would submit to you is that maybe a little bit of subjectiveness, once everybody has had a fair shot to get into the field , is maybe a good thing.

If the numbers slightly favor 9-1 St. Norbert over 9-1 UMHB, who really thinks SNU is the team that best belongs in the field?

If someone had to make a decision between ONU and NCC, why would we want to ignore the h2h result?

I realize we can talk ourselves into a circle when you involve Otterbein in this argument, and what the relevance of losing to Marietta, as opposed to MUC and IWU, is.

The BL is that criteria isn't always going to produce a clean, clear decision. When you get to selecting the 31st and 32nd teams in the field, just as the last at-larges in the basketball NCAAs, there are murky decisions. Teams have played their way on to the bubble and can complain if they want, but when they haven't provided a resume that gives it a decided advantage, somebody's got to step in and choose, and somebody's going to be left unhappy.

My question to you and mille125 -- and I don't have my mind made up on this -- is that don't we want the committee to exercise a measure of common sense over the proceeding that can't be defined necessarily by published criteria?

[K-Mack]

Not angry at HScoach specifically.  Didn't know who his team is and still don't care.
You just can't use hth to prove one point and dismiss it when it goes the other way.

IF ONU & NCC only are under consideration at the same time, ONU. hth.

IF ONU & OTT only are under consideration at the same time, OTT.  hth.

I don't think any of them will get on the board or in the field.  Two losses.

Gotcha.

You might not have been angry or what have you, but it definitely came off that way.

Anyway, the above is a quite a valid point.

I actually think you can use h2h in one instance and not as much in another, but I don't know if that's right.

More specifically, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see it happen.

I think someone could make a convincing, though not infallible, argument for most bubble teams, ONU, OTT et. al. included.

Anyway, I'm not arguing with you, just providing some other views ... I asked the questions I'm more curious about in the last post I made.

Is there room for any subjectiveness in the at-large decision-making process?

Do you (or anyone) think that sometimes situations might force it?

Or would we legitimately prefer the most clear, followed-to-a-tee, set of criteria possible? (In which case, we might not really need a committee to handle the decisions)

Legitimate question

[pg04]

Are the selections at 3pm or 2pm Eastern?? 

3 p.m. Eastern

Thank you. 

[Bob.Gregg]

Keith, ONLY if the published criteria necessitate a movement to some "common sense" factor, that is, a decision can not be made based on the established criteria.

Why should the numbers favoring St Norbert (published criteria) not put them in over UMHB?  Because YOU "know", or I "know" or the AA "knows" that UMHB is the team that "best belongs in the field"?....  There's nothing that I've read anywhere that should encourage, or even allow such a discounting of published criteria.

That having been said, I have long recognized the human factor in all of this, sometimes to the benefit of the team I cover, sometimes to its detriment.

[K-Mack]

Keith, ONLY if the published criteria necessitate a movement to some "common sense" factor, that is, a decision can not be made based on the established criteria.

Why should the numbers favoring St Norbert (published criteria) not put them in over UMHB?  Because YOU "know", or I "know" or the AA "knows" that UMHB is the team that "best belongs in the field"?....  There's nothing that I've read anywhere that should encourage, or even allow such a discounting of published criteria

On point A above, I'm with you.

On point B, I'm not saying I've read anything that would encourage it either. And anyone in this UMHB example who would accept this goodwill would also have to recognize that it could be used against them, in order to keep a flying team out of the field. In other words, there are likely people who think UMHB is as likely to get "screwed" out of a bid than into one.

As for why they should ... because the numbers aren't perfect either. 9-1s might look the same to the OWP/OOWP formula, but getting drilled by Monmouth and winning the rest of your MWC games is generally not considered to be as good a measure of who's a good football team as losing by 3 on the road to Miss Coll and winning the rest of your ASC games is.

MOV and home/road aren't criteria either, and I don't think they should be ... but that's an example where someone could make a case for why one team should best belong in the field.

(and I purposely say best belong knowing that that's open to interpretation)

That's what I'm getting at. Anything that's not automatic or really clear by criteria one side or the other could make a case for.

Do we prefer having the ambiguity, or would we rather stick to hard and fast guidelines to decide everything, even if we end up having to accept the flaws of a hard and fast system?

Stuff to ponder as we wait ...

[HScoach]

K-Mack:  As always, you say what we're thinking much better than we can.  Numbers are nice, but it isn't, nor should it be, the end all.

[wally_wabash]

Also, from the handbook in the section regarding championship selection:

"Additionally, input is provided by regional advisory committees for consideration by
the Division III football committee."

And that, as far as I can tell, is your published criteria that allows for some human element to play a factor.  

If it was simply about SOS's and in region win percentages, head to heads, and wins against other ranked teams, we wouldn't need a committee.  We have spreadsheets and databases that can track, tabulate, and sort that info for us.

[Bob.Gregg]

As for why they should ... because the numbers aren't perfect either. 9-1s might look the same to the OWP/OOWP formula, but getting drilled by Monmouth and winning the rest of your MWC games is generally not considered to be as good a measure of who's a good football team as losing by 3 on the road to Miss Coll and winning the rest of your ASC games is.

In the theme of this thread, and in opposition to the D-3 projection on the front page:
Is a Norbert 9-1, getting drilled by Monmouth and winning the rest of your MWC games better than an ONU 8-2, losing to MUC, then to Ott?
Is a W&J 9-1, losing by a touchdown to TMC and winning the rest of your PAC games better than on ONU, 8-2, losing to MUC, then to Ott?

Is either of those 9-1s better than NCC 8-2, losing to Illinois Wesleyan by a touchdown, AND to ONU?

[K-Mack]

K-Mack:  As always, you say what we're thinking much better than we can.  Numbers are nice, but it isn't, nor should it be, the end all.

As always, I fail to be that concise

[Bob.Gregg]

"Additionally, input is provided by regional advisory committees for consideration by
the Division III football committee."

wally, the D-III football committee has at least as often revised what was given to them by the regional committees...errors in regional rankings, etc.

In fact, I understand one of those has already happened this year, in the final public regional rankings...

The way I get it, St. Norbert was not on the original list.  The national committee sent it back to the region and said that the criteria puts Norbert in the Top 10.

That's not gospel fact, but it is what I understand has already happened...