ATN Podcast: What they got right

Mickey Inns
Linfield has gone 9-0 with Mickey Inns at quarterback this season.
Photo by Rusty Rae

Usually we have some complaints about the bracket, so much so that there’s a category in the annual predictions column asking what the committee blew.

It’s not so much this time. There are a couple things that would have been better if fixed, and we’ll touch on those, but it’s not a deal-breaker. Unless, say, you’re Hobart.

Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan run down the brackets, give their surprises, look at some of the great matchups potentially ahead in the second and third weekends and have just a word of warning for UW-Whitewater fans. That and much more in this week’s Around the Nation Podcast. Scroll to the bottom and read the tags to see which teams are mentioned in this week’s show.

You can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/?feed=podcast

Plus, here’s this week’s D3football.com reports. Keith checks in from Randolph-Macon, Ryan Tipps from Wabash-DePauw and more.

10 thoughts on “ATN Podcast: What they got right

  1. You guys keep moving around the fact that Bethel Crushed their two out of confrence opponents and lost both games close.. all their wins were big and they finished out the season strong… just look at their schedule!!

  2. bethelmn — unfortunately it doesn’t matter. They were the third-best candidate in the MIAC and the second-best barely got a sniff. Bethel had a good season but they were not a playoff contender, not unless we had a 40-team tournament.

    They crushed 5-5 Simpson and 4-6 Concordia (Wis.) from conferences that aren’t as good as the MIAC. What would have gotten Bethel in was beating St. Olaf, plain and simple. In the 13-year history of this bracket, they’ve taken three teams from a conference just one time. This wasn’t the way to make it happen again.

  3. I saw you at the Bethel – St. Thomas game.. Talking of Pat Coleman. glad you were able to check out the stadium. I will enjoy the playoffs and I’m glad they mixed up the regional games. Let’s just hope for St. Thomas domination to prove the MIAC deserved better

  4. Thanks — appreciate it, although I believe it was my third trip to Bethel.

    I hope Bethel will go back to playing Wheaton. That’s a great non-conference opponent and it’s had some good games.

  5. Pat, doesn’t Wheaton’s win over Albion count as a win ove a RRO? I toughtbitbwasonce ranked always ranked? Wouldn’t have change the outcome of the playoff teams but if Wheaton was compared to STJF that would have made a difference.

  6. Morning all,

    Like I did for the 30 one and two loss teams, I stuck all 32 playoff teams into an Access database to record how the different rankings (NCAA Strength of Schedule, NCAA Total Offense, NCAA Total Defense) and the 2 poll rankings (D3 and AFCA) would average out. Well, for those that want to know:

    1 North Central 11.2
    2 Salisbury 14.0
    3 Cal Lutheran 16.0
    4 Delaware Valley 17.8
    5 Wesley 18.8
    6 Mount Union 23.4
    7 Linfield 23.8
    8 St. Thomas 24.4
    9 UW Whitewater 32.4
    10 Mary-Hardin Baylor 35.8
    11 Johns Hopkins 44.0
    12 Illinois Wesleyan 47.4
    13 Centre 49.0
    14 McMurray 49.4
    15 St. John Fisher 50.0
    16 Hobart 53.0
    17 Albion 53.2
    18 Western New England 53.6
    19 Redlands 54.6
    20 Monmouth 54.8
    21 Trinity, TX 59.2
    22 Wabash 59.6
    23 Hampden-Sydney 62.8
    24 St. Scholastica 67.8
    25 Thomas More 70.0
    26 Dubuque 70.0
    27 Christopher Newport 76.4
    28 Kean 76.6
    29 Franklin 77.8
    30 Illinois College 83.0
    31 Benedictine 95.0
    32 Norwich 101.6

    Notes: 25 and 26 got the same average but I gave the tip to the team with the higher SoS because that’s the number the NCAA looks at. Both Polls had 44 teams that got votes so all unranked teams got scores of 45 in those respective columns.

    Observations: Poll ranked teams tended to have better offenses than defenses in the NCAA rankings.

    Disclaimer: My reasoning for choosing these 5 criteria are as follows: 1) SoS is used by the selection committee. 2) Using the two recognized polls gets some subjective input because these folks have seen the teams in action. 3) The teams have some control over their respective rankings in the NCAA Offense and Defense rankings. 4) Everything divides nicely to a single decimal point with 5 columns of data only. 5) Lastly, this is only one of many tools that could show in a relative way how the teams stack up.

    Enjoy the post season!

    Art

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