Pool C in 2016

[wally_wabash]

You're going to have come off of this at some point.  I know you're grinding that ax hard, but you're wrong.  We all know what Mount Union's criteria said.  If the argument is that they're no better than Berry or Muhlenberg or CWRU, look at their results.  They won games by an average of 45 points and they lost to a highly ranked conference champion by 3.  That's the difference between Mount Union and these other teams- the other teams with that 9-1, 0-1, .500-ish SOS profile don't dominate the season the way Mount Union did theirs.  It would have been malpractice, frankly, had they not put Mount Union in the tournament- and I say that as one of the more strict-adherence-to-the-criteria guys on the forum.

In the end, I agree that MU was a good choice.  It is ultimately silly to think otherwise.  My question has been whether or not the committee bent the rules to include MU as a pool C bid as a one loss team.  If so, do they need to change the rules to extend the prior experience criteria to one and two loss teams, not just unbeatens?  Or, did I miss something in the selection criteria.

-Ski

I think you're misreading that Mount Union got selected this year because they were good last year.  They got selected this year because they were really good this year.

[hazzben]

If the committee picked UWP over Fisher it would have been completely justified, the fact that Fisher didn't make it to the discussion showed that the East had no clue about pool C possibilities.

They even kept a 7-3 SU team in the rankings to help FSU and it blew up in their face. The committee probably didn't take into account their poor SOS and figured since that they were 9-1 and 1-1 vs RRO that it would be a good case.

The East region missed out on a legitimate opportunity, and maybe even an actual bid, because they completely misread the lay of the land.

They definitely didn't help themselves. My question is whether this was cluelessness or a an attempt to get 2 Pool C bids that blew up in their faces. Did they assume that ranking SU would be enough to nudge FSU in, and then hoped that SJF could get in on their merits in a tossup for the last spot with UWP? It obviously didn't work.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't the first time the East Region Committee has played with who gets the last ranking spots in order to bolster the resume of its Pool C candidates is it (work it so a team gets an extra RRO)? I seem to recall them doing something similar a few years back and that it was more effective.

[Upstate]

If the committee picked UWP over Fisher it would have been completely justified, the fact that Fisher didn't make it to the discussion showed that the East had no clue about pool C possibilities.

They even kept a 7-3 SU team in the rankings to help FSU and it blew up in their face. The committee probably didn't take into account their poor SOS and figured since that they were 9-1 and 1-1 vs RRO that it would be a good case.

The East region missed out on a legitimate opportunity, and maybe even an actual bid, because they completely misread the lay of the land.

They definitely didn't help themselves. My question is whether this was cluelessness or a an attempt to get 2 Pool C bids that blew up in their faces. Did they assume that ranking SU would be enough to nudge FSU in, and then hoped that SJF could get in on their merits in a tossup for the last spot with UWP? It obviously didn't work.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't the first time the East Region Committee has played with who gets the last ranking spots in order to bolster the resume of its Pool C candidates is it (work it so a team gets an extra RRO)? I seem to recall them doing something similar a few years back and that it was more effective.

I don't know, I can't remember if they did or didn't....

They could have easily put Fisher above Frostburg and then Port at #10 (7-3 with losses to Hobart, Fisher, Alfred by 11 total points) to give Fisher a 2-1 record vs RRO and a .590 SOS....

Buuut the committee chair from Kean thinks that the NJAC and E8 are comparable (without Wesley from last year the NJAC has not made it past the 2nd round in 8 years) so let's try and get the NJAC runner up in that has a SOS that's below Fisher and St. Lawrence....

[smedindy]

I do think there was some thought they ranked a team in the Top 10 to get a team in. I think it was 2013 Framingham, perhaps? (I think the MASCAC was Pool B then...)

[USee]

And it wasn't very long ago that a one loss team almost always went before a 2 loss team, despite the criteria.

[kiko]

You're going to have come off of this at some point.  I know you're grinding that ax hard, but you're wrong.  We all know what Mount Union's criteria said.  If the argument is that they're no better than Berry or Muhlenberg or CWRU, look at their results.  They won games by an average of 45 points and they lost to a highly ranked conference champion by 3.  That's the difference between Mount Union and these other teams- the other teams with that 9-1, 0-1, .500-ish SOS profile don't dominate the season the way Mount Union did theirs.  It would have been malpractice, frankly, had they not put Mount Union in the tournament- and I say that as one of the more strict-adherence-to-the-criteria guys on the forum.

