Author Archives: Pat Coleman

Looking ahead to Saturday

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Yes, definitely looking ahead to Saturday. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a little over a month, since I decided I was going to spend Week 11 at the Union/RPI game. I have to be in the northeast on Sunday to do the selection show on ESPNews and felt this was easily the best use of my time on Saturday. Expect a photo gallery Sunday at some point from the game.

Top 25 team most likely to get upset: It’s not fair to pick Union — even though Union is in the Top 25 and RPI is not, I think they’re pretty evenly matched, plus it’s a rivalry game, which makes it unfair to pick. Thiel is a consideration, so is Rowan and Delaware Valley. Augustana is possible. So is either IIAC team. Going with Coe, I guess.

Top 25 team most likely to have the game in hand by 10:00 of the first quarter: Linfield. Next question.

Tiebreaker most likely to need a slide rule: Keep an eye on that MIAA. If Albion doesn’t beat Olivet and the right other things happen, it could get kind of messy.

Rivalry foreclosed: This weekend will be the last great Secretaries’ Cup game, between Kings Point and Coast Guard. The “Little Army/Navy Game” will move to September next year because Coast Guard is bailing out of the Liberty League. Talk about taking the life out of a rivalry game. Imagine Michigan and Ohio State playing in Week 2?

Why do they have their number? Frostburg State has dealt Salisbury some puzzling losses in recent years, in Regents’ Cup play. (The two Division III state schools in Maryland have a trophy game.) In 2002 and 2003, Frostburg (6-5, 4-5) stuck a fork in some pretty good Salisbury teams (9-2, 7-2). It can happen again. Would like to see if Salisbury’s Dustin Johnson can get a medical redshirt year, though. Once upon a time you could get a medical redshirt if playing four games of a 10-game football season. Otherwise, his college career is done.

Don’t go away mad, just … Anyone notice the midseason cancellation of the Lawrence/Macalester game? Lawrence needed the date to make up its conference game against Illinois College, which was postponed after an IC soccer student-athlete drowned on campus. Ignominious end to Dennis Czech’s coaching career.

Worst predictions ever: Hmm, so someone predicted F&M would go 10-0. (Yeah, someone who writes for this site.) The Diplomats need a win Saturday against Gettysburg to finish 5-5. The quarterback whom we were told “dominated” the Centennial last year has completed just 42% of his passes and thrown four TDs compared to 11 interceptions. Yay, hyperbole. Guess dominated is a relative term — he completed 48% of his passes last year. Must be something in the water — the local paper apparently wrote a story today under the headline “Diplomats on Brink of Dream Season.” Guess “nightmare” was too big to fit in the space. No seriously, here’s the story. If I were editing that story, I’d have said something like “Diplomats Hope to Salvage Season.”

That’s all I got. Now over to Gordon.

Seeding teams 1-32

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Alright, let’s try something different. Take the 32 teams selected using the NCAA’s criteria, but seed them nationally. What would we get?

This is a seeding of the 32 teams using the NCAA’s seeding criteria. It’s a little rough, obviously, because there are some seeming inconsistencies in the NCAA’s regional rankings, ones which we’ve had to take into account here since they would use the same criteria.

1 Linfield
2 UW-Whitewater
3 St. John’s
4 Wabash
5 Delaware Valley
6 Trinity (Texas)
7 Occidental
8 Union
9 Mount Union
10 Ithaca
11 Thiel
12 Ferrum
13 Mary Hardin-Baylor
14 Rowan
15 Augustana
16 Wesley
17 North Central
18 Concordia-Moorhead
19 Coe
20 Bridgewater (Va.)
21 Monmouth
22 Hardin-Simmons
23 Hobart
24 RPI
25 St. John Fisher
26 Mt. St. Joseph
27 Central
28 Willamette
29 Adrian/Albion
30 Johns Hopkins
31 Curry/Fitchburg State
32 Lakeland

So that leaves this for brackets:

Linfield Bracket
No. 32 Lakeland at No. 1 Linfield
No. 17 North Central at No. 16 Wesley

No. 24 RPI at No. 9 Mount Union
No. 25 St. John Fisher at No. 8 Union

Wabash Bracket
No. 28 Willamette at No. 5 Delaware Valley
No. 21 Monmouth at No. 12 Ferrum

No. 20 Bridgewater (Va.) at No. 13 Mary Hardin-Baylor
No. 29 Adrian/Albion at No. 4 Wabash

St. John’s Bracket
No. 30 Johns Hopkins at No. 3 St. John’s
No. 19 Coe at No. 14 Rowan

No. 22 Hardin-Simmons at No. 11 Thiel
No. 27 Central at No. 6 Trinity (Texas)

UW-Whitewater Bracket
No. 26 Mt. St. Joseph at No. 7 Occidental
No. 23 Hobart at No. 10 Ithaca

No. 18 Concordia-Moorhead at No. 15 Augustana
No. 31 Curry/Fitchburg State at No. 2 UW-Whitewater

Now, believe it or not, this only requires 12 flights. Hobart and Ithaca is a drive, RPI and Mount Union is a drive (seriously, 496.6 miles), Adrian/Albion can drive to Wabash, St. John Fisher and Union can drive. So if someone can pick up the tab for the extra 10 flights, we can get this done. Who’s with me? 🙂

Projecting the playoffs, take 2

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Welcome back to the game we annually call our playoff projections. This is where we take the 21 automatic bids, most of which are not yet set, then figure out at-large bids, some of which will lose between now and Selection Sunday, then seed them and pair them up logically … or fiscally … or geographically … or randomly, depending on the bracket.

