Daily Archives: October 28, 2005

Looking ahead to Saturday

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Have you ever heard the phrase, “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas?” In that sense, this week’s schedule looks like a holiday finger food smorgasbord.

If ONU beats Capital we could be headed for a three-way tie in the OAC. St. Olaf is undefeated but they haven’t played SJU or C-M yet. If Albion beats Hope, they’ll be in first in the MIAA but they still have to play Alma.

Conditional statements (if … then) make my head hurt and cause flashbacks to sophomore high school geometry class. So maybe we can get more clarity and less ifs and buts after tomorrow.

That being said, here are my two-cents worth (plink, plink) for this weekend:

Wish you were here: I’ve never been to Collegeville so a hypothetical trip to SJU-St. Olaf would be fun. But I’d pass on that to go to Ada, Ohio where No. 11 ONU battles Capital, who sits just outside the Top 25 and on the fringes of the playoff race.

No disrespect to Wilmington and Marietta, but this is probably the Polar Bears’ last major hurdle to the playoffs that doesn’t involve off the field decisions at the NCAA or OAC level. Capital needs to win to keep their Pool C hopes alive. After last week, I’ve given up making predictions for the OAC. But it would be fun to see how this plays out.

Don’t sleep on this one: Two sub-.500 teams try to keep their playoff dreams going. Bluffton gets Mount St. Joseph. Bluffton (3-4) beat Hanover who beat MSJ. Then again, Mount Union beat JCU who beat ONU. Elsewhere Albion hosts Hope (3-4) who will try to keep their MIAA title dreams afloat. (Hope floats…get it? It was a movie with — eh, never mind.)

I also suspect a rejuvenated Brockport team will give Orihel-ess Rowan a fight in Glassboro. I’d be interested to hear thoughts from any observers on either QB since both figure in their team’s immediate (Rowan) or long-term (Brockport) plans.

Most Likely Top 25 Team to Lose: I’m yet to predict correctly a result in the next category. Think Houston Texans bad. Think Houston Astros with runners in scoring position bad. Think Houston sports fans’ collective opinion of Gordon Mann bad.

But I’ve been solid here, even quasi picking Brockport over Wesley last week. So this week’s pick is…no one. They all win. Del Val and ONU get the biggest scares.

The Super Ridiculous Pick of the Night: We dole out the first automatic qualifying bid into the playoffs. Witt beats OWU. Earlham beats Kenyon. Wabash beats Allegheny. Little Giants, with tie breaker over Witt, clinch the NCAC.

Saturday Night’s Alright: As the days get shorter and the air gets colder, it seems like our selection of good Saturday night games gets more sparse. JCU hosting Otterbein is intriguing, but it’s not being webcast to our knowledge and 6 PM isn’t really night time. PLU and Willamette could be entertaining if the Lutes play an inspired game. You can catch both broadcasts off the scoreboard.

And don’t forget to turn your clocks back tomorrow evening. We’re a full service organization at D3football.com.

Insider: Back at it

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Well it has been a few weeks since my last post. I have been a little busy lately with practice and my internship. The internship requires me to put in 450 hours throughout the semester and at the half way point I am at about 200 hours, so I have been doing some nights during the week and also a couple of hours on the Sunday nights. It is going well right now, I am having a lot of fun, learning a lot and definitely making some good contacts that will be useful after graduation.

The last time I wrote in we were preparing to play on the road against Endicott College. That weekend was not a very good one for Falcon fans as we were beat 21-7. The story of that game was turnovers. Our offense just couldn’t get anything going and with 6 turnovers it left our defense on the field for a long time. Nonetheless they played well and beat us on that day.

The following week against Maine Maritime Academy we got back on track with a 21-0 shutout victory. MEMA came into the game with a very high-powered ground game that our defense was able to shut down.

The game against MEMA was also the first football game played on the newly renovated Elliot Field. Even with terrible weather there was still a good turnout of family and friends to support us in our first true home game of the season. The win improved our record to 5-1 and 4-0 in the Bogan division.

This past Saturday was our second straight contest against a maritime academy as we traveled down to scenic Buzzard’s Bay, Cape Cod for a match up with Massachusetts Maritime Academy. It was a successful trip as we came away with a 39-19 win and put ourselves into the driver’s seat in the division.

Although it was a successful trip, it was not a good game for me. It was the first time in my career at Fitchburg that I was pulled from the game. My kicking struggles continued as I missed my first 3 extra points; backup John Hirko came in and did a great job making all 3 of his attempts.

