Pool C -- 2014

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Back to the AQ/B/C model that Division 3 uses.  Thank to some great research by others on this board we learned that the D2 model for playoff selection doesn't award automatic bids.

"No conference will receive automatic qualification for the 2014 NCAA Division II Football Championship. Earned access to the playoffs can be gained by a conference if a conference representative finishes in the top eight of the final super regional rankings on Selection Sunday."

After that... they have at-large selections, it appears.

"All teams will be eligible for the Division II championship in the selection region (super regional) in which they are located geographically. There will be six teams selected per super regional to make up the field of 24 teams. The teams selected within each super regional will play each other in the first, second and quarterfinal rounds, with the super regional winners playing in the semifinal."

Then Pat Coleman said "The earned access model is the one I recommend for Division III as we get too large to accommodate all the automatic bids."

If by "earned access" Pat is referring to a model similar to D2 then I agree with him.  There are too many conferences in D3 that are simply not competitive in the playoffs.  Winning a conference shouldn't be an automatic bid if that conference champ wouldn't have been competitive in a bunch of other leagues.

Having to win your conference to leave no doubt about getting into the playoffs isn't fair to teams that finish in 2nd or 3rd place and get left out just so some AQ conference winner can get destroyed in Round 1.

The MIAC had 3-4 teams that would have won the conference titles in many other conferences.  Yet only 2 teams get in.

The WIAC had 3 teams that would have done the same yet only 1 team gets in.

The NWC had 3 teams that would have done the same yet only 1 gets in.

I'm sure that there are a couple of other conferences with similar strength.

As D3 grows we are going to run out of C/at large bids because of the number of AQ's.  We'll have.. what.. 26 AQs next year.

I'd have no problem telling teams that they get to stay home for the playoffs.  We do that already with deserving teams being left out just so some AQ teams can have the privilege of getting stomped on in the Round 1.

[jknezek]

Something tells me you wouldn't be so happy about the rest of the D2 playoff structure. Read closely. Each region gets 6 teams. So you'll still have a lot of teams from weaker regions getting in above stronger conference winners from deeper regions. Then, to make it worse, the regional teams all square off AGAINST EACH OTHER ONLY. So the final four would consist of one west team, one north, one east, and one south regardless of where the best teams are. I can hear the carping now about weak regions getting free passes while all those strong west teams eliminate each other.

So let me guess, when applying this to D3, you don't want each region to get equal number of representatives and you don't want purely regional brackets. But you do want other regions to have fewer teams so we can get more West teams in the tournament?

D3 playoffs, and we've said this many times in many places, is not about the best 32 teams. It's about access. We still get the best champion, as we have for many, many years, but we also get exposure for other teams.

[Pat Coleman]

Yes -- I've talked about how I think earned access can help relieve the pressure in the D-III football bracket, but basically it works like this in D-II:

There are a number of conferences that have automatic bids IF they finish in the top eight of the regional rankings. If one of them finished 7 or 8 they would knock out a No. 6-ranked team.

Now, this being Division III and championship access being paramount, I would be much more lenient and perhaps consider Top 15 or Top 20 as the cutoff point. This year that may have only excluded Benedictine, and I'm fine with that. Conferences and teams need something to play for and something to aspire to, and the NCAA playoffs are the ultimate carrot. I would never advocate eliminating anyone's bid entirely.

I've written more at length on this previously on the boards and will have to write more formally on the site at some point.

[Pat Coleman]

As D3 grows we are going to run out of C/at large bids because of the number of AQ's.  We'll have.. what.. 26 AQs next year.

