D3 Top 25 Fan Poll

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

I simply don't care that much about the history. A 9-1 team I'd put in on a "C" before a 7-3 or 6-4 team every time. Winning has to count for something. Otherwise just give all the bids to one conference and be done with it. No. You have to win or why play the season? Now it comes to 8-2/9-1, and here is where I simply lose a lot of interest.

So if say Northwestern was a 9-1 team from the UMAC with a 40 point loss to St Scholastica and had a nonconference win against Maranatha Baptist... they would be ahead of say UW-Oshkosh at 7-3 with 4 point or OT losses on the road to undefeateds UW-Whitewater, Mount Union, and St Thomas?

Winning does count for something, but a team's record is not the only factor. Who you play also matters. Beating Finlandia or Earlham by 60 isn't anywhere as telling as going down to the wire with an elite team. If all that matters is winning then why not just say only unbeaten teams can participate in the playoffs?

And going back to the baseball analogy... until a few years ago when an extra wildcard was added, the Cubs with the 3rd best record in baseball would not have gotten a "pool C" and would have been watching from home.

[jknezek]

So if say Northwestern was a 9-1 team from the UMAC with a 40 point loss to St Scholastica and had a nonconference win against Maranatha Baptist... they would be ahead of say UW-Oshkosh at 7-3 with 4 point or OT losses on the road to undefeateds UW-Whitewater, Mount Union, and St Thomas?

I simply don't care. If you lost to UWW, UMU, and St. Thomas in one season already does it really matter if you are in the playoffs? Yes, if you play them tight you are a better team than St. Scholastica. Sure, it's fair to see them in the playoffs. But you've lost 3 times to D3 teams. Do you really factor into the playoffs at this point? Probably not.

Now can you make it more outlandish and start talking about OT, and blocked punts, and yada yada hypothetical... uggh. You lost. 3x. You had your shot and again and again and AGAIN you didn't win. So yes, it's ok for you stay home and someone else to go. Even if that team is also going to lose to those same programs, potentially even worse.

DIII isn't fair. It's not a flat playing surface. Teams everywhere have different advantages. A team with a 90% acceptance rate has a huge advantage over a team with a 15% acceptance rate. A team that can put 10K in the stands and create a big game atmosphere week in and out has a big advantage over a small liberal arts school in the middle of nowhere where game day is 800 people in the stands and 300 after the half. Having in-state tuition is an advantage. Having a huge endowment can be an advantage. Having good facilities is an advantage. Playing in a weak conference is an advantage if you are the top team. Deal with it. Nothing about DIII is fair or even handed, so I really don't care if the last couple spots of "second chance" playoff entrants is rigorously fair either.

What is fair is that at the beginning of every season, every team has an equal shot. The AQ provides that, the "C" teams just round out the brackets and it doesn't bother me who takes the spots so long as they have some logical reason for being there. Winning is an awfully good reason, winning against good competition is a better reason. Losing to good competition doesn't really do much except show you can't win...

[wally_wabash]

So if say Northwestern was a 9-1 team from the UMAC with a 40 point loss to St Scholastica and had a nonconference win against Maranatha Baptist... they would be ahead of say UW-Oshkosh at 7-3 with 4 point or OT losses on the road to undefeateds UW-Whitewater, Mount Union, and St Thomas?

I think they'd be tied for irrelevant.  I don't think either team would be regionally ranked, so neither team matters at that point.  Maybe Oshkosh is ranked at the tail end of the rankings in your scenario, but they aren't getting in. 

[nccfac]

D3 football is for the players, much more than for the fans(think D1 and TV monies). As much as I would like to have seen how NCC would have done in the playoffs last year, they didn't earn it. I know that we could have beaten some teams in the playoffs and maybe even crushed some. But the AQs earned their way there winning their conference. I think they deserve the experience of being in a playoff game. I imagine that is important to them and they will remember it forever, even if it wasn't the ending they were hoping for. I know as a fan we might feel different and would like to see nothing but close playoff games and more competitive games. However, in D3, we are all about the players and the time and effort they put in to be real student-athletes. For all the student-athletes and all the work they put in, I wish all of them could experience at some time an NCAA playoff game. That won't happen, but at least one from every conference gets that chance.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Getting this thread back to the main topic...