In the end, I agree that MU was a good choice.  It is ultimately silly to think otherwise.  My question has been whether or not the committee bent the rules to include MU as a pool C bid as a one loss team.  If so, do they need to change the rules to extend the prior experience criteria to one and two loss teams, not just unbeatens?  Or, did I miss something in the selection criteria.

-Ski

I think you're misreading that Mount Union got selected this year because they were good last year.  They got selected this year because they were really good this year.

This is the part I think the Mount detractors are missing.  Mount is down this year -- but only if you measure them by Mount standards.  They are still fully capable of earning their way to Salem, and that would be true if they were in any of the four quadrants of the bracket.  Their selection wasn't charity.

One thing to keep in mind when looking at Mount Union's relatively weak SOS number and lack of RRO victories is that they controlled only 1/10 of what went into that calculation.  Their number was weak largely because their conference mates fared poorly in the one out-of-conference swing each got at the piñata.  The committee chair noted in the HuddLLe interview that football has the weakest set of data to work with, and because of this the committee chose to look beyond the numbers as part of their discussions.  Personally, I am glad to see this.  The numbers are there to aid the discussion, not to make the decision for you.

I read Mount's poor SOS and lack of RRO victories as 'the OAC was a bit down' and not 'Mount played a weak schedule that I should penalize them for'.  They're still Mount effing Union -- a living breathing version of that program and all of its acumen, and not a pale shadow of faded glory.  Absent additional losses on the field, it would be a huge miss to ignore their body of work over the past quarter-century (including this year) and simply fall back on an imperfect mathematical exercise for selection purposes.  Selecting them and putting them on the road from the get-go was a very fair set of choices for the committee to make.

[SaintsFAN]

This is the part I think the Mount detractors are missing.  Mount is down this year -- but only if you measure them by Mount standards.  They are still fully capable of earning their way to Salem, and that would be true if they were in any of the four quadrants of the bracket.  Their selection wasn't charity.

One thing to keep in mind when looking at Mount Union's relatively weak SOS number and lack of RRO victories is that they controlled only 1/10 of what went into that calculation.  Their number was weak largely because their conference mates fared poorly in the one out-of-conference swing each got at the piñata.  The committee chair noted in the HuddLLe interview that football has the weakest set of data to work with, and because of this the committee chose to look beyond the numbers as part of their discussions.  Personally, I am glad to see this.  The numbers are there to aid the discussion, not to make the decision for you.

I read Mount's poor SOS and lack of RRO victories as 'the OAC was a bit down' and not 'Mount played a weak schedule that I should penalize them for'.  They're still Mount effing Union -- a living breathing version of that program and all of its acumen, and not a pale shadow of faded glory.  Absent additional losses on the field, it would be a huge miss to ignore their body of work over the past quarter-century (including this year) and simply fall back on an imperfect mathematical exercise for selection purposes.  Selecting them and putting them on the road from the get-go was a very fair set of choices for the committee to make.

Very good post.  +K.  I'll reiterate teams what a very smart person said (either WallyWabash or ExTartanplayer), teams with 9 league games; they trend toward a .500 SOS. 

[HansenRatings]

I'll reiterate teams what a very smart person said (either WallyWabash or ExTartanplayer), teams with 9 league games; they trend toward a .500 SOS. 

You can read more about that here.

[SaintsFAN]

I'll reiterate teams what a very smart person said (either WallyWabash or ExTartanplayer), teams with 9 league games; they trend toward a .500 SOS. 

You can read more about that here.

Ah yes!  It was you!  Apologies.

[ITH radio]

Hey thx for listening to the show!

[hazzben]

I'll reiterate teams what a very smart person said (either WallyWabash or ExTartanplayer), teams with 9 league games; they trend toward a .500 SOS. 

You can read more about that here.

+ k for the University of Okoboji example!

