FB: Region 4 fan poll

[Mr. Ypsi]

If Augustana beats Central on Saturday, they probably move into the bottom of my ballot.  I'm also very curious about JCU.  I think I am probably over-ranking Bald-Wally, so also eager to see them actually play a game (though playing Bluffton probably won't tell me much).

I suspect that IWU is being under-ranked, but playing Alma this Saturday won't change any perceptions!   IF Gallik stays healthy this season, I believe they will be top 4-5 in the region by the end of the season.

I'd rate Elmhurst @ Trine as a total toss-up.  Even though I gave Elmhurst my 10th place nod, I suspect they are highly over-rated.

[smedindy]

I wouldn't sleep on Kenyon, if they win out except for all of the big NCAC three, which isn't laughable.

Or....

[Mr. Ypsi]

If Augustana beats Central on Saturday, they probably move into the bottom of my ballot.  I'm also very curious about JCU.  I think I am probably over-ranking Bald-Wally, so also eager to see them actually play a game (though playing Bluffton probably won't tell me much).

I suspect that IWU is being under-ranked, but playing Alma this Saturday won't change any perceptions!   IF Gallik stays healthy this season, I believe they will be top 4-5 in the region by the end of the season.

I'd rate Elmhurst @ Trine as a total toss-up.  Even though I gave Elmhurst my 10th place nod, I suspect they are highly over-rated.

Augie was trounced, 38-13.  Elmhurst did indeed fall to Trine, 16-7.  For this week I guess that leaves JCU as my #10 team.  VERY interested in next week's Bald Wally/JCU game.  An MIAA team may yet enter my ballot, but too early to know if it will be Trine, Hope, or Adrian.

Today's IWU @ Alma game was the most "Tale of Two Halves" game in a long while.  In the 1st half, Gallik connected with more Scots than Titans (2 completions, 3 interceptions); at the end of the half IWU was 1st and goal from the 2, then 2nd and goal from the 1, and didn't score in four tries - halftime score, Alma 3, IWU 0.  Final score was IWU 38, Alma 3.  Gallik was as good in the second half as he was bad in the first (11 for 15, 147 yards, 2 TDs), and the defense got even stiffer - Alma had ZERO second half first downs.  Something tells me the halftime lockerroom was NOT rated G!

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Hmm... what to do what to do... Elmhurst is going to drop out of my list but who should take their spot? Earlham? The Quakers have the best record in the HCAC right now
My top 7 are all on my Top 25 ballot so those are set (although 3-6 are all in a row on my ballot and I haven't officially decided who is where yet)... I think my 8-10 is going to be shaken up from last week.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I think John Carroll and Trine are the best candidates not named on last week's ballot to grab some votes. I can see an argument for either at #10 right now.

[DPU3619]

Week 2 North Region Fan Poll AKA that time we don't agree on Heidelberg.

1.  Mount Union        70 pts  (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1)
T2. North Central      58 pts  (2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4)
T2. Franklin              58 pts  (2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5)
4.   Wabash              41 pts  (3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7)
T5. Wheaton             37 pts  (4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7)
T5. Heidelberg           37 pts  (3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9)
7.   Wittenberg          36 pts  (5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7)
8.   Baldwin-Wallace   21 pts  (5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10)   
9.   Illinois Wesleyan  15 pts  (8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10)
10. Ohio Wesleyan       8 pts  (8, 8, 9, 9, 10, -, -)

ARV  John Carroll           4 pts (9, 10, 10, -, -, -, -)

The North Region Fan Poll is voted on by Mr. Ypsi, NCF, Li'l Giant, FCGrizzliesGrad, smedindy, wally_wabash, and myself.

[wally_wabash]

Oh fun.  Ok, here's what I did this week...and I did shuffle a little. 

I left Mount Union and Franklin alone as my 1-2.  Franklin is probably untouchable at this point unless there is a very significant loss to their current personnel.  Maybe North Central can jump them if they go on the road to Elmhurst, Wheaton, and IWU and win all of those games by a lot.  And I mean a lot.  Wabash maybe could jump if they don't let anybody score for the next 7 weeks (not impossible). 

I did have Wabash and North Central swap places at numbers 3 and 4, respectively.  For all of that offense that North Central laid down, I think defense is the trump card.  Great defenses beat great offenses. 

