Pool C -- 2013

[smedindy]

So, what is the MWC tie-breaker since both Illinois College and St. Norbert can finish undefeated? While with a very crowded field I can see a 1-loss St. Norbert's team excluded (but would that be fair to SNC since their league goes to 11 now that Cornell joined) but if the tiebreakers work against IC then we have a 10-0 team in the "C" mix.

[d-train]

So, what is the MWC tie-breaker since both Illinois College and St. Norbert can finish undefeated? While with a very crowded field I can see a 1-loss St. Norbert's team excluded (but would that be fair to SNC since their league goes to 11 now that Cornell joined) but if the tiebreakers work against IC then we have a 10-0 team in the "C" mix.

I believe the talk on the MWC board was that the tie-breaker is number of quarters led and would favor IC over SNC.

[ExTartanPlayer]

So, what is the MWC tie-breaker since both Illinois College and St. Norbert can finish undefeated? While with a very crowded field I can see a 1-loss St. Norbert's team excluded (but would that be fair to SNC since their league goes to 11 now that Cornell joined) but if the tiebreakers work against IC then we have a 10-0 team in the "C" mix.

Discussed this a week or two back.  MWC board suggests that it is "quarters led" which is likely to favor IC since they've been killing everybody while St. Norbert has pulled out a few squeakers.  I am of the mind that 10-0 IC should get in whether they get the Pool A bid or not, while 9-1 St. Norbert is on shaky ground for a Pool C because of the blowout loss to John Carroll.  I'm well aware that IC may have lost just as badly to John Carroll, but we don't "know" that yet.  Cleanest scenario is for 10-0 Illinois College to win the league, eliminating the debate about an undefeated team in Pool C, and then see how 9-1 SNC stacks up.  Or, better yet, for Lake Forest to beat SNC in the finale and eliminate the debate altogether.

[wally_wabash]

There is a really interesting Pool C conversation on In The HuddLLe this week concerning Merchant Marine.  Thought I would add my thoughts here...

Let's make some assumptions first.  First, and probably most obvious, is that USMMA has to get to 7-1.  If they lose between now and Selection Sunday, they won't be considered. 

Second, right now I have them sitting behind Ithaca, Framingham (more on them in a minute) and SJF.  Ithaca has a game left with Salisbury which, barring more E8 craziness, will decide that league's automatic qualifier.  If Ithaca loses, they pick up a second loss and that also hurts SJF because they have lost to Ithaca so it seems logical that Ithaca with two losses is going to remain ahead of SJF in the pecking order.  If Ithaca beats Salisbury, they'll qualify automatically and be off of this list.  I don't think it's a big leap to see USMMA ranked ahead of 2-loss Ithaca and SJF if that's how it plays out.  Basically, the Ithaca thing is going to sort itself out so we'll take them off the board for now. 

Framingham State, should they go 9-1 and not get selected in Pool B (and at the moment they're in the conversation for the third Pool B, but certainly not a lock), would probably sit in front of USMMA on Selection Sunday.  So USMMA wants TLU to lose and probably wants to see Rhodes lose and it would really help if WashU lost also just to be safe.  But let's say that it works out that Framingham either gets into Pool B or loses a second game and is out of the way.  Now we've got USMMA at the top of the East Pool C board.  That's half the battle there. 

Now there's the other three regions to deal with. 

In the North we have the OAC and the CCIW each sport three strong teams in a battle for the league championships.  Any scenario in those two leagues that end in a three way 9-1 tie kills USMMA.  In those situations you'll end up with two runners up with one loss, both of whom will have a win over an RRO.  I'm not sure quite how the SOS will work out there, but my sense is that the SOSs will basically wash.  But against teams with a higher win percentage and a win over an RRO, there's not a logical path through the criteria to pick USMMA if you've got 9-1 North Central and 9-1 Wheaton or 9-1 JCU and 9-1 UMU or 9-1 Heidelberg all sitting around and coming to the table one after another.  USMMA needs those leagues to sort themselves out cleanly in a 10-, 9-1, 8-2 first, second, third fashion.  Then you're only going to have to deal with two of those teams instead of three or four. 

In the West, you've got the same situation in the WIAC.  Same scenario...three 9-1 teams dooms USMMA.  A 9-1 runner up is probably a lock.  In the MIAC you're really going to want Bethel to go 10-0 (giving St. Johns a second loss) and for St. Thomas to beat Concordia-Moorhead.  If St. John's beats Bethel and wins the league, then Bethel is going to be a one-loss lock.  If St. Johns beats Bethel and C-M beats St. Thomas you're going to have a three way 9-1 tie and plop two more teams in the mix that USMMA won't be selected in front of.  So go Royals.  It would also be useful if PLU lost again, although that's not likely. 

