Triple Take: Half off in Round 2

Posted on November 24, 2011 by ryantipps

Delaware Valley is one of this week’s toss-up games, where our picks don’t agree.
Delaware Valley athletics photo

The field of 32 has become a more elite group of 16. Last week, several games were decided by 10 points or less. How many of those met your expectations?

The first week fell mostly according to form, and no three-game sweeps were wrong. And few games were outside of the general range of scores that we predicted: Projected blowouts were often just that, and narrow projections often came down to the wire.

So we’ll walk you through our predictions again for Round 2. We’re soon wrapping up the November games and moving closer to the Division III championship Stagg Bowl on Dec. 16.

Remember, these postseason Triple Take predictions are not intended to be lines on the games, but rather a broad test of expectations vs. outcome.

If you’re feeling prescient, leave your final score guesses for any or all games below, and be sure to come back afterward to see how you did. There’ll be a live blog running here on The Daily Dose during Saturday’s games, and all tweets with hashtag #d3fb are included.

For more info on the 32-team race to Salem, including the brackets, info on each team and feature stories, check our playoffs home page.

UW-Whitewater Bracket
Ryan’s take: UW-Whitewater 42, Franklin 7
Keith’s take: UW-Whitewater 35, Franklin 14
Pat’s take: UW-Whitewater 45, Franklin 10

Ryan’s take: Salisbury 38, Kean 24
Keith’s take: Salisbury 35, Kean 21
Pat’s take: Salisbury 35, Kean 17

Delaware Valley Bracket
Ryan’s take: St. Thomas 49, Monmouth 27
Keith’s take: St. Thomas 27, Monmouth 21
Pat’s take: St. Thomas 45, Monmouth 24

Ryan’s take: Delaware Valley 38, St. John Fisher 21
Keith’s take: Delaware Valley 20, St. John Fisher 10
Pat’s take: St. John Fisher 24, Delaware Valley 21

Mary Hardin-Baylor Bracket
Ryan’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 35, McMurry 24
Keith’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 38, McMurry 23
Pat’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 35, McMurry 24

Ryan’s take: Wesley 28, Linfield 27
Keith’s take: Linfield 24, Wesley 20
Pat’s take: Linfield 35, Wesley 34

Mount Union Bracket
Ryan’s take: Wabash 24, North Central 21
Keith’s take: North Central 28, Wabash 20
Pat’s take: North Central 31, Wabash 20

Ryan’s take: Mount Union 41, Centre 14
Keith’s take: Mount Union 42, Centre 17
Pat’s take: Mount Union 50, Centre 13

Triple Take: Chomping into Round 1

Posted on November 18, 2011 by ryantipps

Will Kean win in its first-ever playoff game? Our crew says …
Kean athletics photo

You’ve probably been reading all week about the uniqueness of this year’s playoff setup, with a spread-out bracket, a team with two Division III losses getting an at-large bid and some likeable and loatheable pairings. You’ve heard large amounts of analysis and predictions — some of which will come true and others that won’t.

But you’re still hungry for more, right?

From now until the third weekend in December, Pat Coleman, Keith McMillan and Ryan Tipps will not only pick the winners of games, but we’ll also project the scores. It’s a transparent test of our perceptions week in and week out. (And we each make our picks independently.)

These postseason Triple Take predictions are not intended to be lines on the games, but rather a broad test of expectations vs. outcome.

How does this work?

First, look at the scoring margin. If they are predicted to be a close game, we think the teams are evenly matched.
Second, look at the winners. If it’s a three-man sweep, we think there’s a clear favorite. If it’s a split decision, it’s definitely a toss-up.
Third, look at the total points. If most of us predict a lot of points, you can expect a shootout. Weather permitting, of course.

It’s not a competition between the three of us, so we have no stake in being right — we’d rather see you show off your smarts in the bracket challenge. Ryan, Keith and Pat aren’t keeping score, but usually the first weekend, each picks between 10 and 14 correct winners, often in the ballpark of the actual final. That means these Triple Take picks set the expectation, but we know at least a few teams will surprise us in the opening round. Will it be yours?

