Pool C -- 2015

[Bombers798891]

Bombers:

I don't think I said UMHB, Linfield or St. Thomas were elite every year. I never mentioned Bethel at all.

Before we go farther, I have to say that, honestly, you've thought way more about my criteria than I have. I concede that the criteria is too narrow to measure teams that don't play Mount Union or UW-Whitewater (except for that one year), though I personally doubt there's a team that lost to someone else but would've beaten Mount Union or UW-Whitewater if given the chance.

If you have another, better criteria for measuring whether a team or a program is elite -- and you probably do -- then I'm open to it.

I guess I'd like it if the criteria expanded beyond comparing teams to two other teams that are so clearly above the elite bar it doesn't matter.

Look, Dave Winfield wasn't anywhere near as good as Willie Mays. He's still in the Hall of Fame. So is Bert Blyleven, even though he is clearly inferior to Walter Johnson. Last I checked, you didn't need to be almost as good as Wayne Gretzky or Bobby Orr to make the hockey Hall of Fame, and Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain aren't the only guys we compare potential basketball HOFers to. This is why our HOFs comprise more than two players.

But in D-III football, it seems like it's "Play Mount or Whitewater close, or we're not interested" Everything has to run through them. Which may be how the playoffs work, but it's a pretty lousy way to determine elite status.

[Bombers798891]

I realized I never gave my definition of elite.

Generally, I'd say if you make the final Top 10 or go to the quarterfinals, you're an elite team. Exceptions could be made if some team wins a weak conference, gets a geographical 1st rounder and an easier 2nd round game, but generally, if you do one of those two, I think you're elite, and absolutely if you do both. I also think we could look at some team that missed out on these but maybe had something else in their favor, like a win over someone in the Top 5.

[Westside]

I don't understand, 'elite' is an actual word. Why are we giving it its own definition??

e·lite
əˈlēt, āˈlēt

a size of letter in typewriting, with 12 characters to the inch (about 4.7 to the centimeter).
a select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities.

I feel like this pretty much encapsulates two teams in DIII football. Unless we are saying that quarterfinals are elite, and they who must not be named are SUPER elite...

[pg04]

If you want to be so stringent about words, yes. But in the end meaning is negotiated among people.

[emma17]

I think you're reaching to say that TLU beating ETBU who beat Hardin-Simmons (and also lost to McMurry btw which is really relevant and conspicuously ignored here) is something that ought to serve as evidence that they should have been part of the 32.

Does TLU grade out better than Whitworth?  Maybe.  Kind of a coin toss for me, frankly.  But more to the point- I don't think either of those teams needed to be in the 32, so I also don't really care whether Whitworth was better than TLU or not. 

And to your point that TLU would have been more likely to win a game against one of the big boys- I mean, no.  Just no.  They weren't beating Linfield or UMHB or any of the other top teams.  They weren't going to be "more likely" to beat any of those teams either.  Zero percent chance for Whitworth.  Zero percent chance for TLU.  .  We don't know if Hardin-Simmons is a legit player again or if they kind of caught lightning in a And Hardin-Simmons doesn't count in that group yet because they haven't been relevant in 7-8 yearsbottle this year (like, Buffalo State in 2012 maybe).

What?  Don't let Smed see this.  He's going to have to ask you, what does the last 7-8 years have to do with this year?
Right Smed? 

We'll just disagree on TLU.  I don't believe in 0% chances. 

[Westside]

If you want to be so stringent about words, yes. But in the end meaning is negotiated among people.

My point was just that two teams are on a different level from every other team, so they are the only 'elite' teams. The tier below them is very good or almost elite!

[pg04]

If you want to be so stringent about words, yes. But in the end meaning is negotiated among people.

My point was just that two teams are on a different level from every other team, so they are the only 'elite' teams. The tier below them is very good or almost elite!

They certainly are, that's for sure. Some team will be fortunate to be able to get to the Stagg without having to deal with either of them.

[Bombers798891]

I don't understand, 'elite' is an actual word. Why are we giving it its own definition??

e·lite
əˈlēt, āˈlēt

a select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities.

I feel like this pretty much encapsulates two teams in DIII football. 

Okay, so using that definition.

