Official 2010 PLAYOFFS reaction thread

[footballfan413]

In the HuddLLe interview of Dr Joy Solomon, she mentions that there will be 24 Pool A bids in 2011.

I wonder if she is not aware of the specifics of UMAC and the ECFC, or one conference is not yet ready for a Pool A bid.  Here is the link to the 23 minute interview.

http://d3blogs.com/d3football/2010/11/15/what-the-chair-said/

Probably not since, around the 10 minute mark, she states that there were no, "results against common opponents," between NCC and UWW which should have also been considered along with the SOS.  Honestly, she would be better off not doing interviews and using the standard. "No comment."
"Better to keep ones mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt!"

[martin]

In the HuddLLe interview of Dr Joy Solomon, she mentions that there will be 24 Pool A bids in 2011.

I wonder if she is not aware of the specifics of UMAC and the ECFC, or one conference is not yet ready for a Pool A bid.  Here is the link to the 23 minute interview.

http://d3blogs.com/d3football/2010/11/15/what-the-chair-said/

I need to listen again.  I thought I heard her say that next year there would only be five Pool C bids.  I thought starting in 2011, there would be 25 AQs, one Pool B and six Pool C.  Can anyone clarify?

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

In the HuddLLe interview of Dr Joy Solomon, she mentions that there will be 24 Pool A bids in 2011.

I wonder if she is not aware of the specifics of UMAC and the ECFC, or one conference is not yet ready for a Pool A bid.  Here is the link to the 23 minute interview.

http://d3blogs.com/d3football/2010/11/15/what-the-chair-said/

I need to listen again.  I thought I heard her say that next year there would only be five Pool C bids.  I thought starting in 2011, there would be 25 AQs, one Pool B and six Pool C.  Can anyone clarify?

Read Pat's post after the podcast (listed below it).  He goes through the mathematical calculations for the different pool picks for 2011.

[martin]

In the HuddLLe interview of Dr Joy Solomon, she mentions that there will be 24 Pool A bids in 2011.

I wonder if she is not aware of the specifics of UMAC and the ECFC, or one conference is not yet ready for a Pool A bid.  Here is the link to the 23 minute interview.

http://d3blogs.com/d3football/2010/11/15/what-the-chair-said/

I need to listen again.  I thought I heard her say that next year there would only be five Pool C bids.  I thought starting in 2011, there would be 25 AQs, one Pool B and six Pool C.  Can anyone clarify?

Read Pat's post after the podcast (listed below it).  He goes through the mathematical calculations for the different pool picks for 2011.

Thanks for directing me to Pat's post.  Solomen's comments begin at the 18:25 mark.  I believe she is wrong.  She was at the airport speaking off the cuff so cut her some slack.  Although the way she said it leads me to believe that she does not understand the Pool allocations.  Either that or she has already mentally removed herself from the committee.  Who can blame her for all the grief you get for a thankless job.  A somewhat accurate transcription of what she said:

When you have 23 automatic bids and next year you will have 24 and you're cutting Pool C down to 5 teams...

What Pat said:

Solomen makes an offhand comment late in the interview about 24 automatic bids, 5 Pool C next year. That isn't going to be the case. First of all, we're going to have 25 automatic bids, as near as I can tell. Secondly, here's the math.

This year we have (I think) 226 teams eligible for the Division III football championship (not the 10 NESCAC teams, not Birmingham-Southern, but everyone else).

198 teams are in Pool A (AQ conferences), divided by 23 bids = 8.609 teams for each spot
28 teams are in Pool B. Divide that by 8.609 and you get 3.25 bids. They always round down, so it's three.
The leftover bids are Pool C bids. That's six.