[ADL70]

You're going to have come off of this at some point.  I know you're grinding that ax hard, but you're wrong.  We all know what Mount Union's criteria said.  If the argument is that they're no better than Berry or Muhlenberg or CWRU, look at their results.  They won games by an average of 45 points and they lost to a highly ranked conference champion by 3.  That's the difference between Mount Union and these other teams- the other teams with that 9-1, 0-1, .500-ish SOS profile don't dominate the season the way Mount Union did theirs.  It would have been malpractice, frankly, had they not put Mount Union in the tournament- and I say that as one of the more strict-adherence-to-the-criteria guys on the forum.

In the end, I agree that MU was a good choice.  It is ultimately silly to think otherwise.  My question has been whether or not the committee bent the rules to include MU as a pool C bid as a one loss team.  If so, do they need to change the rules to extend the prior experience criteria to one and two loss teams, not just unbeatens?  Or, did I miss something in the selection criteria.

-Ski

I think you're misreading that Mount Union got selected this year because they were good last year.  They got selected this year because they were really good this year.

Well just not quite as good as a team that lost to Oshkosh by 19.

[wally_wabash]

You're going to have come off of this at some point.  I know you're grinding that ax hard, but you're wrong.  We all know what Mount Union's criteria said.  If the argument is that they're no better than Berry or Muhlenberg or CWRU, look at their results.  They won games by an average of 45 points and they lost to a highly ranked conference champion by 3.  That's the difference between Mount Union and these other teams- the other teams with that 9-1, 0-1, .500-ish SOS profile don't dominate the season the way Mount Union did theirs.  It would have been malpractice, frankly, had they not put Mount Union in the tournament- and I say that as one of the more strict-adherence-to-the-criteria guys on the forum.

In the end, I agree that MU was a good choice.  It is ultimately silly to think otherwise.  My question has been whether or not the committee bent the rules to include MU as a pool C bid as a one loss team.  If so, do they need to change the rules to extend the prior experience criteria to one and two loss teams, not just unbeatens?  Or, did I miss something in the selection criteria.

-Ski

I think you're misreading that Mount Union got selected this year because they were good last year.  They got selected this year because they were really good this year.

Well just not quite as good as a team that lost to Oshkosh by 19.

I see this is still a thing. If the argument is that 2016 Mount Union is somehow ordinary or average, make the case. Because it isn't there, particularly when you stack them up against the other 9-1's that didn't make it in. I can't be more direct here- There is not a reasonable argument to be made to exclude Mount Union from this tournament. Not one.

[ADL70]

You're going to have come off of this at some point.  I know you're grinding that ax hard, but you're wrong.  We all know what Mount Union's criteria said.  If the argument is that they're no better than Berry or Muhlenberg or CWRU, look at their results.  They won games by an average of 45 points and they lost to a highly ranked conference champion by 3.  That's the difference between Mount Union and these other teams- the other teams with that 9-1, 0-1, .500-ish SOS profile don't dominate the season the way Mount Union did theirs.  It would have been malpractice, frankly, had they not put Mount Union in the tournament- and I say that as one of the more strict-adherence-to-the-criteria guys on the forum.

In the end, I agree that MU was a good choice.  It is ultimately silly to think otherwise.  My question has been whether or not the committee bent the rules to include MU as a pool C bid as a one loss team.  If so, do they need to change the rules to extend the prior experience criteria to one and two loss teams, not just unbeatens?  Or, did I miss something in the selection criteria.

-Ski

I think you're misreading that Mount Union got selected this year because they were good last year.  They got selected this year because they were really good this year.

Well just not quite as good as a team that lost to Oshkosh by 19.

I see this is still a thing. If the argument is that 2016 Mount Union is somehow ordinary or average, make the case. Because it isn't there, particularly when you stack them up against the other 9-1's that didn't make it in. I can't be more direct here- There is not a reasonable argument to be made to exclude Mount Union from this tournament. Not one.

I didn't mean to suggest that Mount Union didn't belong in the field, only that based on this season alone we don't have a lot of evidence that they are "really good this year."  Good yes, really good?  We shall see.

[emma17]

Mr. Hansen, I don't know if you take requests, but if you do, I'm curious to see a comparison of the odds of a Pool C team winning the Stagg in 2016 compared to some number of previous years.
The Pool C group looks to be so strong this year while the Pool A group looks less dominant than previous years.
Thank you in advance.