Out of the South you might only have Thomas More as a 1-loss team and they'd be an interesting team to debate vs. USMMA.  But that's really the only threat out of the South currently, unless WashU and their burly SOS wind up with two losses and in Pool C. 

So if my counting is right, I think I've got one loss runners up from the OAC, CCIW, and WIAC as Pool C locks.  Then PLU if they make it to the end with just the one loss.  That leaves one spot for USMMA, maybe a single loss Thomas More out of the South, probably the loser of the Witt/Wabash game in the North, and if all plays out favorably in the West either a two-loss St. Thomas squad or maybe even 9-1 St. Norbert (that would be a best case scenario for USMMA).  On that board, I think USMMA could be selected, especially since they'd have been in the conversation from the beginning of the process (as would Thomas More).  Frank Rossi put a 10-15% chance of USMMA getting invited in the podcast.  I think that's a good number...obviously it's a 1 in 4 shot at this point, but if you factor in all of the other stuff that has to happen to get here, 10-15% is pretty fair. 

Interesting to think about...and what a great story that would be if USMMA was able to persevere the government BS and make the postseason. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

Interesting hypothetical indeed.  I would also love to see them pull it off but, and I mean no disrespect to USMMA, their season to date does not convince me that they're a playoff-worthy team (nor should their success be judged on that standard, given that they were 5-5 last year).  But MMA has one-score wins over Susquehanna (in the Centennial Conference basement), Coast Guard (3-5 with a blowout loss to the one really good team they played, Hampden-Sydney), a one-POINT win over 3-4 SUNY-Maritime, and a 26-14 win over 2-5 WPI.  It's tempting to say the distraction and shutdown may have affected their most recent game (WPI), but even based on their first three games, that's about what we might expect.  Their somewhat-quality loss to Hobart may actually the "best" result on their schedule, but even in that game they trailed 24-0 in the 4th quarter, it wasn't a back-and-forth game where Hobart pulled away at the end.

Great story, yes.  Playoff-worthy team, I really don't think so, unless they ramp up over the rest of the season and blow out RPI, Union, and St. Lawrence to close out the season.

[d-train]

If it takes that long just to explain how it's possible, I'm thinking 10-15% probably overstates the odds.

[wally_wabash]

If it takes that long just to explain how it's possible, I'm thinking 10-15% probably overstates the odds.

I'm not always succinct. 

It would be a great story, but even if everything that kind of has to happen does happen, they still need a pretty strong and persuasive advocate in that room on 11/17 to get in.  It's a long shot for sure, but there is a reasonable path to that shot.

[Ralph Turner]

The ASC will be down to six soon, if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps for football playoffs only, you all become some amalgamation. Then add Wesley as a satellite member, and a Frankenfootballconference is born!

Speculation is that UT-Tyler (or, less likely, UT-Dallas) will add FB, which would take care of the ASC's # issue.

I've said this on the ASC board and been chastised for it, but I don't see the SCAC re-aligning with a conference than many of them chose to break away from once already just for access to a Pool A bid they can basically never win as long as you have the monster that is UMHB.    Yes, it would make football scheduling easier and a better draw  for the student-athletes, but I don't know if the SCAC decision makers have that as their primary concern.

So it's better to play games with SWAG and play some teams twice than to have a consistent schedule that happens to include UMHB?  I don't know how that is better for the student-athletes.  And if the student-athletes aren't the primary concern for these administrators, then they're largely in the wrong line of work. 

I know there's more to it than that....lots of sports other than football to be concerned with there.  Seems to me that the practicality of the SCAC sponsoring a football championship has outlived its usefulness.

While McMurry was in the ASC, I saw too many double- and triple-monkey stomps.  What good does it do a team that realistically has no chance of beating UMHB?  UMHB captures so many players that would start at other programs, that a 100-player limit might disperse a few.  The rest of the players want to be with a winner.  "Winning cures cancer!"

Playing SWAG gives a chance for the coaches to work on things in a potential win situation.

Look at UMHB's winning streaks!  Even HSU is now down 12 times in row?

[smedindy]

So, what is the MWC tie-breaker since both Illinois College and St. Norbert can finish undefeated? While with a very crowded field I can see a 1-loss St. Norbert's team excluded (but would that be fair to SNC since their league goes to 11 now that Cornell joined) but if the tiebreakers work against IC then we have a 10-0 team in the "C" mix.

