D3 Top 25 Fan Poll

[desertcat1]

Not trying to bash Pacific Lutheran, but after this past weekend performance against Linfield, wouldn't Chapman be ranked on on at least everyone's ballot. I was really high on the Lutes after their game in Texas, but was very disappointed in the score differential this past weekend. Also, someone has the Tommies at 10

LOTS OF NEW # for the cats in So. Cal first game jitters  ... Redlands should be the champ from So. Cal.    East coasters don't give PLU enough credit    plu SHOULD /WILL GO 8-1..  (PLU  not even on three ballots BIG MIStake) ... they are a very Good team that got beat sat  by a better cat team that's all. .

DC1

[desertcat1]

Not trying to bash Pacific Lutheran, but after this past weekend performance against Linfield, wouldn't Chapman be ranked on on at least everyone's ballot. I was really high on the Lutes after their game in Texas, but was very disappointed in the score differential this past weekend. Also, someone has the Tommies at 10

IMO, Chapman losing a close game to Linfield isn't enough to put them in the top 25....along with two wins against average teams (no offense to Whitworth and CMS). I think there's so many more deserving top 25 teams than Chapman.

As for the Tommies in the top 10...I have no answer for that.

[/b]



I agree with you 02...

[D3MAFAN]

Not trying to bash Pacific Lutheran, but after this past weekend performance against Linfield, wouldn't Chapman be ranked on on at least everyone's ballot. I was really high on the Lutes after their game in Texas, but was very disappointed in the score differential this past weekend. Also, someone has the Tommies at 10

LOTS OF NEW # for the cats in So. Cal first game jitters  ... Redlands should be the champ from So. Cal.    East coasters don't give PLU enough credit    plu SHOULD /WILL GO 8-1..  (PLU  not even on three ballots BIG MIStake) ... they are a very Good team that got beat sat  by a better cat team that's all. .

DC1

Thanks for the info DC1, it is always difficult to judge them, since the only game that I can judge them is against Linfield, the games usually are pretty close, but when you guys beat them they way you did this past Saturday, I have to think more than twice. I think if they continue to play well, I think they are deserving, but at the same time. You may be right about the first game jitters, you guys have improved since then.

[desertcat1]

Not trying to bash Pacific Lutheran, but after this past weekend performance against Linfield, wouldn't Chapman be ranked on on at least everyone's ballot. I was really high on the Lutes after their game in Texas, but was very disappointed in the score differential this past weekend. Also, someone has the Tommies at 10

LOTS OF NEW # for the cats in So. Cal first game jitters  ... Redlands should be the champ from So. Cal.    East coasters don't give PLU enough credit    plu SHOULD /WILL GO 8-1..  (PLU  not even on three ballots BIG MIStake) ... they are a very Good team that got beat sat  by a better cat team that's all. .

DC1

Thanks for the info DC1, it is always difficult to judge them, since the only game that I can judge them is against Linfield, the games usually are pretty close, but when you guys beat them they way you did this past Saturday, I have to think more than twice. I think if they continue to play well, I think they are deserving, but at the same time. You may be right about the first game jitters, you guys have improved since then.

MG,   as GHC say"s   "PHONE IT IN "    

[ExTartanPlayer]

As for the Tommies in the top 10...I have no answer for that.

Without trying to dredge up last week's H2H discussion entirely, this has similar (not quite the same) reasoning behind it. 

Someone looks at their loss to St. John's and says "Nah, I think UST is better than that" or "it's a rivalry game" or whatever other justification they use to keep UST ranked ahead of the St. John's team that beat them, and the Concordia team that beat St. John's, and the Bethel team that beat Concordia, even thought they all have the same 4-1 record (3-1 in Bethel's case) and UST is at the bottom of that daisy-chain, not the top. 

*Edited to add: after double-checking the individual rankings, they might not have UST ranked above Bethel, since Bethel does have a #9 vote.

