Pool C -- 2015

[AO]

If I recall, UMHB lost a second round game last year. East region weakling Hobart won their second round game. Widener, who must be weak because they are an East team, won their second round game. So, um, Walla, you gonna take THOSE results into account in your little book?

Not every playoff win is equal either. Not every head to head game is equal either. Weather, matchups, injuries, all of it makes it hard to do the transitive "A beat B - B beat C - so A will beat C" when we've seen TIME and AGAIN A beat B who beat C who beat A.

The point being is the normally four of the best teams make the final four and usually the best two teams make it to Stagg.

the biggest problem with counting playoff wins as the real comparison between regions is we don't have a true national tournament.  Winning two playoff games in the East is much different than doing it in the West.   

Massey will tell a better national picture at the end of the year once we do get those quarterfinals and semifinals pitting region against region.  As of now it's still a good way of ranking teams within each geographical region.   So Mary Hardin Baylor is great in the South among those two or three conferences and Johns Hopkins is great in the Centennial and the conferences that play the Centennial..

Hopkins and the CC are also South.

yeah, that's why I called it geographic regions.   That's a big problem with the South and regional rankings as the major conferences don't play each other.

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

If I recall, UMHB lost a second round game last year. East region weakling Hobart won their second round game. Widener, who must be weak because they are an East team, won their second round game. So, um, Walla, you gonna take THOSE results into account in your little book?

Not every playoff win is equal either. Not every head to head game is equal either. Weather, matchups, injuries, all of it makes it hard to do the transitive "A beat B - B beat C - so A will beat C" when we've seen TIME and AGAIN A beat B who beat C who beat A.

The point being is the normally four of the best teams make the final four and usually the best two teams make it to Stagg.

Widener was a really tough out for a Linfield Wildcat team that had to fly across 3 times zones, start a game at what was effectively 9 a.m. our time, in a driving rainstorm, and still manage to beat them 45-7... so yes... I do take those results into account in my little book.

What I take from that is that the East needs to earn respect in the playoffs by both going deep AND being competitive in each game.  45-7 3rd round game is not competitive... by any definition.

Four of the best teams do make it to the semis - however the path for 1 or 2 of the 4 is generally much easier (retrospectively.. although dang it... if the same thing happens year after year is it really a surprise).

Maybe this year will be different... maybe a team from the East or outside the MIAC, WIAC, CCIW, MHB(or HSU in 2015), Linfield, MUC or Wesley will both make and be competitive in the quarters or semis. I'm just not seeing it happen in the last 5 years... why would this year be any different? (Until proven otherwise).

[ExTartanPlayer]

Then in Round 2 St John Fisher managed to only lose by 3 touchdowns to MHB... who then lost by a point to UWW who then destroyed MUC 52-14 in the national championship game... so I'm not sure what you are trying to say?  Other than maybe this is the one recent example where a Pool C team from the East won a playoff game against a team from what is considered a good conference? Though the playoff results would indicate that was a down year for the OAC..

Fact correction first: St. John Fisher won another playoff game, then lost in the quarterfinals to UMHB.  If you read the boxscore, you'd also know that SJF scored to pull within 31-23 with eight minutes to play; Fisher didn't exactly embarrass themselves down in Texas that year (and the fact that UMHB next week lost by only 1 to eventual national champion UWW would seem to be a point in favor of Fisher, not against them).

Second, what I'm "trying to say" is that your first post was objectively stupid.  There's just no kinder way to put it.  You highlighted the OAC as a league deserving of extra special respect when it comes time to pick the playoff teams and slammed the East as incapable of producing a Pool C worthy team, ignoring that just two years ago we actually saw an East Pool C team go on the road to an OAC Pool C team and win.  It's one of the more flagrant examples I've ever seen of disregard-reality-for-what-I-want-to-believe.

[smedindy]

Also, we have PANIC because not one but two of the Purples have a loss and are subjected to the whims of "C". Wake the neighbors, hide the children.

B-W, John Carroll and ONU all played the transitive game this year - and with B-W losing to Bluffton (Bluffton? BLUFFTON LOST TO WILMINGTON!!!!!) no matter if the OAC is strong or weak odds are they wouldn't get a "C" unless chaos ruled.

However, chaos may be ruling in the North if there's Wheaton beats IWU and if ONU wins out and JC loses respectably to Mt. Union. They'll be a lot of 2-loss teams piling up :

IWU
ONU
JC
DePauw
Wittenberg

It could be that the only 1-loss C teams from the North are Rose-Hulman and either Albion or Olivet (I'm guessing Albion will get the A because of H2H).