2015 WEEK 7 TOP 25 FAN POLL

Rank         Team                     Points    Prev
  1)   Linfield (4)          196     2
  2)   Mount Union (4)       195     1
  3)   Mary Hardin-Baylor    183     3
  4)   Wesley                174     4
  5)   Wheaton               158    T5
  6)   UW-Oshkosh            155    T5
  7)   Wabash                151     8
  8)   UW-Whitewater         150     7
  9)   St Thomas             148     9
10)   Johns Hopkins         125    11
11)   Thomas More           120    12
12)   UW-Platteville        111    13
13)   St John's             101    14
14)   North Central          88    16
15)   Hardin-Simmons         87    15
16)   Wash & Jeff            73    17
17)   Concordia-Moorhead     57    18
18)   Illinois Wesleyan      45    19
19)   Wartburg               40    10
20)   Salisbury              38    20
21)   Albright               35    21
22)   Rowan                  28    NR
T23)   DePauw                 27    25
T23)   Texas Lutheran         27    22
25)   Whitworth              26    23

Dropped Out: John Carroll

Also Receiving Votes: John Carroll (19), Washington & Lee (13), Wittenberg (7), Albion (5), Cortland St (5), Dubuque (4), Bethel (3), Western New England (3), Gustavus Adolphus (2), St Norbert (1)

Voters: 02 Warhawk, D3MAFAN-MG, desertcat1, FCGrizzliesGrad, HSCTiger74, Mr. Ypsi, NCF, and thewaterboy

[Mr. Ypsi]

FCGG, you have Tex Lu at #25 with 22 points; you also have them in ARV with 5 points??

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

  1)   Linfield             196  ( 1,  1,  1,  1,  2,  2,  2,  2)
  2)   Mount Union          195  ( 1,  1,  1,  1,  2,  2,  2,  3)
  3)   Mary Hardin-Baylor   183  ( 2,  3,  3,  3,  3,  3,  4,  4)
  4)   Wesley               174  ( 3,  4,  4,  4,  4,  5,  5,  5)
  5)   Wheaton              158  ( 3,  4,  5,  7,  7,  7,  8,  9)
  6)   UW-Oshkosh           155  ( 5,  5,  5,  6,  7,  8,  8,  9)
  7)   Wabash               151  ( 6,  6,  6,  7,  8,  8,  8,  8)
  8)   UW-Whitewater        150  ( 6,  6,  6,  6,  7,  7,  9, 11)
  9)   St Thomas            148  ( 4,  5,  7,  8,  9,  9,  9,  9)
10)   Johns Hopkins        125  (10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 11, 12)
11)   Thomas More          120  ( 9, 10, 11, 11, 11, 11, 12, 13)
12)   UW-Platteville       111  (10, 11, 12, 12, 12, 12, 13, 15)
13)   St John's            101  (11, 12, 13, 14, 14, 14, 14, 15)
14)   North Central         88  (13, 13, 13, 14, 15, 15, 16, 21)
15)   Hardin-Simmons        87  (12, 13, 14, 15, 15, 16, 17, 19)
16)   Wash & Jeff           73  (13, 15, 15, 16, 17, 17, 20, 20)
17)   Concordia-Moorhead    57  (16, 17, 17, 17, 18, 20, 21, 25)
18)   Illinois Wesleyan     45  (18, 18, 18, 19, 20, 23, 23, 24)
19)   Wartburg              40  (16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 23, 24, --)
20)   Salisbury             38  (16, 19, 20, 20, 22, 22, 25, --)
21)   Albright              35  (14, 16, 19, 21, 25, --, --, --)
22)   Rowan                 28  (18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 24, --, --)
T23)   DePauw                27  (20, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, --)
T23)   Texas Lutheran        27  (14, 18, 21, 24, --, --, --, --)
25)   Whitworth             26  (16, 17, 19, --, --, --, --, --)

26)   John Carroll          19  (18, 19, 22)
27)   Wash & Lee            13  (19, 23, 23)
28)   Wittenberg             7  (20, 25)
T29)   Albion                 5  (22, 25)
T29)   Cortland St            5  (21)
31)   Dubuque                4  (22)
T32)   Bethel                 3  (24, 25)
T32)   W New England          3  (23)
34)   Gustavus Adolphus      2  (24)
35)   St Norbert             1  (25)

[ExTartanPlayer]

I am surprised to see Wartburg still ranked so generously.  They were already looking kind of "meh" through the first few weeks, scraping their way past some teams who were otherwise blown out by comparably ranked teams (UST vs. Augsburg, UWO vs. UW-Stout).  I'd have thought the blowout loss to Dubuque would actually have dropped them even further, to be honest...how does one reconcile keeping Wartburg on-ballot and ranked ahead of Dubuque?  UD has only lost to teams ranked higher than Wartburg (albeit in blowout fashion) and just blew out Wartburg.

I don't think Dubuque has a particular strong case to be ranked ATM, but IMO if they're not ranked, Wartburg probably ought not to be ranked either.  This seems like one of those anchor-and-adjust things where people feel weird dropping a previously highly-ranked team too far, even with a 32-point loss to a team that lost badly two other comparably ranked teams.

I know this is an impossible task, comparing teams across regions and trying to figure out where Salisbury and Albright rank in comparison to Wartburg, but still.

