Pool C -- 2014

[smedindy]

Well, there's the faulty logic and application of the data early on, then there's the defensiveness about it all. And the fact you denigrated D3 athletes on another board. D3 are not the LEFTOVERS.

And believe me, we don't care if someone has two posts or 20,000 - if they're being illogical I'll call them out on it and everyone here will too.

But you all continued to hammer at the same points over and over and over again. You brought in new wrinkles of the same argument, and you couldn't just take "they're probably getting in and so is Centre..." for an answer.

[D3AlumniParent]

I'm also not sure where this ham-fisted reasoning comes in.  Unless you're talking about Parent, then I agree.  ....
... in the bigger picture it looks like we actually think very similarly on a number of fronts.

Love you tim.    Life is good.

I wish you good luck. I'd love to see a team newer to these playoffs take out one of the established veterans. And I honestly do think its unfair that if you're the second Texas team, then UMHB is immediately scheduled. But I guess money talks.

Sorry for being so negative. 

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Frankly the whole AQ/B/C concept needs to be adjusted.  A team should have to be ranked in the Top 25 to receive an AQ not simply win its conference. I believe this was a measure that existed in NAIA football (at least my senior year at Linfield which was 1993). There are many AQ teams that are not competitive which you can tell by the results from the first two rounds of every year. 

If we took away the AQ it would force several conferences to schedule tougher non league games and also improve their football programs.  We all know who are these conferences.

SOS doesn't mean much when the best programs can't find anyone willing to play them in non conference games.

[smedindy]

Disagree totally. Polls are unscientific, and many times voters aren't as familiar with teams out of its region. The Top 25 here is good, but the difference between team 20 and team 30 is small, at times random, and not representative. So you would exclude Franklin (29th last week) who won it's league, for NO GOOD REASON except that they didn't get quite enough votes in a poll?

We've been there when teams were 10-0 and NOT in the playoffs. Everyone hated that. It doesn't happen anymore (Centre will get in).

Also, how can you get 32 spots in a field by limiting to the Top25?

The ethos and philosophy of D3 is for inclusion. In fact, most every NCAA championship reserves spots for all of its qualifying conference champions. It would be unfair and unjust for a team to win its league and then not be in the post-season simply because of some random vote, or a lack of playoff results when they never had a chance to prove themselves in the first place. It becomes circular logic. Yes there are first round blowouts but in most every tourney in the college level there are, no matter what the size.

And it would deny the kids who put in all of the hard work and WON THEIR LEAGUE a chance for some recognition nationally. You go tell the kids at St. Scholastica, or Husson that. I'll wait...

Plus, there are very limited opportunities to schedule non-conference in many sports. Some leagues (OAC, NCAC, MAC, UMAC) have just one non-conference game. Many others have two. Teams like Muskingum and Kenyon need non-conference games just like Mt. Union and Whitewater. The SOS for Mt. Union is low-ish because they play a total round robin. Yes, some teams don't like to play Wesley or Mary Hardin-Baylor. If you're a young team with a limited roster, it would be very foolish. Oberlin would be totally foolish to schedule them. To get better, Oberlin should schedule winnable games against OAC, MIAA, PAC or HCAC teams that provide a test yet not decimate them. Crown shouldn't schedule a WIAC team for the same reason. They should find a MIAC, IIAC or MWC team they can compete with.

[Pat Coleman]

Frankly the whole AQ/B/C concept needs to be adjusted.  A team should have to be ranked in the Top 25 to receive an AQ not simply win its conference. I believe this was a measure that existed in NAIA football (at least my senior year at Linfield which was 1993).

This is exactly why Division III is not the NAIA. The NCAA, across levels and sports, has automatic bids. This is what we do. It gives everyone a chance to play for something.

This is baked into the Division III philosophy. It's not going away.

[CruFrenzy]

Based on what i've seen from Wesley this year,(and that includes yesterdays performance against D1-FCS Charlotte) I believe they are the team to beat if they end up on the Mount Union side of the bracket. Last year Wesley did not quite have the same caliber of team that they have had in some previous years, specifically their defense was not as good. Still though, they took Mount Union to the wire but lost 59-62. This year will be different, Wesley's defense has improved TREMENDOUSLY from what I've seen and the offense is excellent as always.

I hope I don't upset any Mount Union fans but if the bracket works out the way that D3football.com predicted it to be, Wesley may be the Stagg bowl representative against UWW(or hopefully UMHB this year).

I would honestly prefer it to be Mount Union especially if UMHB goes all the way this year, but I just don't know if Mount can take down the wolverines this year.

[wabndy]

Cru,
We've had some folks on other boards wondering (in so many words) if mount could take down John Carroll this year (arguably they would have been but for the idiotic "not ball spike under 3 seconds" new rule). The only team I've seen take down mount with any degree of consistency is, well, you know who. Until that happens, I'm still (fake) betting all my chips on an all purple stagg bowl. Again.

[wally_wabash]

Thank you to everybody who listened!  A few thoughts/things I learned last night:

- It's a whole lot easier putting together a projection when I've got Saturday night through Wednesday afternoon/evening to let the week's game results marinate.  Having to digest all of it in 4-5 hours bumps the degree of difficulty up by about a thousand. 

