FB: Region 4 fan poll

[Mr. Ypsi]

Ypsi,

Whats out status on the final poll?

Still stalled on seven ballots.  I figure there may be voters who feel the results of the remaining three games may influence certain placements (e.g., Wabash was blown-out by UWW, while Franklin was downed by Wabash; what happens to UWW therefore could arguably affect both Wabash and Franklin), so I've held off in hopes more ballots will come in.

I'll probably go ahead and post what I've received by tomorrow evening.  If more ballots come in after the Stagg, I'll post a revised poll.

[USee]

Ypsi,

Whats out status on the final poll?

Still stalled on seven ballots.  I figure there may be voters who feel the results of the remaining three games may influence certain placements (e.g., Wabash was blown-out by UWW, while Franklin was downed by Wabash; what happens to UWW therefore could arguably affect both Wabash and Franklin), so I've held off in hopes more ballots will come in.

I'll probably go ahead and post what I've received by tomorrow evening.  If more ballots come in after the Stagg, I'll post a revised poll.

I thought we only have 8 voters and you have 7 ballots?

[Mr. Ypsi]

Final* North Region Fan Poll:

1.  UMU              70 (unanimous #1)
2.  JCU               63 (unanimous #2)
3.  Wheaton        56 (unanimous #3)
4.  Wabash         45 (4,4,4,4,5,5,6)
5.  Witt              42 (4,5,5,5,5,5,6)
6.  NCC               39 (4,4,6,6,6,6,6)
7.  Franklin         25 (7,7,7,7,7,8,9)
8.  Chicago         22 (7,7,8,8,8,8,9)
9.  Heidi             12 (8,8,9,9,10,10,-)
10 Adrian            7 (9,9,10,10,10,-,-)

(11) MSJ             4 (9,10,10,-,-,-,-)

*If any more ballots come in I will revise and post an updated poll

[HScoach]

We lambasted someone for the 'company you keep makes you good' sentiment over on the NCAC board. I'm not sold on ONU just because they're an OAC team. Nor BW. Nor Otterbein. I think the OAC's blah-ness hurt SJF's claim for a 2-loss playoff spot, as weird as that sounds.

Outside of Mount and JCU, the OAC is not any good.   ONU, BW and Otterbein are 'meh'.   Average teams with NO speed at the skill positions.   Zero chance at competing at a national, or even regional, level.   Historically there are always a player or 2 on the bad teams that still stand out as someone that I would have really liked to have been on the Mount roster.   Not so this year.   Only guy at any of those teams with the talent to play at Mount is the DE (Luke Riemenscheider) from BW.   

And Heidelberg is very talented on offense at the skill positions but they're mentally weak.   Play great against the lesser teams and disagree against the good ones.

I have no problem what so ever with your final poll.   

[USee]

I am not sure what the possible justification is for Wabash ahead of Witt other than the preponderance of Wabash voters. That seems rather hypocritical after the discussions throughout this season on HTH results. 

[Dr. Acula]

It's the Baylor/TCU situation. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

I am not sure what the possible justification is for Wabash ahead of Witt other than the preponderance of Wabash voters. That seems rather hypocritical after the discussions throughout this season on HTH results. 

We did have 3 Wabash voters (and none from Witt - I can't recall there ever even being a Witt poster!), but that accounted for only one point of the three point margin, since one of them kept Witt ahead.  Personally I switched them on my ballot after Wabash decisively beat Franklin while Witt was losing decisively (at home) to a W&J team that I thought was no better than Franklin.  I respect h-to-h results, but do not find them absolutely determinative (especially since Witt (at home) beat Wabash by less than a TD).

Now that I look over the results again, you and that one Wabash voter were the only ones who DID keep Witt ahead; the other five of us all went with Wabash.

[smedindy]

I kept Witt ahead, barely. I don't have any quarrel with those who flipped them though.

[USee]

I shouldn't have assumed it was all Wabash voters, that's not a fair assumption. I don't see how its anything like a TCU/Baylor discussion. There is a clear HTH result and everything else seems pretty similar to me.

Look, I don't have a problem putting teams above others when there is compelling reasons to do so. I am simply asking what that data is for the voters. I didn't come to that conclusion with Witt/Wabash as I believe the HTH trumped the other data (I did place Franklin ahead of IWU early this year despite the HTH because I thought Franklin was better....and I was lambasted over a couple pages for that).

Where is ExTartanPlayer when you need him.

[Li'l Giant]

I am not sure what the possible justification is for Wabash ahead of Witt other than the preponderance of Wabash voters. That seems rather hypocritical after the discussions throughout this season on HTH results. 

