FB: Region 4 fan poll

[DPU3619]

Here's the poll.  Sorry for the delay. If I don't have all the ballots by Sunday night, it's usually tough for me to get them done before Thursday.

1. Mount Union            70 pts    (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1)
2. North Central           60 pts   (2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3)
3. Franklin                    56 pts   (2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 6)
4. Wittenberg              42 pts    (3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7)
T5. Wabash                 35 pts    (4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8)
T5. Heidelberg             35 pts    (4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9)
7. Wheaton                 33 pts    (4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9)
8. Baldwin-Wallace      20 pts    (5, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10, -)
9. Illinois Wesleyan     17 pts    (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10)
10. Ohio Wesleyan      12 pts    (8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, -, -)


ARV: Elmhurst                4 pts    (8, 10, -, -, -, -)

[ExTartanPlayer]

Yayyyy for the poll!  Time to play armchair quarterback as a non-voter...not really much to go on yet, though.  Pretty obvious that everyone considers the CCIW, OAC, and NCAC as the power conferences since they account for 10 of the 11 teams receiving votes.  Purely for discussion fodder, I'll kick a few thoughts out there (some of which I don't entirely believe, just fun to banter).  I generally view poll rankings as something that should be done as a combination of the teams' respective accomplishments to date AND their potential over the remainder of the season (with heavier emphasis on "accomplishments" and less on "potential" as the season goes), which will make the following statements seem somewhat confusing.

1) I support keeping Mount Union at #1 for now.  As the defending national champions, with a returning QB that may be the nation's best, and opening the season with a victory over a ranked team that they almost turned into a rout in the first half...I just don't see how you drop them from the top slot after winning against a fellow ranked team.

2) If one takes the view that accomplishments matter more than future projections, then a strong argument can be made for putting Franklin #2.  They took some haymakers from the #1 team on the road and came back to take a 27-23 lead in the fourth quarter.  Very impressive.  In fact, I don't see how anyone but Franklin can be ranked second under this premis: if that close of a loss to the top team isn't worth a #2 ranking, what is?

3) HOWEVER: I have a hunch that the gap between Franklin and Mount Union will widen as the season progresses.  I have previously argued against the use of "hunches" over actual on-field results (as I said, this stream of thoughts is really just for discussion fodder), but somehow I'm okay with ranking Franklin #4 or 5 instead of #2.  Unfortunately we won't be able to tell much about Franklin for a little while because they're likely to take it on the chin against Butler this week (although perhaps a more competitive loss than Wittenberg would give them some steam, but ranking an 0-2 team second would feel a little weird, even knowing the context of the two losses).

Anyone else have some fun thoughts to kick around?

[DPU3619]

I moved a lot of things around this week.  My objective wasn't to move teams that didn't play down, but that's kinda what happened.  I thought some of the teams that played well really deserved a bump.  Franklin is a big mover in my ballot for obvious reasons. But, I've always voted Franklin high in this poll.  I did that all year last year, too.

[wally_wabash]

So I took my preseason ballot and did absolutely nothing with it.  Zero changes.  Cop out?  Probably.  Brilliant?  Definitely.   

But on the serious note, I had Franklin #2 prior to week 1 and just left them there.  I see I'm not the only voter on the Franklin wagon.  They probably won't move from there after this weekend's games either because I already set a precedent of not penalizing Witt for getting steamrolled by Butler. 

After that, I think you can order teams 3-7 in any way you want...really hard to separate them.  I've got North Central 3, Wabash 4, Witt 5, Heidelberg 6, Wheaton 7.  I don't think wailing away on Alma scores you points here nor do I think getting pounded by Butler should really affect your standing.  Wheaton is the one team that I might have made an adjustment with but they were already at the bottom of this cluster and I really don't think that Benedictine game was as close as even that final score makes it seem. 

I think my last three are B-W, OWU, and IWU in that order (I don't have my ballot in front of me to be sure) but they were all as they were last week.  Again, I don't think OWU or IWU did anything against teams to warrant upward or downward movement.  B-W gets a game with Bluffton this week so we'll get some common opponent results to play with in a couple of days. 

Interesting that after only one game, we've only got 11 teams getting recognized here.  We're either all geniuses or the North Region is fairly shallow right now. 

[HSCTiger74]

So I took my preseason ballot and did absolutely nothing with it.  Zero changes.  Cop out?  Probably.  Brilliant?  Definitely.   