Let's say that only the UMAC gets a new automatic bid next year.
Nine teams move from Pool B to the UMAC automatic bid, plus a 10th school starts football.
Salisbury and Frostburg State move from Pool B to the Empire 8.
Stevenson adds football and joins the MAC in Pool A.
Birmingham-Southern finishes its provisional years and counts as a member of the Pool A SCAC.
DePauw leaves the SCAC and spends one year in limbo in Pool B.
Pool B's net loss is 10 teams, giving them 18. Pool A's net gain is 12 teams, giving them 210.

210 teams are in Pool A (AQ conferences), divided by 24 bids = 8.75 teams for each spot
18 teams are in Pool B. Divide that by 8.75 and you get 2.057 bids. They always round down, so it's two.
The leftover bids are Pool C bids. That's six.

Now, let's add the ECFC to this list. That's eight more teams, one more AQ.

That means 218 teams are in Pool A, divided by 25 bids, 8.72 teams for each spot.
10 teams are in Pool B. Divide that by 8.72 and you get 1.147 bids. Round down to 1.
The leftover bids are Pool C bids. That's six.

[wally_wabash]

The logic is simple...teams are shifting from Pool B eligible to Pool A eligible next year.  The bid distribution shift is between Pools A and B...C is unaffected.  We all know this.  The tournament selection committee chairperson has to know this and has to be able to speak accurately about it from the NCAA HQ, their office, an airport, on the moon or wherever they get asked about it.  They just have to. 

[altor]

The tournament selection committee chairperson has to know this and has to be able to speak accurately about it from the NCAA HQ, their office, an airport, on the moon or wherever they get asked about it.  They just have to.

Why does the chair of the 2010 selection committee need to know in November 2010 what the pool allocation will be for a tournament that will not take place until November 2011, when she will not even be the chair?  It's not her job to determine how many teams are eligible in each pool.  She only needs to be able to read the handbook (which won't come out for another 10+ months).

And how can you say, "We all know this."?  The numbers Pat and Ralph have used are likely accurate, but I don't believe they have been confirmed by the NCAA.  Do we have confirmation if either the UMAC or the ECFC will certainly get their Pool A bid?  Can you be certain that 25 college presidents won't suddenly wake up one morning in March and tell the AD to scrap the football program, changing the Pool B ratio?

[Pat Coleman]

The logic is simple...teams are shifting from Pool B eligible to Pool A eligible next year.  The bid distribution shift is between Pools A and B...C is unaffected.  We all know this.  The tournament selection committee chairperson has to know this and has to be able to speak accurately about it from the NCAA HQ, their office, an airport, on the moon or wherever they get asked about it.  They just have to. 

I don't agree either. The NCAA chair actually doesn't have any role in the bid determination process. That's done by the beancounters in Indianapolis. Actually, that's precisely why it is so often incorrect and why Ralph Turner's role as the anointed D3sports.com bid math guru is so prominent. How many times, just in the sports we cover, has the NCAA shifted a bid from B to C late in the game? That's because non-D3 people run the process and don't know when schools become eligible for the playoffs or when schools add the sport because they do not follow it.

[usee]

Maybe Joy Solomen is off the hook for bid speculation but I am not sure how she can say "NCC and Whitewater have no HTH or common opponents so we had to look at the numbers available"

UWW 45 UWEC 0
NCC 20 UWEC 6

We all know this.  The tournament selection committee chairperson has to know this and has to be able to speak accurately about it from the NCAA HQ, their office, an airport, on the moon or wherever they get asked about it.  They just have to. 

[wally_wabash]

I guess where I'm coming from here is that if you're the chair of the D-III football tournament selection committee, you ought to know how that tournament works inside and out.  When you don't know your tournament inside and out, things like UWW not being one of the top four teams and the Witt/DePauw seeding situation are a lot less palatable because it doesn't seem like this committee is coming from a place of any particular Division III football expertise.  

[footballfan413]

Maybe Joy Solomen is off the hook for bid speculation but I am not sure how she can say "NCC and Whitewater have no HTH or common opponents so we had to look at the numbers available"

UWW 45 UWEC 0
NCC 20 UWEC 6

We all know this.  The tournament selection committee chairperson has to know this and has to be able to speak accurately about it from the NCAA HQ, their office, an airport, on the moon or wherever they get asked about it.  They just have to.  