And no Pool B bids, so the number of Pool C's will be the same.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

A few quick thoughts (though, I think this topic is certainly worth discussing in Division III)... to change the model it might not be able to change in just football. I know the DII model allows for different set-ups and thus in basketball there are AQs and in football there are not. However, Division III has had a strong mentality that if one thing changes for one sport, then it changes for all sports. While men's basketball uses multipliers for home and away games and other sports do not, the change in how the OWP, OOWP, and thus the SOS was calculated was across the board for all sports. Also, I am not sure you can "unring" the bell, as it where. It would be a very difficult thing to do in swaying the presidents, ADs, etc. of schools in weaker conferences who have an AQ that doing away with the AQ in football would be a good thing - they would probably see it as a way for the top to get more and the bottom to get less (why risk losing a guaranteed spot via AQ). Division III prides itself on the AQ system (which is actually used throughout the NCAA)... so convincing people to go the other way would be interesting to see play out. It would have to be voted on at the convention, I am sure, and that vote could be contentious.

Also... let's keep something in mind: Division III is growing slower than expected. Yes, there will be two more AQs next year, but after that there are none on the horizon for football. Those new AQs actually have nothing to do with growth, but more realigning of teams and conferences.

Per the regionalism of it, by the way, that is how Division III USED to be. It was horrible and teams got in that had no business being involved in tournaments. Do we want to go backward in that department?

Also to the Top 15/20 idea - Pat are you referring to the national polls? Because that would be a major thing to convince the NCAA of since no national polls are used in any other sport or any other division that I am aware of.

[Mr. Ypsi]

d-mac, I'm pretty sure Pat was referring to the regional rankings, not national poll.

[smedindy]

I totally disagree with any change to automatic bids. What does it HURT to have a team from a lower conference at 10-0 make the playoffs. The teams with two losses HAD THEIR CHANCE!

You get into a paradox, if a team can't make the playoffs because of this rule, and the reason why that there is NO playoff record for them, it's self fulfilling. It's wrong. It's horrible. It's AGAINST the spirit and ethos of D3.

The strong should not get more teams in because of who they are; the so-called elite should not remain in perpetuity.  They need to earn it. Earn it by winning a conference title. Not 2-losses.

[Ralph Turner]

I agree with smedindy. Keep the current AQ system.

When I asked our posters where they thought another conference might arise for the AQ from 7 schools of same mission and vision.

Dave McHugh doubted the Capital AQ which leaves the current NJAC affiliation of the CAC football playing members.

The SCAC would take quite a bit of work to get the next 3 football playing members.

The 4 UAA schools have affiliated with the Pres AC and the SAA.

The Empire 8 has become a nice "Upstate New York" conference with its SUNYAC affiliates.

The UMAC and the SLIAC affiliates have settled on an arrangement, after the SLIAC failed its Pool A attempt.

The NESCAC will continue to play their own brand of ball.

I don't see where we have any change

The East Region football schools seem to have maximized their options in the MASCAC, the NEFC and the ECFC.

Thanks but I still see at least 5 Pool C bids for the rest of the decade.

[wally_wabash]

I agree with smedindy. Keep the current AQ system.

When I asked our posters where they thought another conference might arise for the AQ from 7 schools of same mission and vision.

Dave McHugh doubted the Capital AQ which leaves the current NJAC affiliation of the CAC football playing members.

The SCAC would take quite a bit of work to get the next 3 football playing members.

The 4 UAA schools have affiliated with the Pres AC and the SAA.

The Empire 8 has become a nice "Upstate New York" conference with its SUNYAC affiliates.

The UMAC and the SLIAC affiliates have settled on an arrangement, after the SLIAC failed its Pool A attempt.

The NESCAC will continue to play their own brand of ball.

I don't see where we have any change

The East Region football schools seem to have maximized their options in the MASCAC, the NEFC and the ECFC.

Thanks but I still see at least 5 Pool C bids for the rest of the decade.

Yes, thank you Ralph.  I've seen this conversation about what are we to do when we have more leagues than spots in the tournament a few times and I just don't understand where all of these extra leagues are coming from that create this deficit of available slots in the tournament. 

[smedindy]

There are 43 hoops playing leagues, but there's no way a lot of those leagues will ever sponsor football. I can't see the AMCC ever; the schools just won't support the sport.