There are 215 players in the Baseball Hall of Fame. This represents, roughly 1.1% of all players who have played Major League Baseball. By that very definition, they are the elite players who have played the game, the ones who are deemed "superior to the rest in the terms of ability"

Is this elite group capable of containing members of different levels of talent? Of course. As I said, Willie Mays was better than Dave Winfield. That doesn't mean Winfield isn't part of that elite group anymore.

Just because Mount Union is clearly better than say, Wesley doesn't make Wesley not elite. We can make our own definitions that do not require them for validation, just like we can define Dave Winfield as a Hall of Famer without him needing to be nearly as good as Willie Mays

[edward de vere]

If you want to be so stringent about words, yes. But in the end meaning is negotiated among people.

Personally, I'll stick with the dictionary.  You go . . . negotiate . . . with people whenever you wish to have a conservation.

(Insert eyerolly-thingy here.)

[pg04]

If you want to be so stringent about words, yes. But in the end meaning is negotiated among people.

Personally, I'll stick with the dictionary.  You go . . . negotiate . . . with people whenever you wish to have a conservation.

(Insert eyerolly-thingy here.)

Please make sure you use every word in the future as it is exactly defined in the dictionary.  (Which dictionary?  hmmm).

[Ralph Turner]

Wally asked:  "What exactly is TLU's body of work?  They played one close game with UMHB one time...in torrential rain...over two days.  Is there something else?  Because I don't think there's anything else.  And I thought we shouldn't be using just one game to make these judgments, right? "

I replied that TLU played UMHB super tough in the playoffs last year, they led H-S with 25 seconds left in the game, they did lose by 28 to UMHB but I give them half credit for being within 2 scores early in the fourth quarter and they beat ETB a 7-3 team that beat H-S.  I believe this is a significantly better body of work than Whitworth's.

No need to make it any more complicated than that.  If you think Whitworth had a better body of work that indicated they would be a tougher playoff opponent than TLU, that's your opinion.

Sorry to chime in on this so late in the discussion.

The McMurry ETBU game needs a big asterisk.

ETBU's QB Josh Warbington was suspended for the McMurry game. I did not know that when I attended the game. Warbington finished the season as the top QB in the ASC.

About the McMurry season, an another asterisk. After the ETBU game,  I had McMurry penciled in for a 9-1 season (a loss to HSU) and a bid to the NCCAA Victory Bowl.  McMurry lost star RB senior Paxton Grayer to a shoulder separation mid-season.  In the first 4 games of the season, he had 655 yards rushing and 141 yds receiving.  He had enough action in the rest of the season  to drop his yard per game average this season below 100 ypg.  Grayer ended his career about the 6th all-time rusher at McMurry.

As for TLU, the Bulldogs were good enough to win a Pool A bid just as Lakeland, St Scholastica, La Verve, Albion, St Lawrence, Norwich and St Norbert did. I am sad to see that no other schools in the SCAC added football.  Colorado College didn't resume a 127-year old program. Centenary LA and Schreiner did not resume programs after long hiatuses.  (Did they not need the male student population?) University of Dallas did not either. I had even imagined the scenario in which the SCAC got to 6 teams in a very winnable conference (no purple "Hardins to worry with) and Concordia-Texas decided to leave the ASC (and probably with the "pragmatic" blessings of the ASC) for the SCAC and add football to make the 7th.  That would have given 2 Pool A conferences in this part of the country.

[cubs]

Those of you that have a better memory of the previous playoff results....

Has a Pool C team ever made (or for that matter won) the Stagg Bowl in the past? 

Reason I ask is that Whitewater is in the Semifinals as a Pool C team this year after making it as a Pool A for so many years.

[Schwami]

Mary Hardin-Baylor in 2004 made the Stagg Bowl as a Pool C (lost to Linfield).

[Ralph Turner]

Mary Hardin-Baylor in 2004 made the Stagg Bowl as a Pool C (lost to Linfield).

Yes, and went on the road to beat #7 Trinity by 29, #3 HSU by 14, #5 W&J by 36 and #1 Mount Union by 3 on the road.  Lost to Elliott's #2 Linfield in the Stagg, 21-28.

[DChicks]

In 1999 PLU was the conference runner up (to Willamette), but was in pool B rather than C; so a team that finished 2nd in conference has won the Stagg Bowl.