Discussed this a week or two back.  MWC board suggests that it is "quarters led" which is likely to favor IC since they've been killing everybody while St. Norbert has pulled out a few squeakers.  I am of the mind that 10-0 IC should get in whether they get the Pool A bid or not, while 9-1 St. Norbert is on shaky ground for a Pool C because of the blowout loss to John Carroll.  I'm well aware that IC may have lost just as badly to John Carroll, but we don't "know" that yet.  Cleanest scenario is for 10-0 Illinois College to win the league, eliminating the debate about an undefeated team in Pool C, and then see how 9-1 SNC stacks up.  Or, better yet, for Lake Forest to beat SNC in the finale and eliminate the debate altogether.

Ah, quarters led. It almost makes sense!

[ExTartanPlayer]

So, what is the MWC tie-breaker since both Illinois College and St. Norbert can finish undefeated? While with a very crowded field I can see a 1-loss St. Norbert's team excluded (but would that be fair to SNC since their league goes to 11 now that Cornell joined) but if the tiebreakers work against IC then we have a 10-0 team in the "C" mix.

Discussed this a week or two back.  MWC board suggests that it is "quarters led" which is likely to favor IC since they've been killing everybody while St. Norbert has pulled out a few squeakers.  I am of the mind that 10-0 IC should get in whether they get the Pool A bid or not, while 9-1 St. Norbert is on shaky ground for a Pool C because of the blowout loss to John Carroll.  I'm well aware that IC may have lost just as badly to John Carroll, but we don't "know" that yet.  Cleanest scenario is for 10-0 Illinois College to win the league, eliminating the debate about an undefeated team in Pool C, and then see how 9-1 SNC stacks up.  Or, better yet, for Lake Forest to beat SNC in the finale and eliminate the debate altogether.

Ah, quarters led. It almost makes sense!

I actually like that tiebreaker quite a bit because it gives some measure of how much one team is controlling their games without using margin of victory.  If score margin is the tiebreaker, he title could be decided by one team leaving their starters in all game to ensure a large margin while someone else calls off the dogs in blowout wins.

There was a great SNAFU referenced every year where a MOV tiebreaker was decided because one team won a game in OT on a touchdown and did not kick the PAT because the game was over - and that non-attempted PAT ended up deciding the conference title (I think it was the ASC in the early 2000s).

Edited: Found it.  ASC in 2003.

http://d3football.com/teams/East_Texas_Baptist/2003/index
http://d3football.com/teams/Hardin-Simmons/2003/index
http://d3football.com/teams/Mary_Hardin-Baylor/2003/index


10/25: HSU 20, ETBU 14 (overtime game with no final PAT kicked)
11/1: UMHB 43, HSU 36
11/8: ETBU 28, UMHB 21

I believe that ETBU got the AQ by virtue of the best score margin within the triangle since they had a 6-point loss and a 7-point win (+1 score margin), while the others had a 7-point loss and a 6/7-point win (-1 or 0 score margin).  I think, I was a senior in high school and not yet aware of the D3 scene; this is my recollection from a past discussion.

[MonroviaCat]

Are we expecting regional rankings this week (and more specifically today)?  This seemed like as good a place as any to post this question.  Sorry if it is not.

[Pat Coleman]

No, next Wednesday.

[MonroviaCat]

No, next Wednesday.

Thanks Pat!

[Ron Boerger]

You got it in one, Ex.  HSU was never provided the opportunity to kick the PAT (because why would you after winning the game in OT with the TD).  UMHB was rooked out of a Pool C bid that year despite going 9-1 and that was the last time they didn't make the playoffs.   They were pretty new to football and would not win their first playoff game until the following year - and haven't looked back since. 

That was also the flash in the pan year for East Texas Baptist, which has but a single season over .500 since (6-4, 2005).  So maybe it's a good thing the tie breaker turned out the way it did, and ETBU even got a playoff win out of it (against Trinity, sigh) before narrowly dropping a second-round contest at Lycoming. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

You got it in one, Ex.  HSU was never provided the opportunity to kick the PAT (because why would you after winning the game in OT with the TD).  UMHB was rooked out of a Pool C bid that year despite going 9-1 and that was the last time they didn't make the playoffs.   They were pretty new to football and would not win their first playoff game until the following year - and haven't looked back since. 

That was also the flash in the pan year for East Texas Baptist, which has but a single season over .500 since (6-4, 2005).  So maybe it's a good thing the tie breaker turned out the way it did, and ETBU even got a playoff win out of it (against Trinity, sigh) before narrowly dropping a second-round contest at Lycoming.

Thanks for confirming, Ron.  I'm sure we've had this exact conversation once before, but this is honestly still one of my favorite miniscule pieces of football trivia, and my go-to example for a) why PAT's should always be kicked even on game-ending plays as long as MOV/points-scored tiebreakers are in place and b) why margin of victory or points scored really should never be used in any tie-breakers.