The North regional rankings ought to be fun. And it'll again be a shame we can't see the final rankings. I wouldn't be surprised if the best 2-loss team somehow jumped Olivet or RHIT.

[smedindy]

If I recall, UMHB lost a second round game last year. East region weakling Hobart won their second round game. Widener, who must be weak because they are an East team, won their second round game. So, um, Walla, you gonna take THOSE results into account in your little book?

Not every playoff win is equal either. Not every head to head game is equal either. Weather, matchups, injuries, all of it makes it hard to do the transitive "A beat B - B beat C - so A will beat C" when we've seen TIME and AGAIN A beat B who beat C who beat A.

The point being is the normally four of the best teams make the final four and usually the best two teams make it to Stagg.

What I take from that is that the East needs to earn respect in the playoffs by both going deep AND being competitive in each game.  45-7 3rd round game is not competitive... by any definition.

Four of the best teams do make it to the semis - however the path for 1 or 2 of the 4 is generally much easier (retrospectively.. although dang it... if the same thing happens year after year is it really a surprise).

Widener was a really tough out for a Linfield Wildcat team that had to fly across 3 times zones, start a game at what was effectively 9 a.m. our time, in a driving rainstorm, and still manage to beat them 45-7... so yes... I do take those results into account in my little book.

Maybe this year will be different... maybe a team from the East or outside the MIAC, WIAC, CCIW, MHB(or HSU in 2015), Linfield, MUC or Wesley will both make and be competitive in the quarters or semis. I'm just not seeing it happen in the last 5 years... why would this year be any different? (Until proven otherwise).

Because we all know that instead of HOBART or WIDENER on their jerseys, they say EAST and represent everyone from Becker to Alfred State.

[Ralph Turner]

I also want to make another point.  I'm not beating this drum because I think UMHB is bad or that the WIAC is bad or the MIAC is bad.  Thee teams and leagues are obviously great.  I think you can scoop up all of that history and have a really interesting conversation about legacies.  I just don't think that conversation goes hand in hand with at-large selection of any current season.  They're totally separate topics. 

At least today's discussion has been civil. I'll just leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3L5aDO_uF8

My theory... Urban Meyer beat Alabama by playing SEC football with his OSU Buckeyes!   
And look what he did to the Ducks!

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Regional Rankings as a metric seem to be worthless given how weak is the East combined with how many D3 programs are in the area.  Too much room for the East Coast bias come selection time.

East coast bias!!  Hahahaha.  You're aware that 6/8 of the selection committee are not from the East region, right?   You know this, RIGHT?

Hey -- East Coast Bias is something those of us in the Pacific Northwest love to complain about... Thank God that 6-8 are not from the East... can you imagine the playoff carnage if that wasn't the case? 

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Until proven otherwise I am going to grade programs and conferences based on how they have done in the playoffs over the past 5 years. 

Thats great, and reasonable, in your personal grade book.  I don't disagree with any of it.  But if I understand you, I think you are assuming that the the playoffs are esoterically supposed to be the place where the "top" 32 teams duke it out and #33 is left on the couch.  Or conversely that Pool C at least should be based exclusively among the six 1 loss teams and the primary criteria is a 5 year rolling average of their past playoff performance.  If you are saying that UMHB (the 5 year rolling UMHB - not the 2015 UMHB) is undoubtedly a top 10 team and on any given Saturday would be a clear favorite against 5 of of the other top ten teams, I'd probably agree with you there too.  That kind of argument however is perfect on a board to discuss this site's top 25 poll.  It doesn't really fit here.


The current Pool C selection criteria do, frankly, a masterful job of keeping as many teams relevant and as many student athletes engaged in the playoff hunt as long as possible.  It has evolved from a long and bloody history of 4, 8, 16, and 28 team fields that were rife with abuse of backroom horse trading and revenge seeking.  It even gives a nod to last year's playoff performance as a final tiebreaker criteria.  Most of all it allows a playoff field to be settled on the field, encourages tough competitive scheduling, and gives each and every team in the country a clear road to Salem in week 1.  What it sounds like you are basically calling for is saying that the grandees of D3 football (consistent national semi-finals participants) get an automatic pass to Pool C if they pick up a loss in the regular season.  That kind of rule, whether written or unwritten, is the great dividing line between the D1 and D3 game.  Its the kind of rule (or rule of thumb) that D1 power conferences (and ESPN) put in to protect their revenue streams and keep the key college football media markets happy and engaged.  I think if you'll step back, swallow the lump that comes with losing a close one to a conference rival, you'll agree that what we have works best for D3.