Still: UST has one truly impressive win against UW-LaCrosse, a blowout of an undermanned St. Olaf team, a close shave against 0-4 UWEC, and the loss to St. John's.  That's a #10 resume?  On November 2, if UST is 7-1 and has beaten Bethel and Concordia, then I'd somewhat understand UST being ranked pretty high.  But for now, it's a very clear case of letting preseason expectations override actual on-field results. 

[smedindy]

The rivalry aspect to the Johnnies game shouldn't be just brushed off....

I have three MIAC teams ranked, none higher than #15. Can't tell much from wins over St. Olaf or Hamline. The MIAC could just eat itself all up, and have four teams that could be amongst the Top 25 and no way to really un-tie them.

[ExTartanPlayer]

The MIAC could just eat itself all up, and have four teams that could be amongst the Top 25 and no way to really un-tie them.

It could well go that way.  In fact, I kind of expect that it will go that way, although Bethel is in the driver's seat for now and could straighten this all out for us. 

[hazzben]

Some argue or imply that that is what you do. Rank teams ahead of teams they beat, the hell with the other data points.

Who has argued that?  Please, quote a specific instance of someone in this thread saying that.

There's a strong implication in some of the comments above through the entire thread where those who take a more nuanced view of a H2H result may be called out. I went extreme with Kenyon / Wittenberg, but the St. Thomas / St. John's game is probably a better example where since it's a rivalry game, and St. John's has a loss as well, where the H2H between the two may NOT be as black and white as some would think. On that given day St. Thomas lost. Who is the better team, though? The loss to C-M by St. John's still lingers. IF C-M beats St. Thomas, then all in the MIAC is aligned.

From MIAC land, most consider the SJU win very legit. They ran all over UST. 200+ yds for Sura alone. Last year the result was a serious rivalry factor. This year, it definitely appeared SJU was better. There was nothing fluky going on.

As for SJU's loss to C-M, well, keep in mind, SJU was starting their 3rd string QB and hence had no passing attack.

That being said, I think it's crazy you guys have UST as the highest ranked team of the 3 (with one person ranking them at #10  ), with C-M being the only one of the three unranked. That's evidence of a broken poll, IMO. C-M lost on the road to a team that was ranked higher. And it was a very competitive game. The poll seems to be overly punitive to C-M for losing a game the pollsters thought they should have lost. Is it just the Johnnie/Tommie name recognition that has them above C-M at this point? What on the field results leads to this slotting of teams?

My 2¢

[hazzben]

The rivalry aspect to the Johnnies game shouldn't be just brushed off....

Yeah, and the Johnnies would also consider C-M and Bethel rivalries as well. As big as Johnnie/Tommie, not a chance. But there's serious intensity between all three of these teams. So how does that affect things?

I think you make too much out of the rivalry aspect. If it's an unexpected result that the other data points suggest is unusual, play the rivalry card. But when these teams finished the previous season at 7-3 and 8-2, and most expected a close fought game that could go either way, I don't think you can discount UST loss too heavily.

[BoBo]

As for the Tommies in the top 10...I have no answer for that.

Still: UST has one truly impressive win against UW-LaCrosse, a blowout of an undermanned St. Olaf team, a close shave against 0-4 UWEC, and the loss to St. John's. 

...and what exactly makes beating UWL impressive? I've watched all or a majority of all four UWL games and they are a very below average team in every facet of the game. I challenge you to name one thing about the this team that impresses you? In fact, I wouldn't pick them as the favorite in any of their remain WIAC games. So, it's a distinct possibility that they could finish off this season with a 9 game losing streak. That's hardly impressive.    

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

As for the Tommies in the top 10...I have no answer for that.

Still: UST has one truly impressive win against UW-LaCrosse, a blowout of an undermanned St. Olaf team, a close shave against 0-4 UWEC, and the loss to St. John's. 

