As I said on the front page, this should be a good week of games, at least outside of the top two teams in Division III. Looking forward to what should be classics in the other six games, especially these two East Region games.
As in the past, Keith McMillan and I are making our picks indpendently, without consulting each other. But as you can see, we’re on the same page on which games will be the most competitive, even if we don’t know who will win them.
Predicted scores:
East
Pat: Springfield 42, St. John Fisher 39; Rowan 17, Wilkes 15.
Keith: St. John Fisher 35, Springfield 34; Wilkes 13, Rowan 12
South
Pat: Wesley 24, Carnegie Mellon 20; Mary Hardin-Baylor 40, Washington and Jefferson 17.
Keith: Wesley 17, Carnegie Mellon 7; Mary Hardin-Baylor 42, Washington and Jefferson 14.
North
Pat: Mount Union 49, Wheaton 10; Capital 22, North Central 20.
South: Mount Union 31, Wheaton 9; Capital 24, North Central 17.
West
Pat: St. John’s 17, Whitworth 14; UW-Whitewater 42, UW-La Crosse 28.
Keith: St. John’s 31, Whitworth 21; UW-Whitewater 35, UW-La Crosse 21.
Other storylines
The rematches: Rowan blew out Wilkes in the first round last year. Springfield beat St. John Fisher in a regular season game in October. Mount Union ended Wheaton’s season in 2002, 2003 and 2004, while UMHB did the same to W&J in 2004. Capital beat North Central in the playoffs last season. UW-Whitewater and UW-La Crosse play every year in the WIAC, obviously.
Who’s healthy? Will Justin Beaver play for UW-Whitewater? Is Joel Clark back to 100% for Whitworth? Eric Lowry, Wesley’s top kick returner, may not play.
Who wins in the East? As Keith and I showed, the bracket is up in the air.
Enjoy your travels and cheer responsibly. Let’s play ball!
Pat and Keith,
i do not believe that you are going to be right 50% of the time this week. We will see tomorrow.
I have a very hard time believing that Springfield can beat Fisher twice…Fisher’s D is a lot better than everyone is giving them credit for…and has stopped 4 very good teams so far this year. In UofR, Alfred, Ithaca and Union
Looking forward to Lacrosse getting murdered tomorrow
Perhaps not, but Springfield is playing at home this time and that might be wortth something.
Ya I understand that they are playing at home this time…but I’ve always believed that beating a good team once is hard beating them twice is almost next to impossible…esspecially since Chris Sharpe had the game of his life last time and I don’t think he can run for 280 yards and 7 touchdowns again
I see that both of you have Rowan/Wilkes as low scoring. I think with the warmer temperature and Rowan opening up the offense, it ends up in the 28-24 range.
I think the field conditions might not be conducive to that much offense.
Haven’t heard talk like that out of Whitewater since last year’s Stagg Bowl. Thought they;d have learned to respect their opponent…
It’s just the same person trying to get a rise out of people.
good pick keith!
Wing T+D=BIG SURPRISE.
Heading out to Springfield from Schenectady right now. Looking forward to a fantastic game. Sharpe may have had the game of his life last time, and i agree that we will not see 7 touchdowns from him again, but i do think he is capable of another 280 yard performance. That is no disrespect to SJF, because Sharpe has proven, in good weather, he is capable of those numbers against anyone. Yet at the same time I would not be blown away if SJF shut him down, it is going to be a great one, can’t wait! Maybe I’ll see some fellow d3 posters their as well. Happy Thanksgiving! Go Pride
Pat,
CMU and Wesley are a rematch of sorts as well…They played a home/home series in 2003/2004 and split the series with each school winning on their home field. While on paper that doesn’t bode well for the Tartans, I have faith in this Defensive Unit. Coach Bodnar (D Coordinator) has always had a great scheme and is the best gameday coach I’ve ever been around. Even if Wesley comes out of the box quickly, I would expect CMU to be able to make the necessary adjustments to keep it a close game. Looks like today could be the deciding game! Only two hours and eight minutes till we get rollin!
Go Tartans!
Does anyone know if there is any way to get a video feed of the SJF-SC game?