I moved Heidelberg up to 5 and Wheaton up to 6 this week.  Wheaton was stellar and was probably going to move up anyway.  Heidelberg was off so I left them alone.  The genesis of this move was my pushing Wittenberg down a couple of places to 7.  Given the common Butler data point, I think it's probaby fair to put a not-top-5 grade on Wittenberg (the defense in particular).  But Witt will probably creep up from here on out.  They shouldn't be challenged until the OWU game on 11/2. 

In 8-10, I did swap B-W and OWU at 8 and 9 due to B-W looking a bit better against the common opponent.  And I left IWU alone at 10...IWU maybe could have bounced up over these other two, but you really shouldn't trail Alma 3-0 after more than two series of a game let alone 2 quarters.  John Carroll and now Trine just missed the cut.  A little deeper off on my radar is Hope as they have looked decent in their two games so far. 

[USee]

Wally,

I appreciate your comments. What is the rationale in spread between Wheaton and Wabash? They seemed pretty similar to me when I saw them scrimmage. And why do you think NCC doesn't have a great defense and Wabash does? I follow your other reasons for the teams and you are generally pretty sound in your reasoning. Just seems like a disconnect (that I don't understand) on a couple of these.

[wally_wabash]

Wally,

I appreciate your comments. What is the rationale in spread between Wheaton and Wabash? They seemed pretty similar to me when I saw them scrimmage. And why do you think NCC doesn't have a great defense and Wabash does? I follow your other reasons for the teams and you are generally pretty sound in your reasoning. Just seems like a disconnect (that I don't understand) on a couple of these.

There's really not a big spread between Wabash and Wheaton.  I think that the teams I have ranked 3-6 are all excellent and could be interchangeable in this poll.  You could probably include my #7 Witt in that group also if you really wanted to.  The order that I have them is a product of where I put them to start with and I placed Wheaton behind NCC/Wabash/Heidelberg/Witt (initially at least) because I felt that the Hiben loss took a significant piece away from them.  Wheaton did move in front of Witt on my ballot this week. 

I have no doubt that North Central has a very good defense.  I'm not sure it is a great defense.  It wasn't great on Saturday.  Very good, yes.  But not great.  Wabash was great on Saturday and it goes back to last year as well.  That's 4 shutouts in the last five games for Wabash.  Heady stuff.  It's hard to lose when the other guys can't score. 

But again, a couple of things to keep in mind this week is that 1) most of these teams have played once so there isn't a lot of information available...I'm still guessing and 2) you can order the next five teams after Mount Union and Franklin any way you want and not be out of line. 

[USee]

fair enough, I agree those teams are all pretty close. I am not so sure BW and IWU aren't in the same boat with those teams. I would also say I think most of those teams would have shut out Hanover and Albion and a middle road WIAC team was likely the best opponent of the group. More data will certainly help. thanks again.

[firstdown]

Wally and Usee

Some interesting facts for your discussion - according to the NCAA stats for Division III for this week, North Central is number 1 is scoring offense and Wabash is number 1 in total defense. 

[wally_wabash]

fair enough, I agree those teams are all pretty close. I am not so sure BW and IWU aren't in the same boat with those teams. I would also say I think most of those teams would have shut out Hanover and Albion and a middle road WIAC team was likely the best opponent of the group. More data will certainly help. thanks again.

One thing that I think plays into the way I rank teams that maybe doesn't happen so much with other voters is that I care not one whit what league some team comes from.  You don't get juice in my poll by beating a WIAC team.  You do get juice by beating a good team that happens to play in the WIAC.  Same goes for the OAC or the CCIW or the MIAC or the NWC.  Teams aren't good simply because they've got membership in one conference or another.  Franklin's league stinks like a foot.  Franklin is really, really good.  They'd be really good in whatever league they might play in.  The CCIW is really good...but Millikin is still a bad team.  They'd be bad in any league they might play in.  More to the immediate point is that I don't think LaCrosse is very good.  I know they beat NCC last year but that was more weird than it was anything else. 

And I do agree that every team on this top 10 would handle Hanover.  Not all of them would limit Hanover to 45 yards of offense and turn them over 8 times.  2.5 efficiency rating.  1-12 on 3rd down.  5 total first downs.  The sort of video game defensive stats that just don't happen too often outside of Alliance. 

[USee]

fair enough, I agree those teams are all pretty close. I am not so sure BW and IWU aren't in the same boat with those teams. I would also say I think most of those teams would have shut out Hanover and Albion and a middle road WIAC team was likely the best opponent of the group. More data will certainly help. thanks again.

