D3 Top 25 Fan Poll

[AUKaz00]

I'm glad that McMurry won...I was kind of looking forward to putting them in my top 25 for awhile now.

I plugged them in at 19th this week, after not ranking them last week.

I had them at 18 last week.  Moved them all the way up to 10 this week!

[02 Warhawk]

I'm glad that McMurry won...I was kind of looking forward to putting them in my top 25 for awhile now.

I plugged them in at 19th this week, after not ranking them last week.

I had them at 18 last week.  Moved them all the way up to 10 this week!

wow...that's a big jump

[Toby Taff]

I'm glad that McMurry won...I was kind of looking forward to putting them in my top 25 for awhile now.

I plugged them in at 19th this week, after not ranking them last week.

I had them at 18 last week.  Moved them all the way up to 10 this week!

+1 for you. I think McM has been grossly underrated this season. I also think that there will be a 2nd week playoff replay in Belton (minus the lightening please) if McM makes the playoff field.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I think McM has been grossly underrated this season. I also think that there will be a 2nd week playoff replay in Belton (minus the lightening please) if McM makes the playoff field.

I agree, Toby; I've argued since about Week 5 that McMurry was REALLY good, mostly on the basis of the 28-27 loss to UMHB, but I see why people were hesitant to buy in.  An 82-6 drubbing at the hands of SFA is hard to completely ignore, even if it was an FCS opponent, and they didn't really have a signature Division III win until recently.

Suppose that they'd beaten LaCollege and HSU in weeks 1 & 2, then lost to UMHB 28-27 in Week 3; I bet that might have garnered them a ranking.  But with the weird opening two weeks vs. FCS teams and then a loss in Week 3 (even impressive one), people were hesitant to jump on the bandwagon until it became obvious that McM was going to finish 8-2.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

I had them at 18 last week.  Moved them all the way up to 10 this week!

wow...that's a big jump

I had them at 23 and moved them to 16th... but they also jumped 5 teams who lost

[AUKaz00]

I'm glad that McMurry won...I was kind of looking forward to putting them in my top 25 for awhile now.

I plugged them in at 19th this week, after not ranking them last week.

I had them at 18 last week.  Moved them all the way up to 10 this week!

wow...that's a big jump

Well, I did have LA College at 11 last week and when I got to 10 this week I just couldn't justify anyone else more at than the War Hawks.  If we set aside the Stephen F. Austin game (away, first game, FCS opponent), it's really hard to see much difference between McMurry and UMHB.

[Toby Taff]

I'm glad that McMurry won...I was kind of looking forward to putting them in my top 25 for awhile now.

I plugged them in at 19th this week, after not ranking them last week.

I had them at 18 last week.  Moved them all the way up to 10 this week!

wow...that's a big jump

Well, I did have LA College at 11 last week and when I got to 10 this week I just couldn't justify anyone else more at than the War Hawks.  If we set aside the Stephen F. Austin game (away, first game, FCS opponent), it's really hard to see much difference between McMurry and UMHB.

I wouldn't say that. Offensively the two teams are night and day different. Jake Mullins is a shifty QB with a great ability to sniff out the receiver and capitalize. He has good receivers and a great ability to get them the football in space, and when that happens, they are big and fast and hard to bring down. UMHB has 2 big receivers, but the running game is still the bread and butter. If you watch a UMHB game they will start slow sometimes and just wail on the the other teams line with the RB's. The toll taken over time just slowly grows the scoring gap. The exceptions to this are UMHB against not very good conference foes (see the 2nd and 3rd stringers stretching a lead in the 2nd half), and the game against McM. UMHB was dominating that game in the first half 27-6 when the lightening started. McM coaches made good adjustments during the delay and McM turned it around. They shortened half time to 5 minutes so the UMHB defense had to star the rest of the way.
Defensively, McM is much improved and has a few very impressive players, but UMHB's overall D and I'd say special teams is better, of course I am a little biased.

[emma17]

Funny how little talk there is about the #3 ranked team. I guess the MIAC is just too soft a conference to get any props.

I think this is just a lack of familiarity.  Had STU and UWW played each other last year, we'd all be talking about a rematch this year and folk would be writing about how little talk there is of NCC and the CCIW.  I'm very interested in seeing STU play.  As a matter of fact, I'd like to see them play UWW with NCC playing Mt- just for the sake of getting to see new teams.   