With a win this week against Framingham State combined with a Worcester State College loss, we will win our second straight divisional championship. However, a Worcester State win will set up a division championship game next week at home against Worcester State.

On regional rankings

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I see plenty of angst around the message boards and in my e-mail about the regional rankings the NCAA published today (a day late, by the way — if the NCAA is going to fine schools for reporting scores late then perhaps the NCAA should pay $50 to every ranked school to which it reported a day late).

Remember one thing — regional rankings are not like the national rankings. They do not consider all games. Any win is better than any loss.

We have a lot of info about the playoffs and how teams are ranked by the NCAA in our FAQ. But let’s run through them quickly and take a look at what the salient numbers are.

Almost always these run heavily on regional winning percentage and QOW, the Quality of Wins index. We calculate this for you each week. You can find a link to it on the menu rail of any news page.

I’ve listed regional record, regional winning percentage, and QOW.

East Region
1. Rowan 4-0, 1.000, 12.000
2. Hobart 5-0, 1.000, 11.600
3. Delaware Valley 7-0, 1.000, 10.857
4. Union 5-0, 1.000, 10.800
5. Alfred 5-0, 1.000, 10.600
6. Ithaca 6-1, .857, 10.286
7. RPI 5-1, .833, 10.000
8. St. John Fisher 7-1, .875, 9.875
9. Cortland State 5-2, .714, 9.143
10. Wilkes 5-2, 8.857

Every unbeaten team is by default better than every team with a loss. The rankings are just basically a rehash of the QOW, with the exception of Fitchburg State (6-1, .857, 11.000), the only nod to actual team strength. Also left out, Buffalo State, which has a QOW of 10.500 but only a 2-4 overall record, 1-1 in region.

North Region
1. North Central 5-0, 1.000, 13.500
2. Wabash 6-0, 1.000, 11.333
3. Ohio Northern 5-1, .833, 10.571
4. Mount Union 5-1, .833, 11.500
5. Augustana 5-1, .833, 10.333
6. John Carroll 6-1, .857, 9.857
7. Mount St. Joseph 6-1 , .857, 9.571
8. Carthage 5-2, .714, 10.286
9. Otterbein 5-2, .714, 10.000
10. Capital 5-2 , .714, 9.143

Ohio Northern is out of order in terms of QOW but has the head-to-head win against Mount Union. Similarly John Carroll is somewhat out of order but has a win against Ohio Northern. Left out? Alma, 4-1, .800, 10.400 But there won’t be five OAC teams in this ranking forever.

South Region
1. Trinity (Texas) 5-0, 1.000, 12.400
2. Ferrum 7-0, 1.000, 10.333
3. Mary Hardin-Baylor 4-1, .800, 10.000
4. Thiel 7-0, 1.000, 11.429
5. Bridgewater (Va.) 4-1, .800, 9.000
6. Hardin-Simmons 5-1, .833, 10.333
7. Johns Hopkins 6-0, 1.000, 11.167
8. Salisbury 2-0, 1.000, 13.500
9. Washington and Jefferson 5-1, .833, 8.833
10. Wesley 4-0, 1.000, 12.500

Looks for all the world like Thiel should be above Ferrum, as should Johns Hopkins. Not sure what’s going on there. And our QOW number doesn’t include Ferrum’s game against Chowan — which it shouldn’t, really. Chowan has scholarship players now. If you include the Chowan game, it lowers Ferrum’s QOW even more. No teams left out that have a particularly good reason to be in according to the criteria.

West Region
1. Linfield 4-0, 1.000, 10.250
2. UW-Whitewater 6-0, 1.000, 12.000
3. St. John’s 7-0, 1.000, 10.571
4. Occidental 6-0, 1.000, 11.167
5. St. Olaf 7-0, 1.000, 9.857
6. Coe 5-1, .833, 11.000
7. Monmouth 7-0, 1.000, 10.714
8. Concordia-Moorhead 5-1, 9.167
9. Whitworth 4-1, .800, 9.800
10. Central 6-1, .857, 11.143

Well, Linfield doesn’t have the highest QOW but they hold the Walnut and Bronze. That usually counts for quite a lot. Coe is higher on the head-to-head win against Central, and St. John’s because of beating Concordia-Moorhead.

Regional rankings don’t measure the games that make national rankings most accurate — games between regions. They don’t see the difference between a one-point win and a blowout. All of these things get measured in a national poll.