I was one of those voters who had Franklin ahead of IWU in the H2H argument earlier in the season. So, even if I'm wrong I am at least being consistent.

Witt ended the season with two losses, losing at home in a close game to Butler, and a solid beating at home to W&J. Wabash lost a 6 point game on the road to Witt and got blasted by UWW. The UWW loss doesn't have as much weight to me because other than UMU who can actually beat UWW at the Perk (30-0 for Liepold in the playoffs at home!)? Witt would have gotten beat just like Wabash did.  Had Witt beaten W&J they'd have gotten beat by UMU just like W&J did. Same thing with the loss to Butler, in my opinion. Wabash almost certainly loses that game too. To me that's a wash.

So the question is do the first round playoff results (Wabash over Franklin and W&J over Witt) show me enough to say as of today's date that Wabash is better? Yeah, I think they do. Witt laid an egg at home with a trip to Alliance on the line. Wabash beat Franklin in a game they pretty much controlled with a trip to Whitewater on the line. Those two results say something.

If Witt had beaten W&J (then lost to UMU in similar fashion as W&J) I would have considered the resumes equal such that the H2H result would have swayed me to put Witt ahead of Wabash. Same if both Wabash and Witt had lost their first round games.

But I think Wabash should get credit for being a 10-2 team with a home playoff win and be ranked over a 9-2 team with a home playoff loss. To me those resumes aren't equal enough that H2H enters the equation. 

Obviously people will disagree with me but that was my rationale.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I shouldn't have assumed it was all Wabash voters, that's not a fair assumption. I don't see how its anything like a TCU/Baylor discussion. There is a clear HTH result and everything else seems pretty similar to me.

Look, I don't have a problem putting teams above others when there is compelling reasons to do so. I am simply asking what that data is for the voters. I didn't come to that conclusion with Witt/Wabash as I believe the HTH trumped the other data (I did place Franklin ahead of IWU early this year despite the HTH because I thought Franklin was better....and I was lambasted over a couple pages for that).

Where is ExTartanPlayer when you need him.

Have to get some work done here, but of course I have an opinion on this.  I'll be back to share it later today.

[smedindy]

I don't think it was a totally 'clear' result. It was a loss but Wabash really outplayed Witt in most aspects of the game, just lost. For us, I think it all depends on how to put the W&J / Witt game into perspective and if the W&J loss was a fluke as well to a good Waynesburg team after W&J already clinched. Lots of data points milling about. I don't think there's a clear right or wrong answer whether it's 4 or 5.

[wally_wabash]

I shouldn't have assumed it was all Wabash voters, that's not a fair assumption. I don't see how its anything like a TCU/Baylor discussion. There is a clear HTH result and everything else seems pretty similar to me.

Look, I don't have a problem putting teams above others when there is compelling reasons to do so. I am simply asking what that data is for the voters. I didn't come to that conclusion with Witt/Wabash as I believe the HTH trumped the other data (I did place Franklin ahead of IWU early this year despite the HTH because I thought Franklin was better....and I was lambasted over a couple pages for that).

Where is ExTartanPlayer when you need him.

I think you can go down the line with Witt/Wabash and reasonably conclude that Wabash was the better side.  Statistically in the NCAC (looking only at NCAC games since that's where we are apples to apples), Wabash grades out better in nearly every single statistical category- the exceptions being the volume passing categories where Witt would obviously have an advantage because they chose to throw a lot of passes and Wabash didn't. 

Looking beyond the NCAC, Wabash defeated Hampden Sydney (conference champion, playoff participant) and Franklin (conference champion, playoff participant).  Wittenberg lost to Butler (no comment...I'm just not sure what to make of those kinds of games given things like the Charlotte-Wesley-Mount Union chain of events) and they got beat up at home by W&J in a game where they threw a literally unprecedented eight interceptions.

In 2013 and after a 35-17 result, there was no way to find yourself in a place where Wabash>Witt.  Witt was better, there was no doubt.  But the 2014 game didn't play out that way.  Smed said it- Wabash outplayed Wittenberg.  I agree.  Of course, we have alma mater bias (even if we are capable of putting it in the drawer while we do these ballots, it's impossible to convince people of that), so you don't have to take our word for it.  McMillan said the same thing in the ATN pod after the game and he's got no rooting interest. 

So for me at least, it's the combination of a not-so-convincing win plus favorable performance vs. common opponents, plus quality wins out of the league that push Wabash back up over Witt at the end of the season.  I took the sum total of Wabash's advantages over Wittenberg and decided that they were enough to rank Wabash ahead of Wittenberg. 