If you don’t feel your team is getting enough love, rather than complain, explain to us in the comments section below why they’re going to win. And if you’re feeling prescient, leave your final score guesses for any or all games below, and be sure to come back afterward to see how you did. There’ll be a live blog running here on The Daily Dose during Saturday’s games, and all tweets with hashtag #d3fb are included.

For more info on the 32-team race to Salem, including the brackets, info on each team and feature stories, check our playoffs home page.

UW-Whitewater Bracket
Ryan’s take: UW-Whitewater 52, Albion 10
Keith’s take: UW-Whitewater 49, Albion 7
Pat’s take: UW-Whitewater 54, Albion 6

Ryan’s take: Thomas More 33, Franklin 30
Keith’s take: Franklin 35, Thomas More 21
Pat’s take: Thomas More 34, Franklin 28

Ryan’s take: Kean 31, Christopher Newport 20
Keith’s take: Kean 22, Christopher Newport 12
Pat’s take: Kean 27, Christopher Newport 13

Ryan’s take: Salisbury 49, Western New England 7
Keith’s take: Salisbury 56, Western New England 14
Pat’s take: Salisbury 62, Western New England 7

Delaware Valley Bracket
Ryan’s take: St. Thomas 38, St. Scholastica 10
Keith’s take: St. Thomas 49, St. Scholastica 0
Pat’s take: St. Thomas 70, St. Scholastica 8

Ryan’s take: Illinois Wesleyan 27, Monmouth 20
Keith’s take: Illinois Wesleyan 35, Monmouth 33
Pat’s take: Monmouth 27, Illinois Wesleyan 24

Ryan’s take: St. John Fisher 28, Johns Hopkins 23
Keith’s take: Johns Hopkins 35, St. John Fisher 21
Pat’s take: St. John Fisher 28, Johns Hopkins 24

Ryan’s take: Delaware Valley 38, Norwich 7
Keith’s take: Delaware Valley 28, Norwich 9
Pat’s take: Delaware Valley 49, Norwich 6

Mary Hardin-Baylor Bracket
Ryan’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 42, Redlands 17
Keith’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 35, Redlands 24
Pat’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 56, Redlands 21

Ryan’s take: McMurry 45, Trinity 13
Keith’s take: McMurry 24, Trinity 17
Pat’s take: McMurry 35, Trinity 21

Ryan’s take: Cal Lutheran 38, Linfield 35
Keith’s take: Linfield 28, Cal Lutheran 24
Pat’s take: Linfield 42, Cal Lutheran 37

Ryan’s take: Wesley 42, Hobart 10
Keith’s take: Wesley 35, Hobart 17
Pat’s take: Wesley 40, Hobart 13

Mount Union Bracket
Ryan’s take: Wabash 45, Illinois College 17
Keith’s take: Wabash 30, Illinois College 16
Pat’s take: Wabash 38, Illinois College 3

Ryan’s take: North Central 33, Dubuque 13
Keith’s take: North Central 38, Dubuque 35
Pat’s take: North Central 54, Dubuque 28

Ryan’s take: Hampden-Sydney 42, Centre 38
Keith’s take: Centre 37, Hampden-Sydney 35
Pat’s take: Centre 27, Hampden-Sydney 21

Ryan’s take: Mount Union 63, Benedictine 3
Keith’s take: Mount Union 49, Benedictine 0
Pat’s take: Mount Union 56, Benedictine 6

Triple Take: Enter Rivalry Week

Posted on November 11, 2011 by ryantipps

Joe Wojceichowski and the Widener defense will try to shut down Delaware Valley.
Widener athletics photo

The intensity of rivalries is virtually unmatched. The players become more focused, the crowd more vibrant. Alumni flood to stadiums, and memories are dredged up. A win against a rival opponent can rescue an otherwise sour season. And it makes Saturday night celebrations so much sweeter.

Across the country, rivalries will be taking place Saturday as the regular season comes to a close and the playoff prowess in a few remaining conferences shakes out.

Pat Coleman, Keith McMillan and Ryan Tipps walk you through the action, with Selection Sunday right on the horizon.