In doing this every year, we have to toe a fine line. We can call some conference races, leave some open, pretend we know what’s going to happen, or ignore what has yet to be played. This is an inexact science, but it’s an attempt to look at the entire field using the NCAA’s stated selection/seeding criteria. But you can’t simply try to project one bracket in isolation. How do you know if there are eight South teams getting into the field, and not seven or nine or 10?

First, the basics:

Thirty-two teams will form four eight-team brackets. And we know the champions of 21 conferences will get an automatic bid to the playoffs. Four bids (Pool B) are set aside for independents or members of non-automatic bid conferences. The remaining seven bids go to what’s called Pool C, which is everyone left over.

So how will the brackets be formed, who will play whom? That’s what we answer each week from here until Selection Sunday. For more info check out our Playoff FAQ.

Keep in mind, these are the NCAA’s criteria:
The following primary criteria (not in priority order) will be reviewed:
• Win-loss percentage against regional opponents
• Quality-of-wins index–only contests versus regional competition
• In-region head-to-head competition.
• In-region results vs. common regional opponents.
• In-region results vs. regionally ranked teams (ranked at the time of the ranking/selection process).
• Conference postseason contest(s) is included.

Here’s our best guess at the Field of 32, updated Nov. 9. This is just a projection as if the season had ended today. Teams in bold have clinched automatic bids.

Delaware Valley Bracket
1. Delaware Valley (A)
2. Union (C)
3. Ithaca (A)
4. Rowan (A)
5. Hobart (C)
6. RPI (C)
7. St. John Fisher (C)
8. Curry/Fitchburg State (A)
This setup works so that there are not any conference rematches in first-round games. … We still have three Liberty League teams in because they all have decent numbers, but I think if RPI wins Saturday’s game against Union then Hobart will drop out. If RPI loses then RPI will drop out. Why? RPI already has a better regional winning percentage and Quality of Wins index, but Hobart has the head-to-head win. A win against Union will give them the automatic bid and a guaranteed slot. Union would have the win against Hobart on its résumé. … This committee is apparently giving a lot of weight to one game: Hobart over RPI. The win against a regionally ranked opponent gives Hobart a better regional ranking than St. John Fisher, even though SJF has a better regional winning percentage and better QOW. … If Rowan loses to Montclair this week, Cortland gets the automatic bid and Rowan is out.

Wabash Bracket
1. Wabash (A)
2. UW-Whitewater (A)
3. Mount Union (A)
4. Augustana (A)
5. North Central (C)
6. Mt. St. Joseph (A)
7. Adrian/Albion (A)
8. Lakeland (A)
They will not rematch Augustana and North Central in the first round. Projected matchups: Lakeland at Wabash, MIAA winner at UW-Whitewater, North Central at Mount Union, Mt. St. Joseph at Augustana. … Stiff price for North Central lining up in the neutral zone on the blocked field goal at Augie. … UW-Whitewater was the No. 2 team in the West regional rankings. They wouldn’t be put up higher than No. 2 in the North.

Trinity (Texas) Bracket
1. Trinity (Texas) (A)
2. Thiel (B)
3. Ferrum (A)
4. Mary Hardin-Baylor (C)
5. Wesley (B)
6. Bridgewater (Va.) (A)
7. Hardin-Simmons (A)
8. Johns Hopkins (A)
Geography still dictates Hardin-Simmons at Trinity (Texas). That puts Johns Hopkins at Ferrum. … Thiel still leads Ferrum in QOW and has the win against a regionally ranked opponent. Why is Ferrum ahead of Thiel in the regional rankings? … This has Wesley headed for its second-ever NCAA playoff game, both in the state of Texas.

Linfield Bracket
1. Linfield (B)
2. St. John’s (A)
3. Occidental (A)
4. Concordia-Moorhead (C)
5. Coe (A)
6. Monmouth (A)
7. Central (C)
8. Willamette (B)
Alright, Willamette, you have this spot for now. At 4-0 in-region with an 11.000 QOW you are in the last Pool B slot. At 4-1 in-region next week with a projected 10.000 QOW you won’t be, so the playoffs start a week early for you. (And if Pacific Lutheran beats Whitworth, the QOW for Willamette will fall even further.) … First-round matchups: Willamette at Occidental, Central at Linfield (no mud anymore), Monmouth at St. John’s (455 miles on NCAA map), Coe at Concordia-Moorhead (490 miles on NCAA map).

Who’s left? Our next Pool B team (i.e., the one waiting for Willamette to lose) is Washington and Jefferson. They were considered in Pool C but had a lower QOW than anyone selected in Pool C, save Hobart, which had the win against the regionally ranked team. Huntingdon next, as its QOW dove from 9.400 to 8.600 this week. The Maryville game, even if a win, will drive it even further down.

I have another separate playoffs post coming later, possibly tomorrow. I like that idea better.