ATN podcast: All the playoff info you need

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Thirty-two playoff spots. Twelve are secure. How will the other 20 shake out? That’s the focus of this week’s Around the Nation podcast.

Some conferences are easy to figure, with head-to-head games lined up to decide who takes home the automatic bid. Some are a little complicated, including the potential four-way tie in the Centennial and the Northern Athletics Conference.

And then there’s the at-large bids. We identified up to 14 teams that could get consideration for Pool C bids. Problem is, there’s just six spots to go around.

Who? When? And where can you get the selection show? Yeah, that’s important. And that’s why we lead off this most important week of the Division III football season with this Around the Nation podcast.

Click the play button below to listen.

You can load the podcast page in iTunes or can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/?feed=podcast

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6 thoughts on “ATN podcast: All the playoff info you need”

  2. The Empire 8 is down to 6 teams this year. Do they still get a Pool A bid? If so, will they lose it next year or soon?

    I wonder if, hypothetically, a pair of rivalry teams meeting in the playoffs would have their respective Bell or whatever on the line again….

  3. The East Region is filling up with Pool A Conferences.

    Not counting the NESCAC, which is another discussion, there should be 6 Pool A conferences in 2011: ECFC, E8, LL, MAC, NEFC and NJAC.

    We non-east region fans like the fact that the NEFC has “donated” a Pool C bid to the rest of the field. How hard would it really be for the MASCAC to pull its 6 football members and add 2 affiliates to earn a Pool A bid after 2 years?

    As Pat and Keith alluded, in many years there are 2-3 teams in Pennsylvania and Delaware that can be brought into that “East” bracket.

  4. Here’s my shot at the MUC/East bracket:

    8 Pool C (LVC) – going with Leb Val with a 9-1 record and only ~310 mile trip to Alliance, OH

    vs.

    1 MUC ODAC Champ – NCAA will follow same pattern, nuff said

    5 NEFC Champ (Curry) – like the Colonels over the Maine Maritime. That loss to Bridgewater earlier in the season is the Red Herring IMO

    vs.

    4 NJAC Champ (Kean) – I like Kean to beat MSU this weekend and host a first round game. Kean will likely be “seeded lower” to eliminate the possibility of a re-match against DVC in Round 2 (DVC beat the Cougs 30-17 in Wk 2). That said I could easily see Union or Alfred hosting Curry (Alfred maybe less likely given the mileage from Milton to Alfred is 440).

    Assuming both MUC and Kean win – Round 2 is only a ~415 mile trip from Union, NJ to Alliance on the I-80.

    6 E8 Champ (Alfred) – I like the Saxons over Utica and they hold a head-to-head tie-breaker over SJFC (note – I don’t know exact E8 rulebook, so this is a guess). Trip is about 270 miles to Shocktown and would match up “rival conferences”, “battle for Upstate NY”, etc.

    vs.

    3 LL Champ (Union) – I like the “Dutchies on the leff hand side” to prevail at home vs Susquatch and be “rewarded” for going undefeated in the LL with a home game. Also UC beat IC who just beat (pretty badly) Alfred so the Saxons travel.

    7 Pool C (Dickinson) – This one is anyone’s guess but I am going with Dickinson if they win out (and finish 9-1 and co-champs of the CC) they would lose a Pool A due to a head-to-head tiebreaker with JHU (who DVC has already played and beaten) and is a short 132 miles from Doylestown

    vs.

    2 DVC MAC Champ – Aggies, clearly the best “eastern” team (from the most consistent/”best” conference this season) in the bracket, get a good shot to advance to the national quarterfinals and the winner of the Union (216 miles) vs. Alfred (292) game is not too far away.

  5. @ hamst64 … I don’t think they transfer rivalry trophies again when teams play rematches in the playoffs. I guess the one most likely to have had a playoff rematch would be Cortaca Jug, since Cortland and Ithaca were long independents and are now members of separate conferences.

    I can’t think off top of any rivalries that have been replayed in the playoffs in the D3 era. Witt and Wabash played in teh second round in ’02 or ’03, but that’s not a trophy game.

    @ Ralph, just to clarify, by donated you mean there are 14 NEFC teams (or 16?) competing for one bid, when if there are supposed to be 7.5 for every one playoff team, they could separate and have two to themselves.

    It’s a football-only conference, as you point out, so it’s not like it would have a ripple effect if they made a move to allot themselves the second bid.

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