But on the serious note, I had Franklin #2 prior to week 1 and just left them there.  I see I'm not the only voter on the Franklin wagon.  They probably won't move from there after this weekend's games either because I already set a precedent of not penalizing Witt for getting steamrolled by Butler. 

After that, I think you can order teams 3-7 in any way you want...really hard to separate them.  I've got North Central 3, Wabash 4, Witt 5, Heidelberg 6, Wheaton 7.  I don't think wailing away on Alma scores you points here nor do I think getting pounded by Butler should really affect your standing.  Wheaton is the one team that I might have made an adjustment with but they were already at the bottom of this cluster and I really don't think that Benedictine game was as close as even that final score makes it seem. 

I think my last three are B-W, OWU, and IWU in that order (I don't have my ballot in front of me to be sure) but they were all as they were last week.  Again, I don't think OWU or IWU did anything against teams to warrant upward or downward movement.  B-W gets a game with Bluffton this week so we'll get some common opponent results to play with in a couple of days. 

Interesting that after only one game, we've only got 11 teams getting recognized here. We're either all geniuses or the North Region is fairly shallow right now.

No reason it can't be both.   

[ExTartanPlayer]

Interesting that after only one game, we've only got 11 teams getting recognized here.  We're either all geniuses or the North Region is fairly shallow right now.

I went back and looked up the Kickoff rankings again, extending it to the 14 highest-ranked teams (to include OWU), to figure out if there are any other realistic candidates that are missing here, or if it's just that a consensus top 10-11 teams is what we really have.

1) Mount Union (#1 overall)
2) North Central (#6)
3) Wittenberg (#10)
4) Heidelberg (#14)
5) Wheaton (#15)
6) Franklin (#19)
7) Elmhurst (#22)
8) Baldwin-Wallace (#23)
9) Wabash (#25)
10) Illinois Wesleyan (#28)
11) Adrian (#51)
12) John Carroll (#53)
13) Augustana (#55)
14) Ohio Wesleyan (#70)

Our 11 teams include the top ten teams here plus OWU.  The other three: Adrian lost at home to very mediocre Pacific in Week 1, Augustana was 5-5 last year and opened with a nice 20-10 win over a mediocre Mount St. Joseph, and that leaves us with the ONE realistic candidate that may be overlooked here: John Carroll.

The Blue Streaks were 6-4 last year and opened with a 41-0 win over St. Norbert at a neutral site.  While the MWC ain't the greatest conference, St. Norbert did go to the playoffs last year (and has been at/near the top of their conference every season since D3football.com came into existence) and a 'road' win over a playoff team is a nice way to start the season...but JCU also beat St. Norbert 40-3 to start last season.  They do have a new coach, an excellent QB, and should probably be labeled as a "team to watch" right now...and we'll find out whether they deserve a place in these rankings when they play at B-W on 9/21.

Looking at it another way, from the "conferences" perspective: as I noted, our representatives all come from the CCIW, OAC, NCAC plus Franklin.  The other conferences represented in the North Region include the NACC (0-fer in Week 1; defending champion Concordia-Chicago lost 45-3 to Lake Forest, there's no realistic candidate here), HCAC (also put up an 0-fer Week 1, and Franklin is the only realistic candidate), UMAC (four teams; best candidate: Greenville, but beating the CCIW's fifth or sixth-best team by a touchdown is a nice win for them but not exactly ranking material), the UAA (two teams; neither Case nor Chicago is deserving of consideration right now, although Case might nose their way into the conversation in October if they can manage a tight game with Linfield and/or a win over Trinity while holding serve in the games they "should" win, but that's asking an awful lot of a team that wasn't exactly loaded coming into the season) and the MIAA.

The MIAA perhaps is worth a closer look...however, the conference generally hasn't shown well in nonconference play and hasn't won a playoff game since Trine in 2009-2010.  Several times in the past decade the conference champion has been winless outside of conference play, which makes it hard to take even the MIAA champ seriously in terms of regional ranking.  Five MIAA teams did win in Week 1, so it's possible that one of those teams will emerge as a rankings candidate.  Trine could make a case with a win against Elmhurst this weekend.  Ditto Albion with a strong showing at Wheaton, maybe even Hope if they blow out Millikin.  Notching a few wins agains the CCIW would get some attention.