...and what exactly makes beating UWL impressive? I've watched all or a majority of all four UWL games and they are a very below average team in every facet of the game. I challenge you to name one thing about the this team that impresses you? In fact, I wouldn't pick them as the favorite in any of their remain WIAC games. So, it's a distinct possibility that they could finish off this season with a 9 game losing streak. That's hardly impressive.   

I guess it would be the fact that they won 46-0 compared to Mary Hardin-Baylor beating UWL 41-22 and UWW winning 38-7.

I think there's a lot of good teams in the MIAC but like the PAC 12 they may end up cannibalizing themselves and end up with a 2 loss champion.

[ExTartanPlayer]

As for the Tommies in the top 10...I have no answer for that.

Still: UST has one truly impressive win against UW-LaCrosse, a blowout of an undermanned St. Olaf team, a close shave against 0-4 UWEC, and the loss to St. John's. 

...and what exactly makes beating UWL impressive? I've watched all or a majority of all four UWL games and they are a very below average team in every facet of the game. I challenge you to name one thing about the this team that impresses you? In fact, I wouldn't pick them as the favorite in any of their remain WIAC games. So, it's a distinct possibility that they could finish off this season with a 9 game losing streak. That's hardly impressive.   

If you read my post, you'd see that I am arguing UST should be ranked a lot lower than they are.  I'm not using the UWL game as a reason they should be ranked high, merely noting that's the best result on their schedule.  While UWL may not be very good, UST rolled them 46-0 and outgained them 519-133, it's not like they struggled.
 
UMHB beat them 41-22 and outgained them 514-337 (although much of UWL's yardage came with the game already decided).
UWW beat them 38-7 and outgained them 619-155.

I don't like reading into stats from garbage time that much, but still, at least UST blew the doors off UWL just as easily as UMHB and UWW did.  This is not equivalent to saying that UST is just as good as UMHB and UWW based on that one game, either.

Also, I think evaluating UWL as below-average in every facet of the game is kind of hard to do when they've played a three-game stretch against that murderer's row.  Every team outside the top 20-25 teams in Division III would look significantly below-average against those three.  I'm not a WIAC fan, so I don't know enough to predict whether they'll go winless the rest of the way...but they did beat Dubuque on the road more easily than UWP beat Dubuque at home, so I'm not sure how UWL is that hopeless.

And, as I said, even if they are a 2-8 team in the WIAC, rolling a team 46-0 and outgained them 4-to-1 is pretty thorough dominance.  Doing that against any opponent from a tough conference is an OK win.

[ExTartanPlayer]

That being said, I think it's crazy you guys have UST as the highest ranked team of the 3 (with one person ranking them at #10  ), with C-M being the only one of the three unranked. That's evidence of a broken poll, IMO. C-M lost on the road to a team that was ranked higher. And it was a very competitive game. The poll seems to be overly punitive to C-M for losing a game the pollsters thought they should have lost. Is it just the Johnnie/Tommie name recognition that has them above C-M at this point? What on the field results leads to this slotting of teams?

To be fair, UST isn't actually ranked the "highest" - Bethel is - and UST's ranking seems to be driven by that one #10 vote (the other ballots appear to have UST about the same as St. John's and C-M if that vote is removed).  So it's not like everyone kept UST ranked high.

With that said, the bolded comment is the argument I've been making all along.  Letting "what you think from last week's poll" or "what you thought in the preseason" dictate where you rank teams is silly when it contradicts actual games that happened.  As I pointed out above, UST is at the bottom of the daisy-chain of MIAC results:

Bethel > C-M > St. John's > St. Thomas (without any "mitigating data" - if St. Thomas beats Bethel, fine, this no longer holds up!)

Most people seem to be adhering to this, actually.  And the current D3fb Top 25 does, too: Bethel 11, C-M 23, SJU 24, UST 25.