[Pat Coleman]

A few quick thoughts (though, I think this topic is certainly worth discussing in Division III)... to change the model it might not be able to change in just football. I know the DII model allows for different set-ups and thus in basketball there are AQs and in football there are not. However, Division III has had a strong mentality that if one thing changes for one sport, then it changes for all sports.

Agreed. However, in football I think you would agree that we have a specifically different sports in that 81% of the field is taken up by AQs and we cannot expand the field. That's a double whammy that no other D-III sport has. (Ice hockey is also very AQ drive but has room to expand and fill out its bracket as more teams add the sport.)

Agreed also that the rate of football growth appears to be slowing, and Ralph ran down a long list of for-now settled situations. However, if enough schools add football, we could see another reshuffling of teams, and the return of the single-sport conference AQ makes new alignments easier to create. What if the UMAC adds Finlandia in all sports (possible) and the Midwest Conference invites Macalester to find a new home? The shuffling doesn't have to stop just because the Maryland 2 moved again. 

My proposal was always in the mind-set of mitigating the loss of at-large bids. As long as we still have six, we're probably OK. Five will be tight. Four would be flirting with disaster, in my opinion.

[smedindy]

If the UMAC adds Finlandia, would they boot out the SLIAC group? How would Macalester affect this; would that mitigate dominoes to find another home?

[hazzben]

I totally disagree with any change to automatic bids. What does it HURT to have a team from a lower conference at 10-0 make the playoffs. The teams with two losses HAD THEIR CHANCE!

You get into a paradox, if a team can't make the playoffs because of this rule, and the reason why that there is NO playoff record for them, it's self fulfilling. It's wrong. It's horrible. It's AGAINST the spirit and ethos of D3.

The strong should not get more teams in because of who they are; the so-called elite should not remain in perpetuity.  They need to earn it. Earn it by winning a conference title. Not 2-losses.

The model being proposed wouldn't keep those 10-0 teams out. But if a conference champ was 6-4, 7-3 or even 8-2 from, say the UMAC, what have they really 'earned' in terms of being invited?

I like a lot about the AQ system, and I wouldn't want a situation where a team that goes 9-1 or 10-0 and wins their league gets left out (even if its MAC and they're getting that A bid because they ran away from their real conference  ). But is it such a bad thing to say a team also needs to have a semblance of respectability to their resume to make the playoffs as well?

Personally, I think Top 20 in regional rankings is also way too generous. You potentially be inviting the 80th best team in D3 to the playoffs. Top 15 doesn't seem to onerous IMO. Even with as stacked a the West is, I think MAC and St. Scholastica would have both made the Top 15 ranking. And I think most committees would feel inclined to slot weak teams from weak conferences into that Top 15 to ensure they got in. But they'd also have the freedom to leave out 6-4 team or a 7-3 team with a weak SoS and 0-0 v. RRO.

By the way, this has nothing to do with Bethel not making the playoffs this year. At 7-3, even under the earned access model, I'm sure NCC, UWO and other schools would have gotten in before us. I've been in favor of this type of system before and posted about it.

[smedindy]

But you could get in a self-fulfilling prophecy situation where a league never gets in, because they don't get respect, because they have no playoff results, because they never get in.

Also, the UMAC has a nine-game league schedule, so there is a legit winner there, and they only have one chance out of conference. That's not really that fair.

And, also, if a team with a couple or three non-conference games schedules up, loses them, and then goes 7-3, why keep them out?

[ExTartanPlayer]

My proposal was always in the mind-set of mitigating the loss of at-large bids. As long as we still have six, we're probably OK. Five will be tight. Four would be flirting with disaster, in my opinion.

I'm curious: why is this so? 

Because "deserving" teams will get left out of the tournament?  That already happens sometimes.  We all know that the last team or two left out of Pool C is often a threat to win a few games with the right draw, and can point to examples where one of the last teams in did so.  But, still, as long as there's AQ access for all, every team still has a chance to play their way in from the season's first kickoff.

Dropping from six at-larges to four isn't something anyone wants to see, but I don't see losing an at-large or two as a "disastrous" outcome.