All that's a long-winded way of saying that if we're missing anyone who will make their way into the rankings later this season, it's probably either John Carroll or (unknown MIAA team that emerges).  I'll give Trine a puncher's chance based on past resume (they have the most recent major success of any MIAA program) and a possibly winnable game against Elmhurst this weekend.

[NCF]

Yayyyy for the poll!  Time to play armchair quarterback as a non-voter...not really much to go on yet, though.  Pretty obvious that everyone considers the CCIW, OAC, and NCAC as the power conferences since they account for 10 of the 11 teams receiving votes.  Purely for discussion fodder, I'll kick a few thoughts out there (some of which I don't entirely believe, just fun to banter).  I generally view poll rankings as something that should be done as a combination of the teams' respective accomplishments to date AND their potential over the remainder of the season (with heavier emphasis on "accomplishments" and less on "potential" as the season goes), which will make the following statements seem somewhat confusing.

1) I support keeping Mount Union at #1 for now.  As the defending national champions, with a returning QB that may be the nation's best, and opening the season with a victory over a ranked team that they almost turned into a rout in the first half...I just don't see how you drop them from the top slot after winning against a fellow ranked team.

2) If one takes the view that accomplishments matter more than future projections, then a strong argument can be made for putting Franklin #2.  They took some haymakers from the #1 team on the road and came back to take a 27-23 lead in the fourth quarter.  Very impressive.  In fact, I don't see how anyone but Franklin can be ranked second under this premis: if that close of a loss to the top team isn't worth a #2 ranking, what is?3) HOWEVER: I have a hunch that the gap between Franklin and Mount Union will widen as the season progresses.  I have previously argued against the use of "hunches" over actual on-field results (as I said, this stream of thoughts is really just for discussion fodder), but somehow I'm okay with ranking Franklin #4 or 5 instead of #2.  Unfortunately we won't be able to tell much about Franklin for a little while because they're likely to take it on the chin against Butler this week (although perhaps a more competitive loss than Wittenberg would give them some steam, but ranking an 0-2 team second would feel a little weird, even knowing the context of the two losses).

Anyone else have some fun thoughts to kick around?

The only reason I didn't move Franklin to #2 was because North Central didn't play last week. However, they could end up being the top ranked team in the North before the regular season ends, if Mount loses along the way.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

I'm sure everyone is curious who had Franklin 6th... maybe it's just me being tough because they're my team. I raised them in my top 25 ballot 4 spots but was still the lowest in that poll having them 18th. Now if they go and beat Butler this week (especially after what they did to Witt) they will certainly be higher on next week's ballot
Down at the bottom, with Adrian losing I bumped up Wabash, Elmhurst, and OWU to 7-9 and had to decide on 10th... ended up picking IWU but B-W is right there. Lower down on my watch list are still Adrian and Otterbein for the moment.

[D3MAFAN]

So I took my preseason ballot and did absolutely nothing with it.  Zero changes.  Cop out?  Probably.  Brilliant?  Definitely.   

But on the serious note, I had Franklin #2 prior to week 1 and just left them there.  I see I'm not the only voter on the Franklin wagon.  They probably won't move from there after this weekend's games either because I already set a precedent of not penalizing Witt for getting steamrolled by Butler. 

After that, I think you can order teams 3-7 in any way you want...really hard to separate them.  I've got North Central 3, Wabash 4, Witt 5, Heidelberg 6, Wheaton 7.  I don't think wailing away on Alma scores you points here nor do I think getting pounded by Butler should really affect your standing.  Wheaton is the one team that I might have made an adjustment with but they were already at the bottom of this cluster and I really don't think that Benedictine game was as close as even that final score makes it seem. 

I think my last three are B-W, OWU, and IWU in that order (I don't have my ballot in front of me to be sure) but they were all as they were last week.  Again, I don't think OWU or IWU did anything against teams to warrant upward or downward movement.  B-W gets a game with Bluffton this week so we'll get some common opponent results to play with in a couple of days. 

Interesting that after only one game, we've only got 11 teams getting recognized here.  We're either all geniuses or the North Region is fairly shallow right now.

So, if Witt does well this weekend and Franklin loses by a similar margin to Butler, do you think that Witt may be deserving of at least a second place tie?

[Li'l Giant]

I had Franklin 6th on my first ballot but moved them up to #2. Not entirely fair to North Central given that they didn't play but I had information about FC, whereas at this moment, we have none for NCC.

