This jumbled mess is Wheaton’s last-second touchdown grab against Washington U. Any similarities to the playoff picture are intentional. Wheaton athletics photo by Michael Hudson Photography

By Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas
D3sports.com

It’s not in our nature to ignore data when trying to determine which teams are the best at-large teams. It’s not the norm in other sports, either — this week, we heard from one former committee member who is now on the committee for a different sport who said, essentially, the way they do it in this other Division III sport is the way that we spoke about in our conversation with the NCAA Committee chair, Matt Moore, in Podcast 340.

It’s also the way they do it in another Division III sport we cover: basketball. That was confirmed to us by a committee member recently.

But here in football, we have to ignore information such as the ranking of teams who are regionally ranked opponents. Apparently, it’s just not relevant. A data point we can’t consider.

So, our mock selection committee met Saturday evening to do what we always do: Try to project what the NCAA committee will do, given the same information. We choose four at-large teams. We bracket them using the rules the committee has to use.

And here we go.

• The selection show streams online (we will have a link on D3football.com) at 5:00 p.m. ET Sunday.

Here’s how the process works for the at-large bids. The committee traditionally will sit down with a board that includes the top at-large team from each regional ranking, comparing the six teams head-to-head, then select one to put in the field. The committee considers the usual criteria: results vs. Division III teams, strength of schedule, results vs. regionally ranked teams, head-to-head results and results vs. common opponents. As we get closer to the end of the process, though, the committee can consider non-Division III games as well. And with just four spots and more than twice as many candidates, expect every piece of data possible to be used.

But as long as “results” only means “win-loss record.” And as long as all regionally ranked teams are considered equal.

There is no Pool B bid this year, and only one Pool B-eligible team.

It’s a long process, coming up with regional rankings, then trying to pick four at-large teams. We spent a good amoung of time hashing this out in audio format, on a Twitter space. We would highly recommend listening here, as we won’t go through our process in quite as much detail here.

The committee will start with the top at-large team from each of the six regions on the board.

For the sake of time, we put in UW-Whitewater, who will definitely be picked as an at-large team. That’s because of the Warhawks’ strong resumes using the official Division III selection criteria of results against Division III opponents, Division III strength of schedule, results against regionally ranked opponents, head-to-head competition and results against common opponents.

Those are the only official criteria referenced. The D3football.com Top 25 is not considered. Nor is the AFCA Top 25.

When we get to the remaining three spots, we are considering the following teams: Salve Regina from Region 1, Union from Region 2, Berry from Region 3, Hope from Region 4, Wheaton from Region 5 and St. John’s from Region 6. Here’s how this group stacks up in the primary criteria of results against D-III opponents (condensed down to W-L), strength of schedule and results against regionally ranked opponents.

Of the teams now on the table, St. John’s has the highest SOS and the best result… excuse me, W-L record against regionally ranked opponents. St. John’s is the next pick in the field.

Next team up from Region 6 is Linfield. Board looks like this:

Things are getting more difficult, but we can eliminate a few teams. We can eliminate Linfield as the only team here without a win against a regionally ranked opponent. Of the teams that have two losses, we can eliminate Salve Regina with the much lower SOS. Of the 9-1 teams, we can eliminate Berry with the worst SOS.

Of the remaining 9-1 teams, we can eliminate Wheaton because Union has the better SOS, by a fairly comfortable margin. And then between Hope and Union, Union has the better results against regionally ranked opponents. Hey, if they say it’s just wins and losses, that’s what we’re going with, but even so, Union’s win is against a regional No. 1, while Hope’s is against the team we will be listing No. 6 in Region 5. Union gets in the field.

They are replaced by Muhlenberg. The board:

Here, Muhlenberg is better than Linfield among 1-loss teams with no wins against RRO. Hope is still the better 2-loss team than Salve Regina. Berry is the lowest SOS among 1-loss teams. And we’re left with Muhlenberg and Wheaton among 1-loss teams.

We don’t know what the value of a win against a regionally ranked opponent is, but in our estimation, it probably overcomes .023 of SOS. In addition, the committee absolutely knows that a .525 in a 10-team conference is pretty good. A conference with just one non-conference game never has the opportunity to rack up a .548 SOS, for all intents and purposes. Even John Carroll, who played Whitewater, only has a .535 SOS in the 10-team Ohio Athletic Conference.

Wheaton against Hope is a toss-up. But this committee has to have enough football people who understand that of course, nobody is beating North Central this year, so Wheaton’s loss there is no surprise. And although numbers say one thing, Wheaton’s schedule is definitely as good as, if not better than Hope.

We pick Wheaton. And that’s the proper choice.

Click to enlarge or tap to download if on mobile:

There are too many teams in the eastern part of the country to confine to a bracket or two, so we did what committees recently have done and created an eastern wing in some of our other brackets, with crossover at the quarterfinal level. This still hamstrings us in the UW-La Crosse bracket, where the Wheaton/St. John’s/UW-Whitewater/Bethel quadrant isn’t ideal, but then again, none of those teams is unbeaten and Whitewater beat St. John’s handily, while St. John’s beat Bethel handily. It looks terrible in terms of the names, but everyone other than Whitewater has a resume that has issues.

Here’s the set of regional rankings we worked with. This includes the ranked teams in each region, although the committee likely has more in reserve in case a region runs out of them.

Remember to keep an eye out for the official bracket announcement show. We’ll have it for you at 5 p.m. ET.