Hey, speaking of Salisbury and Albright, you guys know that Albright is undefeated with a h2h win against Salisbury, right?  Even if it took a crazy 4th quarter comeback for Albright to win, ranking a 1-loss team ahead of the undefeated team who dealt them that loss seems a little wonky to me (worth noting that Albright has won handily in every game since; they're not exactly hanging on to that undefeated record by a thread each week).  When there are multiple losses in play, I can see that h2h becomes a little harder to stick to, but I don't like this.  There's no Salisbury-beat-X-who-beat-Albright that really justifies Salisbury > Albright.

Maybe you can follow this:

Salisbury 31, Rowan 28
Rowan 24, Widener 10
Albright 27, Widener 10

and try to justify the conclusion that Salisbury and Albright are about equal (they probably are) but I still don't understand giving the actual head-nod to a 1-loss team over the undefeated team responsible for that "1" in the L column.

[02 Warhawk]

I think I was the only one that ranked Dubuque ahead of Wartburg. I had them ranked the following based on their head to head games this season:

22: Dubuque
23: Wartburg
24: Bethel

Dubuque has two losses, but they were both against very good teams. Also Wartburg seems to be a far cry from last year's team, but still good. If the Wart/DQ game was remotely close I would probably ranked them differently.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I think I was the only one that ranked Dubuque ahead of Wartburg. I had them ranked the following based on their head to head games this season:

22: Dubuque
23: Wartburg
24: Bethel

Dubuque has two losses, but they were both against very good teams. Also Wartburg seems to be a far cry from last year's team, but still good. If the Wart/DQ game was remotely close I would probably ranked them differently.

Yeah.  What bothers me isn't really a strong feeling that Dubuque absolutely has to be ranked or that Wartburg absolutely sucks.  It's that Dubuque just blew out Wartburg head to head, only has losses to teams who are justifiably both ranked higher than Wartburg, and when those two things are true I don't really see any reason for Wartburg still ranked over Dubuque except for "I had them 8th last week and didn't want to drop them more than X spots" or "they were supposed to be really good and I don't want to write them off after one loss."

Honestly, the Albright/Salisbury ranking is much stranger, though.  Dubuque got blown out in their two losses and I don't think they really deserve an auto-ranking just for beating Wartburg.  But there are at least two people ranking 4-1 Salisbury and not ranking Albright at 6-0 with-a-win-over-Salisbury.

[02 Warhawk]

Also, I still don't understand the pull towards Whitworth.....yet. I'm still waiting for that signature win, which I don't think they'll get based on the lack of competition (sans Linfield). Beating Pacific Lutheran (0-5) and Chapman (1-4) isn't quite the accomplishment as it used to be.

If they keep it close against Linfield (within two scores) I might consider them a top 25 team. However, I expect Linfield to win this one by 30-40 points.

[02 Warhawk]

I think I was the only one that ranked Dubuque ahead of Wartburg. I had them ranked the following based on their head to head games this season:

22: Dubuque
23: Wartburg
24: Bethel

Dubuque has two losses, but they were both against very good teams. Also Wartburg seems to be a far cry from last year's team, but still good. If the Wart/DQ game was remotely close I would probably ranked them differently.

Yeah.  What bothers me isn't really a strong feeling that Dubuque absolutely has to be ranked or that Wartburg absolutely sucks.  It's that Dubuque just blew out Wartburg head to head, only has losses to teams who are justifiably both ranked higher than Wartburg, and when those two things are true I don't really see any reason for Wartburg still ranked over Dubuque except for "I had them 8th last week and didn't want to drop them more than X spots" or "they were supposed to be really good and I don't want to write them off after one loss."

Honestly, the Albright/Salisbury ranking is much stranger, though.  Dubuque got blown out in their two losses and I don't think they really deserve an auto-ranking just for beating Wartburg.  But there are at least two people ranking 4-1 Salisbury and not ranking Albright at 6-0 with-a-win-over-Salisbury.

Ranking Salisbury over Alrbight is a little more exucesable considering they only lost by one on the road, followed by a big win against a good Rowan team. Whereas DQ/Wartburg was a blowout.

Albright has a good test against Del Valley this week that will turn some more heads if they win.

[wally_wabash]

Honestly, the Albright/Salisbury ranking is much stranger, though.  Dubuque got blown out in their two losses and I don't think they really deserve an auto-ranking just for beating Wartburg.  But there are at least two people ranking 4-1 Salisbury and not ranking Albright at 6-0 with-a-win-over-Salisbury.

You know why.  MAC << NJAC. 

[emma17]

I'm curious if voters feel Wheaton could jump Wesley if both teams win this weekend.

[02 Warhawk]

Can't help you there, I already have them above Wesley. Hopefully Wheaton can win and make me look smart