[USee]

Wally,

I will preface my comments by saying I have no issue with the logic of your analysis. I disagree a bit on the Witt/Wabash game but not enough to change the outcome of your analysis. In fact I can see myself arguing a similar point. I actually did come out early this year and rank Franklin ahead of IWU just 2 weeks after the HTH result w IWU. I think we would all declare Franklin a better team than IWU by the end of the season.

My surprise with your analysis isn't with the substance of your argument but really stems from your defense of HTH results in many other forums.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Wally is more than capable of speaking for himself, but since I think his view essentially parallels mine (and I have spoken vigorously on favor of H2H results)...

1) Many of my previous comments about H2H have referenced fairly early-season rankings when there is not much data available. Something that was lost in the conversation about UWSP-NCC and Franklin-IWU (both of which were arguments around week 4 or week 5) was that I, repeatedly, said that a H2H result could be overridden by some mitigating data - be that a loss to a team indisputably inferior team, or a season's worth of work suggesting that one team is better than the other (I'll explain this below in the Baylor/TCU section).  With an entire season of results to consider, it's easier to mount a case for overriding h2h than it is after three games with zero common opponents.

Again, something I mentioned in the UWSP-NCC discussion at the time: if/when data presented itself that supported NCC over UWSP (ie UWP beating UWSP), I said that THEN it would be fine to rank NCC over UWSP despite the UWSP-over-NCC result. What I found stupid was people ranking NCC ahead of UWSP in anticipation of that happening.

2) a few words on the TCU/Baylor situation: I don't actually have a problem with TCU ranked ahead of Baylor despite a H2H loss, but I think the media were focused on the wrong way to compare the teams.

Much of the speculation was based on the idea that TCU had played a tougher nonconference slate, as though beating "Minnesota and two tomato cans" meant more than beating "three tomato cans" when it comes to ranking teams in the top ten in the country. Bull. What they SHOULD have been focused on was a) the game between the two was a three-point win for the home team that required a 21-point comeback - not exactly conclusive evidence that one team is demonstrably better than the other and b) failing a decisive result, the remainder of the season could be used to help decide - ALL of the season, not just "TCU beat Minnesota in a noncoference game, and they're better than anyone Baylor played nonconference."

So that includes looking at how they performed against similar opponents. Baylor gave up a lot of points in a lot of games and had a couple of close calls (including a two-point win over Texas Tech and a two-touchdown loss at WVU). TCU had a few close calls of their own but, notably, was more decisive in their victory against league #3 Kansas State and won at Milan-Puskar against WVU where Baylor had been vanquished.  I think stacking the resumes side by side, one could make the argument that TCU was sufficiently impressive against the rest of their schedule to override the H2H result (which is about as close to a toss up as a game can be) - with the most important data point of that bunch being that TCU won at West Virginia and Baylor lost at West Virginia. Ironically enough, the best thing for TCU would have been West Virginia running the table in their other games an making this a three way discussion, because they'd have the most decisive score in the triangle.

I don't have a serious problem with Baylor-over-TCU, but it's worth explaining that I do see a reasonable argument for TCU-over-Baylor despite H2H at season's end.

3) bringing us back around to Wabash and Witt.  The Wabash-Witt game fits the profile of a game that you leave saying "I'm not conclusively certain Team A is better than Team B" - a one score road game in which the losing side (per stats) seems to have gotten the better of game action for much of the day.

Now, surely, turnovers and special teams are part of the game an it is fair to point that out. We're splitting hairs here. Forgive me.

So, we move to the tale of the rest of the schedule. I leave it to the voters to judge whether Wabash was more impressive over the duration of the season than Witt. Honestly - I don't think so. I know Wabash has better statistical rankings in many categories but the results across the duration of the season aren't much different - I'm not going to differentiate between 41-0 and 52-10 wins. Both teams only had one or two real competitive NCAC games - you could argue that Wabash dispatched DePauw and Denison, two of that "next bunch after the big two" teams, more easily than Witt did - but that's not REALLY compelling evidence to me that Wabash is better than Wittenberg (at least not the way the WVU result is informative to the Baylor/TCU chatter).

I suspect the ranking ended up this way because Wabash won a playoff game and Witt didn't and by this point the rankings tend to fall in the order of "whoever is playing the longest ends up ranked the highest" - but that's not a great way of doing business because advancing in the playoffs is often dictated by luck of the first round draw (is anyone going to have MIT ranked over Witt at season's end?)

It's close.  Wabash was probably a bit more dominant in conference play and had two signature OOC wins (HSC and Franklin are both playoff teams) whereas Witt had none, so there is an argument to be made that might supersede the close H2H result for some people.  As I am trying to clarify, some of the earlier vigorous discussions of H2H occurred in week 3 or week 4 when there was no such data.

*Edited to fix iPhone typos.