- I know the sexy part of the show is who gets picked, but the regional rankings are really, really important and they really provide the roadmap for the selections.  They are also really, really hard to put together.  Those regional advisory committees get a ton of flack (from myself sometimes!), but that's the yeomen's work that has to be done to decide how the at-large teams line up and ultimately who has the right of way as it were when we get to the selection rounds. 

- There are a lot of different ways to put together the last few spots in the South and West regional rankings.  I think we did a good job emulating the preferences of those committees in the ranking lists we mocked up last night, but it's not out of question to see teams like Platteville or Rhodes or Louisiana College not be ranked which would have a big impact on those selections- the last couple of selections in particular. 

- Oshkosh is a giant question mark.  I could see them being selected early as a single-loss WIAC runner up or I could see them not being selected at all because at the end of the day they have a 6-4 record and in tight votes where they aren't clearly the best option, that secondary criteria really hurts them (fairly or unfairly). 

- Bracketing is really, really hard without either maps or an encyclopedic knowledge of the D3 map (which Pat fortunately has).  The real committee will spend a LOT longer creating the matchups than we did last night. 

We're under an hour to go until we find out how this all shakes out.  With so much uncertainty there at the bottom of a couple of those rankings sets, I think we're going to have a lot to talk about after the field is announced.   

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Playoffs should be about placing the best 32 teams in the field. It isn't fair to teams that have 2 losses to have their season end when teams that they would easily beat make the playoffs simply because they won their conference.  There seem to be more AQs each year which leave fewer at large bids for teams that are much more competitive/deserving of a playoff spot.  We will look back on the first two rounds of the upcoming playoffs and see at least 5-10 conference champions get soundly beaten if not destroyed.  I realize that this isn't going to change but it would be nice if each conference was deserving of an AQ for some other reason than having 7 football playing members.

[smedindy]

Do you think the East could go 'against form' and NOT rank Husson, for example?

[smedindy]

Playoffs should be about placing the best 32 teams in the field. It isn't fair to teams that have 2 losses to have their season end when teams that they would easily beat make the playoffs simply because they won their conference.  There seem to be more AQs each year which leave fewer at large bids for teams that are much more competitive/deserving of a playoff spot.  We will look back on the first two rounds of the upcoming playoffs and see at least 5-10 conference champions get soundly beaten if not destroyed.  I realize that this isn't going to change but it would be nice if each conference was deserving of an AQ for some other reason than having 7 football playing members.

WIN YOUR LEAGUE! LEAVE NO DOUBT!

You unfairly leave out teams that did NOTHING wrong except win the games on their schedule. Look them in the eye and say they're not good enough.

Again, we were there before in D3. It STUNK, and left a lot more questions than answers about the entire process.

So again, WIN YOUR LEAGUE!

[jknezek]

Playoffs should be about placing the best 32 teams in the field. It isn't fair to teams that have 2 losses to have their season end when teams that they would easily beat make the playoffs simply because they won their conference.  There seem to be more AQs each year which leave fewer at large bids for teams that are much more competitive/deserving of a playoff spot.  We will look back on the first two rounds of the upcoming playoffs and see at least 5-10 conference champions get soundly beaten if not destroyed.  I realize that this isn't going to change but it would be nice if each conference was deserving of an AQ for some other reason than having 7 football playing members.

Please let's not go back to the dark ages. The AQ has been the best thing that has happened for D3 sports. The less "arbitrary" we have, the better...  We don't need the best 32 teams. We need to figure out who the best team is. Odds the best team has 2 losses and gets left out? Ridiculously small. Making the playoffs accessible has made the sport much more attractive for the fans D3 does attract, and not just in football.

[Bombers798891]

Playoffs should be about placing the best 32 teams in the field. It isn't fair to teams that have 2 losses to have their season end when teams that they would easily beat make the playoffs simply because they won their conference.  There seem to be more AQs each year which leave fewer at large bids for teams that are much more competitive/deserving of a playoff spot.  We will look back on the first two rounds of the upcoming playoffs and see at least 5-10 conference champions get soundly beaten if not destroyed.  I realize that this isn't going to change but it would be nice if each conference was deserving of an AQ for some other reason than having 7 football playing members.

I used to feel the same way, but I've decided you just can't shout at the rain. This is just how playoffs work. Look at the NFL. The Falcons are 4-6, and in first place. The entire AFC North is 6-4. This is just how it is.

Sports aren't really about finding the "best" team. It's about crowning a champion. Sometimes, these two things work out, sometimes they don't.

[art76]

Is this where I need to be to see the selection live? http://www.ncaa.com/live/player?vid=2012/602&date=2012/11/11

[Bombers798891]

WIN YOUR LEAGUE! LEAVE NO DOUBT!

You unfairly leave out teams that did NOTHING wrong except win the games on their schedule. Look them in the eye and say they're not good enough.

Again, we were there before in D3. It STUNK, and left a lot more questions than answers about the entire process.

So again, WIN YOUR LEAGUE!

I was going to disagree with you, but then I re-read your post, and the all caps really persuaded me