There are no video feed’s pretty much come playoff time because of rights streaming fees involved. Howeer, there are audio broadcasts linked at NCAAsports.com
Gordon Mann and Frank Rossi are calling the Springfield-St. John Fisher game. SJF may be broadcasting as well with their students on the call for TEAMLINE. Springfield’s broadcast on their student station is not on the Internet.
thanks Johhny…good luck to whoever you are rooting for today….as long as it is not SC of course.lol
Phizzu, that is true but I don’t think either team is all that similar to 2004, when they were a combined 14-6.
Pat, where are you watchin from today?
Home. I’m only home with my wife and kids two days every three weeks because of the new job and I just couldn’t justify cutting that short. Sorry.
Hey family is where it is at Pat…nice rhyme…not….I am in Denver due to family related pressures….lol….my buds that I travel with are in Springfield calling every 5 min to rub it in
Hey Pat… question your knowledge of the GAME of football with your Springfield pick…
Looking forward to seeing all of the alumni at the game on Saturday.
I didn’t see your picks of all 16 games. Did I miss them somewhere?
It’s obvious by the way that SJF absolutely destroyed Springfield that my pick was way off base. … Oh wait, never mind, that didn’t happen.
pat give us some slack…being this far in the playoffs is new for fisher…but boy did they look sloppy at the begining of the game
Pat, SJF held SC to 200yd below their average on the ground. They certainly didnt destroy them on the scoreboard, but they sure dominated them on the field.
Mille,
If you say this: “i do not believe that you are going to be right 50% of the time this week,” you should post your own picks or at least mention which ones you disagreed with.
As it stood, Pat and I both went 7-1, with him getting Rowan and missing SJF, and me getting SJF and missing Wilkes. And until the Colonels botched a snap on their own 22 with 3 mins. left with a 14-13 lead, that pick of mine was looking good too.
But it’s not really about how “well” Pat and I do picking, it’s just a way to give people an idea what’s expected to happen and to give you something to talk about on game day. So before you get all happy when one of us picks your team or get all fired up when we don’t, consider that they’re all just educated guesses.
Thank the good Lord that Pat and I just pick scores, not bypass the playoffs entirely and set the 1 vs. 2 championship matchup.
Phizzuh,
“Coach Bodnar (D Coordinator) has always had a great scheme and is the best gameday coach I’ve ever been around.”
How many coaches have you been around on gameday?
Just asking.
So if I read correctly, one long run by Chris Sharpe or Andy Jackson could’ve given Springfield the win and still held them under their average by 150 yards or so?
Seems like this game was uncomfortably close.
Pat:
I was looking at the Conference Champs who got in and their record is not pretty. I think I got this correct: Hope out in the first round 49-0; Mt. St. Joes out in the first round 42-28; Concorida out in the first round 35-6; Wittenburg out in the first round 32-7; W&L out in the first round 42-0; Union out in the first round 49-21; Curry out in the first round 42-14; Dickinson out in the first round 49-21; Millsaps out in the first round 21-0; C. Newport out in the first round 27-23; St. Norbert out in the first round 59-17; Bethel out in the first round 28-21; Occidental out in the first round 27-23 and Central out in the first round 21-13. It would seem to me that there have to be at least half of this number, 7/8, better D3 teams that did not get in: Trinity, Cortland State, Ithaca, etc.
These automatic bids from weak conferences do not do very much for me. Dickinson gets in as a conference champ and gets crushed in the first round, CMU gets in as a conference champ, with all the hipe about their defense, I think Keith called CMU’s defense “smothering”, and gets crushed by Wesley 37-0 giving up somewhere around 500 yards. It seems pretty much a joke to me.
Why not pick the best 32 teams based on various criteria let them play? It would seem better than having Hope, with no Hope, playing Mt. Union and getting crushed 49-0 or St. Norbert having to play Whitewater and getting crushed 59-17.
Just a thought!
Probably because this is the NCAA and at pretty much every level automatic bids are a way of life.
St. Norbert would still have gotten in on a list of 32 best teams. And you are sorely, sorely mistaken if you think Trinity — either one — is better than Occidental or Central or some of the other conference champs you are slamming.
Did I say “smothering?”
Doesn’t ring a bell, but they did put the breaks on Millsaps, and considering Millsaps’ schemes aren’t all that different from Wesley’s, I thought the Tartans would slow Wesley down some, but not enough to win.