[bleedpurple]

D3 TOP 25 FAN POLL: WEEK 11

1. Wisconsin-Whitewater (13)           373             1 (LW)
2. Mount Union (2)                            360             2
3. St. Thomas                                   340             3
4. Mary Hardin-Baylor                       326             4
5. Linfield                                         321             5
6. North Central                                300             6
7. Wesley                                         280             7
8. Wabash                                        253             8
9. California Lutheran                        250             10
10. Delaware Valley                          229             12
11. Salisbury                                    196             13
12. Redlands                                    181              14
13. Johns Hopkins                             171             15
14. Trinity (TX)                                 147             16
15. Wheaton                                     132             11
16. Montclair State                            127            18
17. Illinois Wesleyan                         122             17
18. McMurry                                     121             25
19. Kean                                           113             20
20. Franklin                                       102            22
21. Thomas More                               94               9
22. Bethel                                          83              23
23. Dubuque                                      52              Unranked
24. Baldwin-Wallace                           42              Unranked
25. Hampden-Sydney                         37              Unranked

Dropped Out of Top 25: Louisiana College, St. Olaf, Hobart

Also Receiving Votes: Wisconsin-Oshkosh (29), Centre (19), Cortland State (17), Widener (16), Monmouth (10), Wartburg (10), Louisiana College (8), Washington and Lee (5), Wittenberg (4), Hobart (2), St. Olaf (2), St. Scholastica (1)

[emma17]

Interesting to see Wheaton ahead of IWU.  I haven't seen IWU play this year, I wonder what the thought is here?

[Mr. Ypsi]

Interesting to see Wheaton ahead of IWU.  I haven't seen IWU play this year, I wonder what the thought is here?

Last week I could buy it (despite h-to-h).  Now, besides IWU beating Wheaton h-to-h, NCC beat Wheaton by a larger margin than they beat IWU.  (IWU was home both games; Wheaton was on the road both games.  But still...?  8-1 vs. 7-2? )

[ncc_fan]

I know the NCAA doesn't use the fan poll or the d3football.com poll as input, but looking at the top 8 and geography made me think that the following playoff placements would be nice:

East:  UMU and Wesley
North:  UWW and Wabash
West:  UST and NCC
Southwest (Airlines):  UMHB and Linfield

[ExTartanPlayer]

Interesting to see Wheaton ahead of IWU.  I haven't seen IWU play this year, I wonder what the thought is here?

I'm guessing that people only looked at last week's result (rather than the whole body of work) when deciding how far "up" or "down" to move Wheaton and IWU.

Wheaton was ranked #11 last week; most people probably thought "road loss vs. top-10 opponent...I'll drop them a few spots" - and the cumulative effect sent them from #11 down to #15.  Seems fair in its own right.

IWU was ranked #17 last week and stayed there after an uninspiring 13-9 win over Carthage.  The CCIW is a very tough conference top-to-bottom, but I'm guessing that most people just look at IWU's close wins over the last two weeks and decided that they didn't deserve to move up.

The problem with this style of voting - just deciding to move teams "up" or "down" based on last week's result - get exposed when a scenario like this unfolds, where we have an 8-1 IWU team with a head-to-head win over 7-2 Wheaton ranked lower just because their result from last week wasn't impressive enough to merit moving them up.  I don't necessarily think that IWU deserved to move further "up" but I certainly think that people should have moved Wheaton "down" to one spot behind IWU on their ballots.

Obviously, they're only separated by 10 points, but that still rankles me; they shouldn't be listed ahead of IWU on any ballot.

[AUKaz00]

Obviously, they're only separated by 10 points, but that still rankles me; they shouldn't be listed ahead of IWU on any ballot.

Well, this isn't an exercise in developing a mathematical algorithm, so a healthy dose of subjectivity is present in the voting process.  H2H results, while definitive in records and tournament selection, do not necessarily represent which team is "better" similar to comparative results.  In the end, every voter disagrees with the amalgamate, but it probably is closer to the truth than any individual ballot.

[smedindy]

I have IWU 13th and Wheaton 14th. They're very closely matched, and their game was quite close. Over time, I think IWU wins 52 times out of 100. Maybe. But I can definitely see why some may think Wheaton is a tick better.

Massey has Wheaton at 21st with the 42nd toughest schedule. He ranks IWU 32nd with the 62nd toughest schedule. That takes into account home / road and margin of victory (with diminishing returns, of course). The two recent nail-biters by IWU (Millikin and Carthage) along with their eight-point win over a 2-7 Alma have dinged their power ranking, whilst Wheaton is boosted by defeating Albion by a good margin.