Game of the Week.
Ryan’s take: Huntingdon at No. 7 Wesley. It’s been a couple of years now since the Wolverines were in a position in which losing the regular season finale would likely mean no playoff performance. But there are question marks for Saturday. Wesley’s loss to Kean earlier in the year made perfection necessary for the final eight games of the season. And Huntingdon won’t be a pushover. The Hawks have already dealt losses to teams that currently stand at 8-1 and 7-2. Could a team like Wesley, which has been to the national semifinals each of the past two seasons, get left out in the cold entirely? Their performance Saturday will be telling.
Keith’s take: Wherever you’re headed. The other guys nail the games with the farthest-rippling playoff implications. So I’ll go ahead and cop out, under the premise that there’s no need to single out a game when we have five conference championships decided (NEFC, NJAC, MAC, LL and NWC), rivalry games from Indiana to Massachusetts to Virginia — and Iowa and Pennsylvania — that make or break seasons. And beyond that, it’s Week 11 — the last game of the season for all but 32 playoff teams and 14 ECAC bowl-bound squads. Hundreds of seniors will hang it up after this. Parents will see their son play one last time, and tailgate grills will make a final appearance before heading into the garage for offseason storage. So I’ll play the Jon Gruden “everything’s awesome” role. Because, you know, it is.
Pat’s take: Widener at No. 11 Delaware Valley. Literally, you can’t do a playoff projection without the result of this game, and there are a lot of factors. Let’s see, Delaware Valley has this tremendously backloaded schedule, with Lycoming and Widener at the end. The Aggies haven’t looked very much like the young team that they are this season. Widener surprised Delaware Valley last year and sent them on a course for Mount Union in the second round, so the rivalry got amped up a little higher and Delaware Valley has even more motivation. But what could be more motivating than the only chance Widener has to get a playoff bid?

Surprisingly close game.
Ryan’s take: No. 12 Johns Hopkins at McDaniel. Part of the motivation here is seeing JHU almost drop their matchup against Franklin and Marshall last week, a team that should have been handled easily by the high-powered Blue Jays. However, what makes McDaniel a thinker in this situation is its track record this year: of the Green Terror’s seven losses, five were by eight points or less. McDaniel hasn’t really been able to bring all the pieces together to get wins, but the team has been able to hang around long enough to make it interesting. This Saturday’s game will be interesting, too.
Keith’s take: Trine at Albion. Maybe surprising only in the sense that the Britons are playoff-bound no matter the outcome, and Trine — the dominant MIAA program of the past few seasons picked up two conferences losses by mid-October. But I’m not sure I expect Albion to win, observing from afar. After an impressive five-game stretch, the Britons outgained DePauw 380-126 last week but managed just three points. Trine is the MIAA’s top rush offense (179 yards/game) and Albion is the top rush defense (96 yards). Should be a fun one.
Pat’s take: UW-La Crosse at No. 1 UW-Whitewater. UW-La Crosse gave UW-Whitewater a decent game in the season opener. It’s not likely to be the same close game it was in September, but it will be interesting to see how the teams have grown since Week 1 … not to mention how Whitewater might do if it needed to use Levell Coppage in the fourth quarter.

Most likely Top 25 team to get upset.
Ryan’s take: No. 18 Franklin. Over the past four weeks, the Grizzlies have progressively played their way through the bottom four teams in the HCAC, starting with 4-5 Rose-Hulman and ending with 0-9 Earlham. So how will they react to all of sudden having to play a more competitive team again? Franklin is unquestionably the better team in this matchup, but Hanover’s advantage is being able to push Franklin enough to throw the Grizzlies off their game. This is a rivalry game, too, played for the Victory Bell. Hanover will be well aware of the fact that this is the last game of their season, win or lose. The Panthers will surely want to win.
Keith’s take: No. 9 Wabash. Just kidding Little Giants fans. Admit it, you got mad there for a second. No. 22 Bethel is my real pick. And with the 10th best rushing offense in the country at 279 yards a game, and with the No. 14 total defense, the Royals probably are just an unfortunate version of the team that played in a national semifinal last season. That said, it’s not easy to force yourself to play just for pride, and that appears to be all the Royals have left when they face 6-3 Augsburg in the Metrodome. Bethel and Augsburg had similar results against St. Thomas and St. Olaf, but only the Royals have to realize there’s no long playoff run ahead this year, just a long football-free December like most of are used to, and turning that into positive motivation.
Pat’s take: No. 13 Redlands. Last year, Redlands barely beat Chapman, finishing 8-1. The previous two years, Redlands lost in Week 11 to finish 7-2 each season and miss out on any shot at the playoffs. Not going to say any more.

