Pool C -- 2014

[ExTartanPlayer]

MOV could skew it at lower levels as well. If I have first and ten from the opponents 30 with a minute left and up 7, I'm not taking two knees and going home. I'm going to try to get more points. When people are playing for MOV of victory it changes how games end.

I was thinking of similar scenarios as well.  I actually bet that with a 7-point margin, teams would just take the knees instead of risking it., but I could see a game that's, say, 28-17 with a minute to play.  Losing team's last-ditch possession ends with a final incomplete pass on their own 10-yard line, sealing the victory for the team with 28 already on the board.  They decide to run it in for a 35-17 final instead of taking the knees and going home.

I like wally's description above: "It's like when the subjects of some kind of social study become aware that they are subjects of some kind of social study and their behavior changes.  Whatever it was that you were trying to learn about the way people behave naturally is destroyed."

[AO]

MOV could skew it at lower levels as well. If I have first and ten from the opponents 30 with a minute left and up 7, I'm not taking two knees and going home. I'm going to try to get more points. When people are playing for MOV of victory it changes how games end.

I was thinking of similar scenarios as well.  I actually bet that with a 7-point margin, teams would just take the knees instead of risking it., but I could see a game that's, say, 28-17 with a minute to play.  Losing team's last-ditch possession ends with a final incomplete pass on their own 10-yard line, sealing the victory for the team with 28 already on the board.  They decide to run it in for a 35-17 final instead of taking the knees and going home.

I like wally's description above: "It's like when the subjects of some kind of social study become aware that they are subjects of some kind of social study and their behavior changes.  Whatever it was that you were trying to learn about the way people behave naturally is destroyed."

They fumble and the other team runs it back then still has 45 seconds to try an onside kick and get down the field again.  Even if you recover the onside kick the 7-8 points of margin that you just lost hurts more than the potential 7 points helped if you didn't fumble and did score again.  I'd take the knee.

[Bombers798891]

I'm not a fan of a criteria that tells me Mount Union's 13-point win over MHB—in which they trailed with less than five minutes to go and tied with 15 seconds to go—is basically the same as Cortland's 14-point win over Endicott—in which the Red Dragons led 7-0 after their first possession, never trailed, and led 42-14 early in the 4th quarter

On the flip side, I don't believe John Carroll's 80-0 win over Marietta is any different than Mount Union's 63-7 win over Marietta—even though one was 24 points closer

We need to apply some common sense to these things, in both directions. We need to be willing to look at two similar scores and say "Those games were drastically different" and two scores that might be significantly different and say "Those games were essentially the same thing"

[smedindy]

A very limited MOV would be nice. 21 points max? But each game is different and raw MOV doesn't say much.

Perhaps a measurement of offensive and defensive power that's normalized against opponents. A modified KenPom approach as it were.

[wally_wabash]

While I'm not on board with the MOV thing, I'm really glad we're having this conversation.  Last season I lamented about how crappy the SOS is and really how bare bones the selection criteria in general are.  We have a good skeleton of things from which to select and seed teams, but it needs fleshing out- it needs more context.  Strength of schedule needs more context beyond just counting wins and losses in a vacuum.  Quality wins, currently defined as wins against teams regionally ranked at the time of selection, is a good start but isn't perfect- your top 10 in the West isn't equivalent to the top 10 in the South, right?  East #8 might not make the North's rankings while the North's 12th or 13th best team might be 6 or 7 in the East (all hypotheticals here). 

The criteria we have are a good, objective start, but they need more.  More useable data (ORAR anybody?), more freedom for the RACs to interpret...I don't know what all else.  But conversations like these are a good start. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

Last season I lamented about how crappy the SOS is and really how bare bones the selection criteria in general are.  We have a good skeleton of things from which to select and seed teams, but it needs fleshing out- it needs more context.  Strength of schedule needs more context beyond just counting wins and losses in a vacuum. 

Since you mention it...

http://thebiglead.com/2014/11/04/tcu-strength-of-schedule-top-10-or-in-the-50s-depends-where-you-look/

"On the surface, TCU's 30-7 home romp of Minnesota is a "good" win. The Gophers are 6-2. Except when you look closer at Minnesota, which Sports Reference's method does, that victory isn't impressive: the Gophers beat horrible non-conference teams, and barely beat Big 10 bottom-feeders Northwestern and Purdue (at home!). It gets worse: the Gophers lost to lowly Illinois Saturday."

[smedindy]

The OOWP tries to do that; but again there needs to be context.

[Gray Fox]

We can talk all we want, but the committee will do as they wish.
But I'll bet we know more.  Add Pat to the committee as a start.  

[hazzben]

Last season I lamented about how crappy the SOS is and really how bare bones the selection criteria in general are.  We have a good skeleton of things from which to select and seed teams, but it needs fleshing out- it needs more context.  Strength of schedule needs more context beyond just counting wins and losses in a vacuum. 

Since you mention it...

http://thebiglead.com/2014/11/04/tcu-strength-of-schedule-top-10-or-in-the-50s-depends-where-you-look/

"On the surface, TCU's 30-7 home romp of Minnesota is a "good" win. The Gophers are 6-2. Except when you look closer at Minnesota, which Sports Reference's method does, that victory isn't impressive: the Gophers beat horrible non-conference teams, and barely beat Big 10 bottom-feeders Northwestern and Purdue (at home!). It gets worse: the Gophers lost to lowly Illinois Saturday."

That same article has a metric that lists TCU's SoS in the 50's.

So not all SoS metrics are created equal is what I take from it, not that they're useless.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

We can talk all we want, but the committee will do as they wish.
But I'll bet we know more.  Add Pat to the committee as a start.

Add a D3 fan to the panel too... it's maybe a 20 minute drive for me to get to NCAA HQ

[wally_wabash]

I'm downright giddy today, guys.  I love regional rankings day. 

[ITH radio]

I'm downright giddy today, guys.  I love regional rankings day.

What time will they come out? 3ish?

[wally_wabash]

I'm downright giddy today, guys.  I love regional rankings day.

What time will they come out? 3ish?

That's in the ballpark.  There's not a specific time (that I know of) that get released, but mid-to-late afternoon is usually when it happens.  D3football.com will have them up ASAP I'm sure. 

[art76]

FWIW - it'll be interesting to see how we fans in the West that have had our first poll posted stack up against what the NCAA does for ranking the teams regionally later this afternoon.

[AO]

I'm downright giddy today, guys.  I love regional rankings day.

No matter what happens it will be perfect compared to the 2013 hoops regional ranking release day where we found out the multiplier was broken and a game against a 10-0 team was equivalent to a game against a 18-7 team.