I think that your perspective is much broader and well founded than where I am coming from.  As I've stated on various posts my major beef with the playoff system is that it seems the brackets aren't level in terms of competitive teams meaning that the path to the championship game is much more difficult for some programs than for others - here's looking at you MUC and Wesley.  By the time the semi's come around teams from the West and MHB are much more bloodied and beaten up than teams from MUC or Wesley's bracket.  Adding Pool C teams from conferences that aren't competitive in the playoffs simply perpetuates the cycle. 

[Pat Coleman]

By the time the semi's come around teams from the West and MHB are much more bloodied and beaten up than teams from MUC or Wesley's bracket.  Adding Pool C teams from conferences that aren't competitive in the playoffs simply perpetuates the cycle. 

Hasn't bothered UWW now, has it?

[wally_wabash]

I think that your perspective is much broader and well founded than where I am coming from.  As I've stated on various posts my major beef with the playoff system is that it seems the brackets aren't level in terms of competitive teams meaning that the path to the championship game is much more difficult for some programs than for others - here's looking at you MUC and Wesley.  By the time the semi's come around teams from the West and MHB are much more bloodied and beaten up than teams from MUC or Wesley's bracket.  Adding Pool C teams from conferences that aren't competitive in the playoffs simply perpetuates the cycle.

Here again I think your gripe is less about what teams get picked and more about the geographical limitations of the Division III championship.  I think the committee tries to do the best they can to balance the bracket, but they have some really tight constraints to work with.  I don't deny that some years some sub-brackets are a little more loaded than others, and this tends to happen particularly with the westerly teams.  Those are the breaks until we 1) get Division III presidents to approve wide ranging national travel at the end of the fall semester and 2) get a cash infusion earmarked specifically for the D3 football tournament.  Neither are happening, btw. 

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Fact correction first: St. John Fisher won another playoff game, then lost in the quarterfinals to UMHB.  If you read the boxscore, you'd also know that SJF scored to pull within 31-23 with eight minutes to play; Fisher didn't exactly embarrass themselves down in Texas that year (and the fact that UMHB next week lost by only 1 to eventual national champion UWW would seem to be a point in favor of Fisher, not against them).

Second, what I'm "trying to say" is that your first post was objectively stupid.  There's just no kinder way to put it.  You highlighted the OAC as a league deserving of extra special respect when it comes time to pick the playoff teams and slammed the East as incapable of producing a Pool C worthy team, ignoring that just two years ago we actually saw an East Pool C team go on the road to an OAC Pool C team and win.  It's one of the more flagrant examples I've ever seen of disregard-reality-for-what-I-want-to-believe.
[/quote]

You got me.. they beat Hobart in Round 3 then lost to MHB on the road in the Quarters... so you pick the ONE recent example of a team from the East doing well in the past 5 years... are there more?  Let's be generous and say that there are 3 more examples of either AQ or Pool C teams from the East being competitive by Round 3 of the playoffs. 

Aren't they significantly outnumbered by the number of non-competitive playoff games provided by the East?  I've looked and it seems that the ratio of East Good wins or good losses pales in comparison to the number of bad losses.

By OAC I meant first and foremost Mount Union.  No need to call someone stupid who has a different opinion than you.  Especially when you cherry pick against a generalization.

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

By the time the semi's come around teams from the West and MHB are much more bloodied and beaten up than teams from MUC or Wesley's bracket.  Adding Pool C teams from conferences that aren't competitive in the playoffs simply perpetuates the cycle. 

Hasn't bothered UWW now, has it?

Sure hasn't!  Can you imagine how dominant they'd have been given Wesley or MUC brackets over the past few years...Scary to think!

And Wally you are 100% correct that my problem is largely geographic and $$$.  Kind of makes me wish for the NAIA days when schools had to pay to host games. 

[wally_wabash]

And Wally you are 100% correct that my problem is largely geographic and $$$.  Kind of makes me wish for the NAIA days when schools had to pay to host games.

That's one way to thin the herd. 

[Pat Coleman]

And Wally you are 100% correct that my problem is largely geographic and $$$.  Kind of makes me wish for the NAIA days when schools had to pay to host games.

That's one way to thin the herd.

I suspect that the NAIA would welcome Linfield back if you want to lead the charge.

[wally_wabash]

The Week 9 update to the B/C Eliminator table.  Here is a peek at the logic we are trying to apply as we go through this week to week:

1. Two-loss teams can make the tournament as Pool Cs
2. Three-loss teams never have
3. The last-time we had a conference get three teams in, the 3rd best team was the Pool A.