[hazzben]

That being said, I think it's crazy you guys have UST as the highest ranked team of the 3 (with one person ranking them at #10  ), with C-M being the only one of the three unranked. That's evidence of a broken poll, IMO. C-M lost on the road to a team that was ranked higher. And it was a very competitive game. The poll seems to be overly punitive to C-M for losing a game the pollsters thought they should have lost. Is it just the Johnnie/Tommie name recognition that has them above C-M at this point? What on the field results leads to this slotting of teams?

To be fair, UST isn't actually ranked the "highest" - Bethel is - and UST's ranking seems to be driven by that one #10 vote (the other ballots appear to have UST about the same as St. John's and C-M if that vote is removed).  So it's not like everyone kept UST ranked high.

With that said, the bolded comment is the argument I've been making all along.  Letting "what you think from last week's poll" or "what you thought in the preseason" dictate where you rank teams is silly when it contradicts actual games that happened.  As I pointed out above, UST is at the bottom of the daisy-chain of MIAC results:

Bethel > C-M > St. John's > St. Thomas (without any "mitigating data" - if St. Thomas beats Bethel, fine, this no longer holds up!)

Most people seem to be adhering to this, actually.  And the current D3fb Top 25 does, too: Bethel 11, C-M 23, SJU 24, UST 25.

Agreed.

And you're right, the UST at #10 is the outlier that is throwing things a bit. But it still doesn't explain the C-M slotting (of most pollsters) compared to SJU, who C-M beat handily H2H. (albeit with SJU's 3rd string QB, but injuries are a reality of football)

I'd like to argue that this will all get sorted out with more data points over the next few weeks. But actually, in the MIAC this could great really crazy. 5 teams (Bethel, C-M, SJU, UST, GAC - which is actually how I'd rank them right now) still have a very legit chance to win this league. I hope the Pool C candidate only has 1 loss, because I'd love to see how the conference stacks up in the post-season.

[ExTartanPlayer]

That being said, I think it's crazy you guys have UST as the highest ranked team of the 3 (with one person ranking them at #10  ), with C-M being the only one of the three unranked. That's evidence of a broken poll, IMO. C-M lost on the road to a team that was ranked higher. And it was a very competitive game. The poll seems to be overly punitive to C-M for losing a game the pollsters thought they should have lost. Is it just the Johnnie/Tommie name recognition that has them above C-M at this point? What on the field results leads to this slotting of teams?

To be fair, UST isn't actually ranked the "highest" - Bethel is - and UST's ranking seems to be driven by that one #10 vote (the other ballots appear to have UST about the same as St. John's and C-M if that vote is removed).  So it's not like everyone kept UST ranked high.

With that said, the bolded comment is the argument I've been making all along.  Letting "what you think from last week's poll" or "what you thought in the preseason" dictate where you rank teams is silly when it contradicts actual games that happened.  As I pointed out above, UST is at the bottom of the daisy-chain of MIAC results:

Bethel > C-M > St. John's > St. Thomas (without any "mitigating data" - if St. Thomas beats Bethel, fine, this no longer holds up!)

Most people seem to be adhering to this, actually.  And the current D3fb Top 25 does, too: Bethel 11, C-M 23, SJU 24, UST 25.

Agreed.

And you're right, the UST at #10 is the outlier that is throwing things a bit. But it still doesn't explain the C-M slotting (of most pollsters) compared to SJU, who C-M beat handily H2H. (albeit with SJU's 3rd string QB, but injuries are a reality of football)

I'd like to argue that this will all get sorted out with more data points over the next few weeks. But actually, in the MIAC this could great really crazy. 5 teams (Bethel, C-M, SJU, UST, GAC - which is actually how I'd rank them right now) still have a very legit chance to win this league. I hope the Pool C candidate only has 1 loss, because I'd love to see how the conference stacks up in the post-season.

Presumably the best chance at this happening is either

a) two of the teams that have already played (i.e. Bethel and Concordia) run the table cleanly so one (Bethel) takes Pool A and another is 9-1.
b) Gustavus Adolphus manages to finish 9-1 but however the tiebreakers break down, does not get the Pool A.

It's gonna get messy.