The Wolverines reminded everyone that they’re an elite team. Millsaps moved the ball against CMU, but CMU played the loose zones and made the plays when it counted. This week they obviously did not. 🙂
As far as the automatic bids, one thing that’s really nice about them is everyone (just about) starts out the year knowing what they have to do to get into the playoffs, and knows so each week thereafter. So for 21 of the 32 spots, there’s no arguments of bias, no crying about shoulda coulda woulda, no this, that and the third. Either you earned the bid or you didn’t.
Now as far as the playoffs go, every year you have some good teams run into great teams and have some blowouts. But generally speaking, the playoffs are full of those 27-23 nail-biters.
I don’t think replacing Hope with Cortland State or whatever would eliminate blowouts … once you get deep into the postseason, the elite often prove themselves by whooping up on another good team.
In other words, blowouts are bound to happen no matter who the 32 are.
In both cases, that’s what we love about the D3 playoffs … the bids are earned on the field, and the field sorts itself out on the field. No BS, just football.
Also Archer,
CMU didn’t get in as a conference champ. They got a Pool B bid. The four-team UAA does not have an AQ.
I think you can go somewhere with that data, just by compiling the stat itself of how conference champs (or Pool A teams only) did. You might be able to make a pretty good case for the at-large/runners-up that make it under this system.
But I think a big problem that we don’t have now that we would revisit if we went to 32 at-large teams is all the bickering that would take place regarding the criteria.
Did you happen to catch how much of a stir taking 7 of the 9 one-loss Pool C teams caused? Multiply that by four … no thanks.
The old 16-team system relied on the committee’s regional rankings, as in end-of-story. If you went 10-0 and were ranked fifth in the South Region like Emory & Henry was in 1998, behind Lycoming, Trinity, Catholic and Western Maryland (now McDaniel), you couldn’t get in.
The SCIAC didn’t have a playoff team from 1994 until it got an automatic bid.
Issues of conference strength were defined by the selection committee, and teams from so-called weak conferences were not given the opportunity to prove themselves on the field.
So Oxy’s run in ’04 may never have happened under an all at-large system. Or the Liberty League’s good year in ’05 … those are a couple of cases where a conference improved its profile because of its playoff performance.
I think having a conference champ from each league in the field opens the door up for that to happen each year for each league, in theory (although the MIAA will not really have a shot if its champ always draws Mount Union).
That in itself is a really good thing for the D3 playoffs to feature, even if 9 times out of 10 the team we all thought was stronger wins anyway.
Pat:
My point was that Trinity, Texas or Cortland had to be better than Hope, W&L and Dickinson all of whom got in, I think, as Pool A Champs. You picked to of the stronger Pool A teams.
It is all very interesting and I assume everyone does the very best they can, but I think you have to admit that some of these conference champs who got in the playoffs were fairly weak teams that played in fairly weak conferences.
I guess saying you made it to the NCAA tournament is the thing.
Good luck to one and all in the quarterfinals!
Archer,
Cortland State, Ithaca and Trinity would have all gotten destroyed if they had to play who Hope played, or most of the teams that won.
Also, you can stop talking about Cortland State. They got beat by a non-playoff team to end the season.
“I think I got this correct: Hope out in the first round 49-0; Mt. St. Joes out in the first round 42-28; Concorida out in the first round 35-6; Wittenburg out in the first round 32-7; W&L out in the first round 42-0; Union out in the first round 49-21; Curry out in the first round 42-14; Dickinson out in the first round 49-21; Millsaps out in the first round 21-0; C. Newport out in the first round 27-23; St. Norbert out in the first round 59-17; Bethel out in the first round 28-21; Occidental out in the first round 27-23 and Central out in the first round 21-13. It would seem to me that there have to be at least half of this number, 7/8, better D3 teams that did not get in: Trinity, Cortland State, Ithaca, etc.”
This is what you wrote and what I read. You called out all of those Pool A teams and suggested your alternates.
Archer,
As it turns out, one-half of all the teams in the playoffs don’t win their first round games. Unfortunately for the non-winners, some have to play OAC and WIAC teams.
If you are upset that some teams didn’t make the playoffs, then I recommend those teams win more games.
Also Archer,
Just so you don’t feel like you are getting railed on by everyone, I do understand the point you are trying to make, but rules are rules – the 32 teams are chosen and we have to live with that.