FB: Region 4 fan poll

[smedindy]

I don't know why Franklin gets a pass for their Bluffton result but Wheaton has something "missing" because they don't beat Carthage by more points. Those were both wins against potentially ranked teams so I view them as pretty similar.

I'm not sure what Bluffton and Carthage have to do with anything with respect to how we compare Franklin and Wheaton.  Franklin has a meaningful win against an excellent team and Wheaton doesn't.  That part does seem pretty straightforward to me.

You mean a win against the team that most of the D3 world currently has ranked above them? Yep. Pretty straightforward.

I have great respect for the d3fb top 25 voters and do not envy them the difficult task of sorting through 200+ teams to decide on the 25 best, but I think Thomas More's ranking above Franklin right now is an egregious/obvious error and frankly more indicative of voters-not-really-paying-close-attention who have anchored themselves to the idea that certain teams/conferences are "good" and others aren't than it is any real critical thought or analysis about why Thomas More is a better team than Franklin.

Not that they really check it, but Thomas More has a higher Massey Rating and higher Massey SOS than Franklin. Franklin's wins over Bluffton (before people said, "Hey Bluffton's good!") and Manchester (even though the last two TDs were against scrubs) may have turned off voters, while Thomas More's wins over W&J, C-M, and Westminster carried more weight than their loss to Franklin.

We're now in the season where more data points are accumulated, so we can see the - "Hey, wait a minute!" results.

[Dr. Acula]

We almost had consensus balloting this week.  Just two outlying votes.  Here's the Week 7 NRFP:



The NRFP is voted on by: Captain_Joe08, Dr. Acula, FCGrizzliesGrad, Li'l Giant, Mr Ypsi, NCF,  smedindy, USee, and wally wabash.

I forgot to reveal my ballot.  I'm the 2nd column.   

[Captain_Joe08]

We almost had consensus balloting this week.  Just two outlying votes.  Here's the Week 7 NRFP:



The NRFP is voted on by: Captain_Joe08, Dr. Acula, FCGrizzliesGrad, Li'l Giant, Mr Ypsi, NCF,  smedindy, USee, and wally wabash.

I forgot to reveal my ballot.  I'm the 2nd column.

I am the other dissenting ballot on the list.

[USee]

Finals of note:

IWU 19
@Carthage 14

Rose Hulman 23
@Franklin 22

OWU 37
@Depauw 15

3 pretty big road wins for some North Region teams.

[smedindy]

This is going to be a 'fun' week for voting. By 'fun' I mean brain-wracking.

[Dr. Acula]

Good grief.  This sure is a mess now.

[USee]

Good grief.  This sure is a mess now.

Can we merge with the WRFP?

[wally_wabash]

We had narrowed this thing down to just 12 teams.  My early hunch is that we expand this week. 

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I am not a voter, but after the loss to the Bishops, does DePauw make anyone's top 12?

[wally_wabash]

Looking at last week's ballots, DPU might be an ORV this week, might not appear at all.  Depends on what people want to do with the other results from around the region today. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

The NRFP had gotten downright boring for several weeks - nice to see a bit of movement!

My ballot will almost certainly drop DePauw and Carthage, to be replaced by two of the following four: 6-1 Olivet, 6-1 Bluffton, 6-2 RHIT, and 5-2 IWU.  The other task (assuming Wheaton doesn't lay the biggest egg of the season, hosting NPU) is deciding how far to drop Franklin - right now 6 looks right, but more study to come.

[wally_wabash]

Trine could have been in play for NRFP placement this week, but you can go ahead and add Hope 31, Trine 7 to today's collection of interesting results. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Trine could have been in play for NRFP placement this week, but you can go ahead and add Hope 31, Trine 7 to today's collection of interesting results.

If Hope hadn't started off 1-3, they'd be on my radar for sure!  The last three weeks they have beaten then 3-1 Alma (at Alma), then 3-2 Adrian (at Adrian), and today monkey-stomped 5-1 Trine.   They're killing my MIAA pickems, as I picked them to lose all three games.

[wally_wabash]

Same.  Have to give Hope a ton of credit for their mid-season turnaround.  Super rare to see a team just find it and click like that midstream. 

[Captain_Joe08]

You can add the NACC to the mix as Lakeland loses to Wisconsin Lutheran 50-34 today. The top five teams are either 4-3 or 3-4 overall.