Will we see Endicott in the field? Endicott photo by David Le Photography

So this is what happens when nobody loses. The team with the best at-large chance that lost in Week 11 was Louisiana College. (Talk about a loss that barely made a ripple on a busy day.) So in the end, we ended up with the same six Pool C teams that it looked like it would be before the weekend started.

But we still went through all of the steps anyway, just to make sure.

Wesley was our Pool B team. Although they had a regional loss, it doesn’t seem right to make national decisions without the secondary criteria. For more about the selection criteria, check our FAQ. So both teams are 9-1 at that point, Wesley has a much better strength of schedule and a win against a regionally ranked team … whereas Case Western Reserve didn’t even play any.

Pool C went like this for us: Redlands, Illinois Wesleyan, Case Western Reserve, McMurry, Centre and Endicott last. Here’s a shorthand look at their resumes:

Team Reg. W-L SOS Results vs. reg. ranked opps.
Redlands 8-1 .547 WvNCtrl, L@CLU
Illinois Wesleyan 9-1 .540 WvWtn, LvNCtrl
Case Western Reserve 9-0 .487 NA
McMurry 7-1 .530 L@UMHB (also 1-1 vs. two I-AA/FCS opponents)
Centre 8-1 .565 L@TTX
Endicott 9-1 .523 L@WNEU

The remaining 1-loss team, Illinois College, has a .497 strength of schedule. Then there are many 2-loss teams. We think many of them are better than Endicott, however, the NCAA never ever ever sees it this way. If Wheaton or St. John Fisher were to make the field, we’d be surprised, but it would be a better field.

Enough with the explanation. Here’s our bracket. It’s a PDF download, so if you can’t see the PDF on that page, there’s a link to download it for yourself.

That gives us our 32 teams. From that we take picked four top seeds, and we took UW-Whitewater, Mount Union, Mary Hardin-Baylor and St. Thomas. Remember one of the new criteria the NCAA football committee can use as a tiebreaker among unbeaten teams is performance in last year’s playoffs. With that, UW-Whitewater and Mount Union no longer have to worry about their top seeds, but also, it can be used as a tiebreaker for top seeds.

Why no two-loss teams? Pat Coleman explains why.