Ya, this one is making me absolutely crazy!  Since the chair and it seems the entire committee was, apparently, totally unaware of the common opponent it really doesn't matter but as Pat said in the podcast, UW-W took their foot off the gas in their last drive in the 4th quarter running the #4 RB up the middle behind the # 2's against their #1's or that score would have reached into the 50's.  But beating a common opponent by 45 or 52 when the other team only wins by 2 TD's doesn't matter much if the committee is oblivious to the fact.  
  I have to let this go...............

[Ralph Turner]

Thanks for the shoutout.  I have a hard time understanding why the NCAA doesn't put more effort into maintaining "AQ integrity".  How can you have credibility about your sport when you don't even know the most important fact of the playoff?  How many competitors will there be?

As for UWW going on the road, life is tough when you're stuck on an island, like the WIAC, the ASC, the NWC and the SCIAC.

Pat outlines it well.  There should be 1 Pool B in 2011, if the ECFC and the UMAC move to Pool A status.

[altor]

When you don't know your tournament inside and out, things like UWW not being one of the top four teams and the Witt/DePauw seeding situation are a lot less palatable because it doesn't seem like this committee is coming from a place of any particular Division III football expertise.  

The 2010 committee is comprised of 4 head football coaches, 2 conference commissioners, and 2 athletic directors.  These are D-III people, most of them are likely football people too (at least half for sure).  They aren't college presidents who are more worried about other things besides athletics.  They aren't non-sports people or bean-counters.  They aren't people who care more about the big schools.  They aren't people who are more interested in other sports.  They are D-III football.

We tend to use the terms "NCAA" and "committee" and think of some mystical group that makes these selection decisions without any regard for the schools involved.  We often forget that they people making these decisions are direct representatives of the the schools involved and the rules they use were created by the schools involved.

[02 Warhawk]

Atleast a regional committee member admits this year's selection had more to do with numbers, and little to do with common sense.

[wally_wabash]

When you don't know your tournament inside and out, things like UWW not being one of the top four teams and the Witt/DePauw seeding situation are a lot less palatable because it doesn't seem like this committee is coming from a place of any particular Division III football expertise.  

The 2010 committee is comprised of 4 head football coaches, 2 conference commissioners, and 2 athletic directors.  These are D-III people, most of them are likely football people too (at least half for sure).  They aren't college presidents who are more worried about other things besides athletics.  They aren't non-sports people or bean-counters.  They aren't people who care more about the big schools.  They aren't people who are more interested in other sports.  They are D-III football.

We tend to use the terms "NCAA" and "committee" and think of some mystical group that makes these selection decisions without any regard for the schools involved.  We often forget that they people making these decisions are direct representatives of the the schools involved and the rules they use were created by the schools involved.

Which is the disheartening thing for me.  They aren't outsiders and they ought to know better.  If you know what you're doing, you can't walk out of that room and tell the world that UWW isn't one of the four top teams in the division.  If you know what you're doing, you can't not know that UWW/NCC and DePauw/Witt had common opponents.  

Anyway, I think I've made my point and I'll move on now.  We are going to have an exciting tournament over the next five weeks.  Hopefully next year this committee will be led by somebody who will let themselves get a little more invested in making sure everything makes sense.  

[altor]

Atleast a regional committee member admits this year's selection had more to do with numbers, and little to do with common sense.

Carnahan said. "But it comes down to a ranking system with very little human common sense to it."

Well, Mr. Carnahan, what does it say about the D-III members who voted for this criteria?  Do they not have "human common sense"?  I suggest you create some legislation for the D-III members to vote on that does have common sense, if that is what you want.  The selection criteria was designed by the membership.  It's not like they can't change it.

Sigh.  Remember when the complaints were that the selections were too subjective?