And with those three main points in mind:

- Three loss teams are automatically out.
- Two-loss teams are still in, unless those teams are already behind a pair of zero or one-loss teams in their own conference.  I think we're pretty close to adhering to this absolutely, but there may be a case here and there where we've knocked out a two-loss team that isn't going accumulate other useful criteria such as high SOS or wins vs. RROs. 

Thanks again to ExTartanPlayer and Bombers798891 for working through this with me.  Teams that we believe are out of at-large contention are in red, teams that I believe are still alive are in green, and Pool B eligible teams are marked with an asterisk(*), all as of Week 8 results.  And this week I've italicized teams that were newly eliminated.

CCIW	HCAC	MIAA	NACC	NCAC	OAC
Carthage	Earlham	Hope	Cocnordia(Wis)	Allegheny	Muskingum
Augustana	Hanover	Alma	Aurora	Hiram	Marietta
North Park	Bluffton	Kalamazoo	Wis Lutheran	Wooster	Heidelberg
Millikin	Anderson	Adrian	Benedictine	Oberlin	Wilmington
North Central	Defiance	Trine	Lakeland	OWU	B-W
Elmhurst	MSJ	Olivet	CUC	Kenyon	Otterbein
Wheaton	Manchester	Albion	Rockford	Witt	Capital
IWU	Franklin			Denison	ONU
	RHIT			Wabash	Mount Union
				DePauw	John Carroll

IIAC	IND	MIAC	MWC	NWC	SCIAC	UMAC	WIAC
BVC	Finlandia*	St. Olaf	Lawrence	L&C	Redlands	IWC	Eau Claire
Dubuque	Maranatha*	Carleton	Macalester	Willamette	Chapman	Martin Luther	River Falls
Loras		Hamline	Carroll	PLU	Whittier	Greenville	La Crosse
Coe		Augsburg	Ripon	UPS	P-PC	Crown	Stout
Simpson		C-MC	Beloit	Pacific	CMS	MacMurray	SP
Luther		St. John's	Grinnell	George Fox	Laverne	Eureka	Oshkosh
Central		Bethel	Lake Forest	Whitworth	Occidental	Minn-Morris	Platteville
Wartburg		St. Thomas	IC	Linfield	Cal Lutheran	SSC	Whitewater
		Gustavus Adolphus	Cornell			Westminster
			Knox			Northwestern
			Monmouth
			St. Norbert

ASC	CC	ODAC	PAC	SAA	SCAC	USAC
LC*	McDaniel	Randolph-Macon	Grove City	Sewanee	Southwestern*	Averett
Bellhaven**	Juniata	Catholic	Thiel	Millsaps	Austin*	Ferrum
HPU*	Dickinson	E&H	Waynesburg	Hendrix	TLU*	NCWC
SRSU*	Ursinus	Bridgewater	CMU	Rhodes	Trinity*	LaGrange
McMurry***	Susquehenna	H-SC	Bethany	WashU		Greensboro
ETBU*	Muhlenberg	W&L	St. Vincent	B-SC		Huntingdon
UMHB*	Moravian	Shenandoah	Westminster	Centre		Methodist
H-SU*	Gettysburg	Guilford	Geneva	Berry		Maryville
	F&M		CWRU	Chicago
	Johns Hopkins		Thomas More
			W&J

ECFC	Empire 8	IND	LL	MAC	MASCAC	NEFC	NJAC
Mount Ida	Buffalo St.	Alfred St.**	Union	Misericordia	Worcester State	Curry	So Virginia
Anna Maria	Hartwick		St. Lawrence	Wilkes	Plymouth State	Nichols	TCNJ
Norwich	SJF		RPI	Leb Valley	Westfield State	Maine Maritime	Montclair St.
Gallaudet	Utica		USMMA	Lycoming	Bridgewater St.	Salve Regina	Salisbury
Husson	Morrisville St.		Springfield	King's	Western Conn.	MIT	WPU
Castleton	Brockport St.		WPI	FDU-F	Mass-Dartmouth	Endicott	CNU
Becker	Alfred		Hobart	Widener	Mass-Maritime	Coast Guard	Frostburg St.
SUNY-MC	Ithaca		Rochester	Del Valley	Framingham St.	Western NE	Rowan
	Cortland St.			Albright	Fitchburg State		Kean
				Stevenson			Wesley

** Provisional, ineligible for postseason
*** Reclassifying, ineligible for postseason