One thing that I think plays into the way I rank teams that maybe doesn't happen so much with other voters is that I care not one whit what league some team comes from.  You don't get juice in my poll by beating a WIAC team.  You do get juice by beating a good team that happens to play in the WIAC.  Same goes for the OAC or the CCIW or the MIAC or the NWC.  Teams aren't good simply because they've got membership in one conference or another.  Franklin's league stinks like a foot.  Franklin is really, really good.  They'd be really good in whatever league they might play in.  The CCIW is really good...but Millikin is still a bad team.  They'd be bad in any league they might play in.  More to the immediate point is that I don't think LaCrosse is very good.  I know they beat NCC last year but that was more weird than it was anything else. 

And I do agree that every team on this top 10 would handle Hanover.  Not all of them would limit Hanover to 45 yards of offense and turn them over 8 times.  2.5 efficiency rating.  1-12 on 3rd down.  5 total first downs.  The sort of video game defensive stats that just don't happen too often outside of Alliance.

I hear you but you can't honestly think LAX and Hanover are the same type of win? They are not. Benedictine, Hanover, Albion and Alma may all be miserable teams but Lacrosse would beat hem all by multiple TDs don't you think? And I think the IWU and Wheaton defenses were pretty dominant in their games.  Did you look at those stats?

[ExTartanPlayer]

fair enough, I agree those teams are all pretty close. I am not so sure BW and IWU aren't in the same boat with those teams. I would also say I think most of those teams would have shut out Hanover and Albion and a middle road WIAC team was likely the best opponent of the group. More data will certainly help. thanks again.

One thing that I think plays into the way I rank teams that maybe doesn't happen so much with other voters is that I care not one whit what league some team comes from.  You don't get juice in my poll by beating a WIAC team.  You do get juice by beating a good team that happens to play in the WIAC.  Same goes for the OAC or the CCIW or the MIAC or the NWC.  Teams aren't good simply because they've got membership in one conference or another.  Franklin's league stinks like a foot.  Franklin is really, really good.  They'd be really good in whatever league they might play in.  The CCIW is really good...but Millikin is still a bad team.  They'd be bad in any league they might play in.  More to the immediate point is that I don't think LaCrosse is very good.  I know they beat NCC last year but that was more weird than it was anything else. 

And I do agree that every team on this top 10 would handle Hanover.  Not all of them would limit Hanover to 45 yards of offense and turn them over 8 times.  2.5 efficiency rating.  1-12 on 3rd down.  5 total first downs.  The sort of video game defensive stats that just don't happen too often outside of Alliance.

I hear you but you can't honestly think LAX and Hanover are the same type of win? They are not. Benedictine, Hanover, Albion and Alma may all be miserable teams but Lacrosse would beat hem all by multiple TDs don't you think? And I think the IWU and Wheaton defenses were pretty dominant in their games.  Did you look at those stats?

No, they are not.  And if NCC beat UW-LaCrosse 69-0 your point would stand.

But Wabash beat Hanover 69-0 and NCC beat UW-LaCrosse 41-24. 

This isn't to say Wabash is better than NCC just because they won 69-0, but we're dealing with imperfect data here.  Ultimately you have to make a call.  The teams played opponents of a different caliber.  One team absolutely whacked a pretty bad opponent, the other posted a solid victory over a middle-of-the-road opponent.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

1.  Mount Union        70 pts  (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1)
T2. North Central      58 pts  (2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4)
T2. Franklin              58 pts  (2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5)
4.   Wabash              41 pts  (3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7)
T5. Wheaton             37 pts  (4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7)
T5. Heidelberg           37 pts  (3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9)
7.   Wittenberg          36 pts  (5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7)
8.   Baldwin-Wallace   21 pts  (5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10)   
9.   Illinois Wesleyan  15 pts  (8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10)
10. Ohio Wesleyan       8 pts  (8, 8, 9, 9, 10, -, -)

ARV  John Carroll           4 pts (9, 10, 10, -, -, -, -)

1) I think there's an extra 8 vote listed on Ohio Wesleyan
2) I have Heidi, Wheaton, Franklin, and Witt 12-15 on my Top 25 ballot so they're really close for me... I felt based on the disparity against Butler that Franklin had to be above Witt, but I couldn't quite put Franklin ahead of the other two (had they won one of those they definitely would be at least 3rd) so Witt dropped from 3 to 6.
3) Wabash moved into my Top 25 so the gap between them and the cluster ahead isn't very far.
4) 8-10 right now is just a step ahead of the next pack which includes Hope, Trine, OWU, even ONU. Going to be more shakeups this week for sure with JC vs BW and a potentially interesting matchup between Heidelberg and ONU.