D3 Top 25 Fan Poll

[Ralph Turner]

PubMed gives a citation for dystypia.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21959361..

I don't think that I have a left frontal subcortical (brain) infract.   

[ExTartanPlayer]

I just noticed something (both in the D3 Top 25 and the Fan Poll) and I have a question.

Who are all the stooges voting Bethel in the Top 10 and leaving St. Olaf off of their ballot entirely?  (Yes, I know that the cumulative ranking does not reflect ALL voters' beliefs, but for the rankings to fall where they are obviously Bethel must be ranked in the Top 10 by SOME people, and St. Olaf must be left off the ballot by SOME people)

St. Olaf and Bethel are both 4-1.
St. Olaf beat Bethel.  On the road.

This falls into the "when considering two teams with equal resumes, shouldn't the head-to-head team be ranked higher?" category for me.  If St. Olaf had a lesser record, or had lost to a lesser opponent, I would understand it, but the Oles' loss came at St. Thomas (currently ranked #3 behind the Purple Powers and a consensus Top 5 team).  How is that any "worse" than Bethel losing to the Oles at home?

Obviously, this should correct itself if St. Olaf can win out and then St. Thomas beats Bethel (dropping Bethel to 8-2), but it still gnaws at me to see people ignoring a head-to-head result when comparing two teams with equal records, ESPECIALLY when the team did it on the road.

If you don't want to rank St. Olaf because you have doubts about them, that's fine, but then I don't see how you can justify ranking Bethel in the Top 10.

If you want to keep Bethel in the Top 10 (or even Top 20), I don't see how you leave St. Olaf unranked.

[sju56321]

I do not have Bethel in the top 10 and I do have STO on my ballot, but not above Bethel. Guess it is hard for me to put STO over Bethel, even though they won, as I am not sure about this STO team. But this week will help a little.

[02 Warhawk]

Full disclosure

Here's mine

1. UWW
2. Mount Union
3. MHB
4. St. Thomas
5. Linfield
6. Thomas More
7. NCC
8. Monclair St.
9. Kean
10. Wabash
11. Cal Lutheran
12. Wartburg
13. Wesley
14. Delaware Valley
15. Oshkosh
16. Redlands
17. Cortland State
18. Ill Wesleyan
19. Adrian
20. Wittenburg
21. St. Olaf
22. Bethel
23. Wheaton
24. Salisbury
25. Huntingdon

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

I just noticed something (both in the D3 Top 25 and the Fan Poll) and I have a question.

Who are all the stooges voting Bethel in the Top 10 and leaving St. Olaf off of their ballot entirely?  (Yes, I know that the cumulative ranking does not reflect ALL voters' beliefs, but for the rankings to fall where they are obviously Bethel must be ranked in the Top 10 by SOME people, and St. Olaf must be left off the ballot by SOME people)

St. Olaf and Bethel are both 4-1.
St. Olaf beat Bethel.  On the road.

This falls into the "when considering two teams with equal resumes, shouldn't the head-to-head team be ranked higher?" category for me.  If St. Olaf had a lesser record, or had lost to a lesser opponent, I would understand it, but the Oles' loss came at St. Thomas (currently ranked #3 behind the Purple Powers and a consensus Top 5 team).  How is that any "worse" than Bethel losing to the Oles at home?

Obviously, this should correct itself if St. Olaf can win out and then St. Thomas beats Bethel (dropping Bethel to 8-2), but it still gnaws at me to see people ignoring a head-to-head result when comparing two teams with equal records, ESPECIALLY when the team did it on the road.

If you don't want to rank St. Olaf because you have doubts about them, that's fine, but then I don't see how you can justify ranking Bethel in the Top 10.

If you want to keep Bethel in the Top 10 (or even Top 20), I don't see how you leave St. Olaf unranked.

I have Bethel 16th and St Olaf on my watch list.

First, my list is fluid and sometimes it takes more than one week for a loss or win to fully kick in as I get to thinking about it more during the week after I've submitted my ballot (I had Bethel 3rd, then dropped them to 11th after the loss, then dropped them more to 16th this week)

Second, a simple W/L head-to-head isn't the only consideration even if they have a similar resume. StO won but only by 2 and required 20 unanswered points in the 4th to win which to me says that Bethel was better most of the game and St Olaf were lucky to get that win. Had one or two things gone the other way Bethel would be unbeaten and probably still ranked in the top 5 while StO would be 3-2 and not even in the conversation. So while they have similar resumes and St Olaf did win the head-to-head, I still regard Bethel as the better team and my ranking reflects that.
Another example is Wesley/Kean. Wesley is 4-1 but has looked more impressive in their wins than Kean has at 5-0 so even though Kean won by 3, Wesley is still ranked higher.

