Playoff winners, losers

Posted on November 19, 2006 by Pat Coleman

Last night as I was updating the NCAA playoff results by conference on the front page — something that sits on the site 52 weeks a year and only changes five times — I was struck by the old adage: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Apologies for the un-fanciness of the standings, but here they are:

Conference    W   L   Pct.
OAC          35   8   .814
NWC          18   9   .667
MIAC         19  11   .633
E8            5   3   .625
NJAC         16  10   .615
MAC          12   8   .600
CCIW         11   9   .550
WIAC          9   8   .529
SCAC          9   8   .529
ODAC         10   9   .526
NCAC         10   9   .526
ASC          11  10   .524
ACFC          4   4   .500
UAA           1   1   .500
PAC           6   8   .429
Independents  5   7   .417
UCAA/LL       7  11   .389
FFC (defunct) 3   5   .375
IIAC          6  11   .353
Centennial    4   9   .308
SCIAC         2   5   .286
Dixie/USAC    2   6   .250
MWC           1   8   .111
HCAC          1   8   .111
MIAA          0   7   .000
IBC           0   7   .000
NEFC          0   8   .000

Who gained and who lost? Well, I think the concept that a rematch automatically follows the original game took a big beating (thankfully). I’ve been reminding people all season that a team playing its first game loses to another team playing its second game does not mean that team is automatically better.

Conferences which gained this week

Northwest Conference: League champion Whitworth became the third conference team to win a playoff game this weekend with the first-round victory against Occidental. It probably is the only one the NWC will get this year but serves as a reminder that the league is not a one-trick pony. (And that’s only for people who don’t remember Pacific Lutheran.)

Ohio Athletic Conference: No. 1 and No. 2 seeds and two big blowouts. ‘Nuff said.

Empire 8: Two W’s for a league that hasn’t sponsored football for very long. The 5-3 record looks a lot better than 3-3 did.

Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Two wins gets the league, much maligned for its 1999-2004 performance, above the .500 mark in the automatic bid era.

University Athletic Association: Off the schneid thanks to Carnegie Mellon.

Conferences which fell this week

Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference: Ouch. The SCAC has already been looked at as a one-trick pony league with Trinity the only team to qualify for the postseason. The league hasn’t won a playoff game since Roy Hampton’s ill-fated night on the Riverwalk. The Millsaps loss doesn’t help.

Old Dominion Athletic Conference: Washington and Lee’s loss is almost as bad, though no No. 8 seed has ever won a playoff game … in the two years that No. 8 seeds have existed. Only Bridgewater has won a playoff game from this league, though at least Catholic, Emory and Henry and Washington and Lee have had the opportunity.

Illini-Badger Conference: Only disbanding can pull the league out of this hole.

Liberty League: Two one-and-outs from teams that each won playoff games last year. The conference loses a little bit of the ground it gained in the 2005 playoffs.

Game day from Springfield, et al

Posted on November 18, 2006 by Pat Coleman

Partly cloudy, mid-to-high 40s here at Springfield, no wind as we are about 15 minutes away from kickoff between No. 2 seeded Springfield and No. 7 seeded Curry. I’ll be down on the field shooting for most of the game and won’t be checking in much but wanted to get the ball rolling for those of you at other games and those sitting at home.

Parking lot is packed with tailgaters — in fact, an hour before game time, there was nowhere to park. Excellent football weather, especially for mid-November in New England.

It’s the first meeting of these schools. Should be a quick game — you may have heard that Springfield runs the triple option, plus Curry runs for 227 yards a game so expect the clock to roll.

Looking ahead to Week 12

Posted on November 17, 2006 by Pat Coleman

This is it, this is where the playoffs happen.

Last year, on a drive up to Thiel for the Johns Hopkins/Thiel game, Keith McMillan and I wrote down predicted scores for each of the first-round games, compared them and posted them on the blog.

Well, actually, I wrote my scores down. When I was done, I asked Keith for his scores. He was driving, after all.

Long trip.

But anyway, it turned into something we carried through the rest of the playoffs. Interesting to see the varying takes on the game.

Here we are. I invited Keith to e-mail his before he looks at these. We made our picks as independently of each other as possible.

North
Pat: Mount Union 52, Hope 7; Wheaton 42, Mt. St. Joseph 6; North Central 24, Concordia (Wis.) 21, Capital 50, Wittenberg 14
Keith: Mount Union 49, Hope 7; Wheaton 34, Mt. St. Joseph 21; Concordia (Wis.) 24, North Central 21 (OT); Capital 55, Wittenberg 14
Toss-ups: North Central/Concordia (Wis.)

East
Pat: Wilkes 31, Washington & Lee 3; Rowan 34, Hobart 10; St. John Fisher 31, Union 20; Springfield 48, Curry 24
Keith: Wilkes 20, Washington & Lee 0; Rowan 17, Hobart 13; St. John Fisher 42, Union 38; Curry 31, Springfield 28 (OT)
Toss-ups: Curry/Springfield

South
Pat: Wesley 48, Dickinson 12; Millsaps 35, Carnegie Mellon 34; Christopher Newport 28, Washington and Jefferson 27; Mary Hardin-Baylor 31, Hardin-Simmons 28
Keith: Wesley 42, Dickinson 21; Millsaps 35, Carnegie Mellon 28; Christopher Newport 28, Washington and Jefferson 17; Mary Hardin-Baylor 27, Hardin-Simmons 21 (OT)
Toss-ups: None, other than the margin in Delaware.

West
Pat: UW-Whitewater 62, St. Norbert 3; UW-La Crosse 24, Bethel 21; Whitworth 21, Occidental 19; St. John’s 20, Central 19 (OT)
Keith: UW-Whitewater 52, St. Norbert 14; UW-LaCrosse 35, Bethel 28; Whitworth 23,
Occidental 17; Central 23, St. John’s 21
Toss-ups: Central/St. John’s

I’ll be at Springfield, the guy taking pictures in the D3football.com hat. Keith will be calling color on one of our D3football.com broadcasts for NCAASports.com at Carnegie Mellon.