I switched Heidelberg and Witt, not intending to penalize Witt, even though that's the effect. I did that mainly because I think we learned more about Heidelberg this past week than we did about Witt from those respective games. No, thrashing Alma isn't impressive on it's own, but if you're truly a top 5 regional team, then you should thrash Alma.

The 6-10 on my ballot were Wabash, Wheaton, BW, OWU, and Illinois Wesleyan. I think you could really order those any way and not be "wrong". Once everyone has played a game, and we start getting some common opponents this may end up becoming more precise.

[wally_wabash]

So I took my preseason ballot and did absolutely nothing with it.  Zero changes.  Cop out?  Probably.  Brilliant?  Definitely.   

But on the serious note, I had Franklin #2 prior to week 1 and just left them there.  I see I'm not the only voter on the Franklin wagon.  They probably won't move from there after this weekend's games either because I already set a precedent of not penalizing Witt for getting steamrolled by Butler. 

After that, I think you can order teams 3-7 in any way you want...really hard to separate them.  I've got North Central 3, Wabash 4, Witt 5, Heidelberg 6, Wheaton 7.  I don't think wailing away on Alma scores you points here nor do I think getting pounded by Butler should really affect your standing.  Wheaton is the one team that I might have made an adjustment with but they were already at the bottom of this cluster and I really don't think that Benedictine game was as close as even that final score makes it seem. 

I think my last three are B-W, OWU, and IWU in that order (I don't have my ballot in front of me to be sure) but they were all as they were last week.  Again, I don't think OWU or IWU did anything against teams to warrant upward or downward movement.  B-W gets a game with Bluffton this week so we'll get some common opponent results to play with in a couple of days. 

Interesting that after only one game, we've only got 11 teams getting recognized here.  We're either all geniuses or the North Region is fairly shallow right now.

So, if Witt does well this weekend and Franklin loses by a similar margin to Butler, do you think that Witt may be deserving of at least a second place tie?

No because I don't think results against Butler mean much of anything. Butler could have picked their score against Witt last weekend. They've just got a team full of guys on a different level than 99% of Division III.  All I know is that Witt isn't anywhere near as good as Butler. I think I know the same thing about Franklin. But that doesn't give me any real information about the relative strength of Franklin and Witt. I do know Franklin stared down Mount Union and nearly won. That's a far more relevant piece of data than anything I can get from an out of division game. Now if Franklin beats Butler or takes them to the wire like they did UMU,  that's interesting, but really only reinforces what we learned about Franklin last weekend (that they're pretty good).

[ExTartanPlayer]

I had Franklin 6th on my first ballot but moved them up to #2. Not entirely fair to North Central given that they didn't play but I had information about FC, whereas at this moment, we have none for NCC.

I switched Heidelberg and Witt, not intending to penalize Witt, even though that's the effect. I did that mainly because I think we learned more about Heidelberg this past week than we did about Witt from those respective games. No, thrashing Alma isn't impressive on it's own, but if you're truly a top 5 regional team, then you should thrash Alma.

The 6-10 on my ballot were Wabash, Wheaton, BW, OWU, and Illinois Wesleyan. I think you could really order those any way and not be "wrong". Once everyone has played a game, and we start getting some common opponents this may end up becoming more precise.

Indeed.  I don't think anyone is really "wrong" at this point with the teams ordered from #2-10, really, until more games have been played.

I'll make a prediction that Elmhurst will drop out of ORV this week following a mild upset loss to Trine.  IMO Elmhurst is just about the most over-ranked team in the country; they were very good last year but graduated a lot.  Trine has more back and it hasn't been that long since they were the MIAA's playoff rep.

[Pat Coleman]

Agreed. Kickoff writers would not have ranked Elmhurst in the Top 25 but our hands were tied by the Top 25 voters.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Agreed. Kickoff writers would not have ranked Elmhurst in the Top 25 but our hands were tied by the Top 25 voters.

Which is totally fine IMO.  You've said that before and I understand.  I think it's also understandable why they're ranked that high, they won a share of the CCIW title last year and that's a tough league.  I just don't see them repeating that performance.

[smedindy]

There's always a chance for an OAC team to move in here, and JCU may be the one, but they've been dead solid mediocre of late. Trine may have the jucie, but I'm skeptical of the rest of the MIAA.. CWRU perhaps could move in as well. I wouldn't sleep on Kenyon, if they win out except for all of the big NCAC three, which isn't laughable.