ATN Podcast: Tiebreakers, bids and rivalries

Defense
Kentel Noel and Christopher Newport still control their own destiny.
CNU photo by Heidi Naylor

So much to talk about this week and we didn’t even get to it all — we try to keep the podcast under an hour and almost did so this week. But not quite.

Let’s run it down for you.

  • Six conferences yet to be decided
  • Three could end up in three-way tiebreakers
  • Pool B took another blow. Who gets those bids?
  • Are those new faces or just bad teams in the playoffs?
  • How did W&L and Muhlenberg sneak up on everyone?
  • Pat and Keith talk about their trips to Wittenberg and Muhlenberg
  • Rivalry games still have a lot to play for

That just about covers it. All that and yes, more, in the Around the Nation podcast.

Click the play button below to listen.

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8 thoughts on “ATN Podcast: Tiebreakers, bids and rivalries

  1. As always, a great job. The playoff picture is pretty confusing this year. I agree with you about “bad” teams getting in the playoffs and “good” teams making the playoff who play in weak conferences. But, such is life. At least DIII teams have to play head-to-head to determine a champion.

  2. We said a couple times in the show we’d talk more about Pool C on Wednesday when the regional rankings come out but I don’t see any reason why ONU won’t get in if it wins Saturday.

  3. One thing I noticed while recording that I never had an opportunity to correct was that Trine plays Albion, which I believe is 4-1 in the MIAA and 5-4 overall. Given that I talked about being snookered by following the team that looked like it would win the conference and not the one that did, I figured I should note that Albion could win the MIAA with a win.

    Trine … don’t think they’d be a very good Pool C candidate with their SoS. So whoever says a playoff means a team can afford to lose, um, see Exhibit T.

  4. I don’t understand why only the regional strength of schedule is considered when comparing teams’ SoS. When I went to the NCAA stats and checked out overall strength of schedule, WashU was ranked 11th and Chicago was ranked 33rd (Salisbury wasn’t on the list). But when looking at regional SoS (the one used for determining who gets into the playoffs), WashU was ranked 200th, Chicago was ranked 56th, and Salisbury was ranked 9th. It doesn’t make sense that teams don’t get credit for playing tough teams out of their region.

    Can someone explain this?

  5. Well, the selection criteria are the same in every sport in Division III and haven’t changed in years, so schools should have no problem understanding what games are counted and what games aren’t when it comes to making their schedule.

    I would say that Wash U should be petitioning for a change to the North Region. They really are not in a South Region part of the country. And the NCAC-UAA schedule isn’t helping them out at all. However, if you look at the selection criteria, and I hope you do (check the FAQ under Interactive on the D3football.com front page) you’ll see that all D-III games are taken into consideration under the secondary criteria.

    Because there are so few games in football, it seems likely that secondary criteria come into play. And as I mentioned in the podcast, that puts Wash U much higher.

    I don’t know what the NCAA is using on its site to calculate SOS but when I set all of Wash U’s games to in-region, to simulate what the NCAA’s selection criteria SOS would look like, Wash U is 34th, at .547.

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