Add to the fact there are a lot of teams with worthy records to be ranked... as said in this week's Around the Nation... and it makes midseason rankings difficult to pick.

There are still 25 spots in the poll. Yet, NESCAC (three games into the season) aside, 20 teams are unbeaten at 4-0 or better. Thirty-six more teams are either 4-1 or 5-1, and that excludes two top-25 worthy teams from the SCIAC who are each 3-1 (Cal Lutheran and Redlands).

As long as there are 58 teams to consider for 25 spots, there are going to be some on the outside looking in.

[jknezek]

Second, a simple W/L head-to-head isn't the only consideration even if they have a similar resume. StO won but only by 2 and required 20 unanswered points in the 4th to win which to me says that Bethel was better most of the game and St Olaf were lucky to get that win. Had one or two things gone the other way Bethel would be unbeaten and probably still ranked in the top 5 while StO would be 3-2 and not even in the conversation. So while they have similar resumes and St Olaf did win the head-to-head, I still regard Bethel as the better team and my ranking reflects that.
Another example is Wesley/Kean. Wesley is 4-1 but has looked more impressive in their wins than Kean has at 5-0 so even though Kean won by 3, Wesley is still ranked higher.

Add to the fact there are a lot of teams with worthy records to be ranked... as said in this week's Around the Nation... and it makes midseason rankings difficult to pick.

There are still 25 spots in the poll. Yet, NESCAC (three games into the season) aside, 20 teams are unbeaten at 4-0 or better. Thirty-six more teams are either 4-1 or 5-1, and that excludes two top-25 worthy teams from the SCIAC who are each 3-1 (Cal Lutheran and Redlands).

As long as there are 58 teams to consider for 25 spots, there are going to be some on the outside looking in.

I always find something like this to be an interesting way to justify an opinion. Bethel was better for 3/4, but St. Olaf absolutely ran them off the field for 1/4. Therefore Bethel is better and St. Olaf is lucky. Interesting, but an amazing logical fallacy. Football is played for 60 minutes. It gives a team the chance to get off to a slow start, make adjustments, and still win a game. It also allows a team to get off to a fast start, lose concentration, fail to make adjustments, and lose a game. How can you define one of these as "lucky" and the other as "better"? We don't "win" quarters. Any coach I've ever played for understood that you only win by winning at the end of the game. That means the game is 60 minutes long. Now a winner isn't always a better team, and a loser isn't always the worse team. But to claim that a fast start makes someone good, and a strong finish makes someone lucky, is just poor, poor logic. It's also hard to play a "luck" card when St. Olaf's last drive was a 10 play 65 yard grind. Good teams make that drive. Better teams stop that drive when they have to. On 10 plays, Bethel had the time to stop it and couldn't. That's not luck.

When you go on to extend that logic and say they got lucky so they should be 3-2 and out of the conversation and the other team is good and should be 5-0 so they should be much higher in the conversation... well, a poor foundation makes for an unsteady building. Facts on the ground tell us football is a 60 minute game that St. Olaf won on the road, dominating when it counted. They AREN'T 3-2. I could see having Bethel ranked higher because you think they are better, but to have them 10 or more spots higher because you think they are lucky and should be 3-2 is missing the reality.

[smedindy]

I have Bethel 11th. I have St. Olaf on my watch list.

Massey (with the NESCAC) has Bethel 35th and St. Olaf 54th.

The results against Simpson and Luther have weighted the power rankings against the Oles.

My take is that it was a 'bad game' for Bethel, and the MIAC is like the OAC and WIAC in that teams get beat up by each other. Did Bethel not take the Oles seriously? Did the Oles get up for one of the 'big shots' of the MIAC?

Time will tell. There's a big ol' mess under the top six or seven.

[BoBo]

Two words I dislike together - watch lists!!   

[smedindy]

If you don't have one, you don't know who to put on when someone loses!

I used to power rank every team before my job got more challenging!

[hazzben]

Two words I dislike together - watch lists!!   

That's what the tin foil hats are for BoBo...then no one can listen in on your thoughts!   

[02 Warhawk]

Submitted my poll early this week.

I only had one team drop out (Huntingdon), I replaced them with Franklin.

[Ralph Turner]

Mine's in.

[smedindy]

In. I dropped three and had three ready replacements. You know, from my WATCH LIST! 

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

I've gone through and done some reorganizing to my list. Lowered some teams I felt I had too high... moved up teams that were too low... I think the most I dropped one was 10 spots, moved a couple teams up 7. Three new teams on my list, one team won and dropped out.

[CruFrenzy]

What are the chances of Oshkosh taking down Whitewater?
They're playing at home and are looking strong.