They’ll be on your radar.
Ryan’s take: Muhlenberg. A win in the Mules’ crosstown rivalry game against Moravian would position them well for an ECAC postseason game. Muhlenberg stumbled a couple of times during the season but showed they could compete with the likes of Delaware Valley and Johns Hopkins. The team’s seniors certainly remember the special run the Mules had during their freshman year, and they’ll certainly be eager to channel that energy again.
Keith’s take: UW-Platteville. If the Pioneers can beat UW-Stevens Point for a second time, they’ll finish 7-3 and go down as the best team not to beat anybody great, but to only lose to really good teams. The three losses are to Wheaton, UW-Whitewater and UW-Oshkosh, which are 22-5 combined. A seventh win would also eclipse the best record of the D3football.com era, a 6-4 mark in 2004.
Pat’s take: UW-River Falls. The Falcons started the season 0-8, but had two close losses at home, then won at UW-La Crosse last week to snap the losing streak. River Falls returns home this week to face UW-Eau Claire.

Rivalry game you’re most interested in (alma maters excluded).
Ryan’s take: Amherst at Williams. No matter what, this is the end of the road for both of these teams, which opt not to compete in the playoffs. So at stake is pride: the Ephs’ pride in keeping Amherst from an undefeated 2011 season; the Lord Jeffs’ pride in avenging last year’s loss. If you don’t know the history between these two schools, look it up. It’s unlikely that any two institutions have claim to a more natural rivalry than these two. And it’s rare for them to produce anything but a captivating game.
Keith’s take: Coe at Cornell. Okay, you can get Curt Menefee to pose in a “beat Cornell” shirt. Probably could get Fred Jackson too. But as long as I’ve been writing rivalry stories, I’ve never been able to say anything about this game but that they’ve played it for a long time (121 and counting). Am I just not talking to the right people? The two teams have followed each other from the MWC to the IIAC and are going their separate ways as Cornell heads back to the MWC, but I’m interested in whether fans in Iowa really care about this rivalry.
Pat’s take: No. 14 Kean at No. 15 Montclair State. Okay, so it won’t appear on too many lists of great rivalries but I’m going to go ahead and pick it here because there should be plenty of bad blood … or blood, anyway … to go with what’s on the line in this game, for the NJAC title. Kean coach Dan Garrett and both of his coordinators played at Montclair, which is just 18 miles from Kean, in northern New Jersey.

Who will have the least momentum going into the playoffs?
Ryan’s take: Albion. The Britons have to be scratching their heads after last weekend’s loss to DePauw and should have spent this week learning how to once again become in tune with their offensive mojo. Even though Trine doesn’t have the luster of the last couple of seasons, the team still knows how to force turnovers and run the ball down its opponent’s throat. Albion knows how to handle the run — usually — and the ability to stop that will help them with their confidence going into the playoffs. However, it won’t be a surprise if Albion is an eighth seed in the region, which wouldn’t be doing them any favors. The mental hurdle will be as tough as the physical one.
Keith’s take: St. Thomas. They’re 10-0, sure. But they don’t have a game this Saturday. So I guess it depends how you define momentum.
Pat’s take: Thomas More. Regardless of whether Thomas More wins this week or not, the Saints are already back on their heels after the loss to Waynesburg. Thomas More went solely from being a heavy favorite to being a favorite against Mount St. Joseph in their local rivalry game, but either way, the damage has been done.

Which team can alter its fortunes the most?
Ryan’s take: Lewis and Clark. The question isn’t which team “will,” but rather which team “can.” And the Pioneers certainly can. A win at Linfield puts L&C — a team just three seasons removed from a long string of 0- and 1-win seasons — in the playoffs. On the flip side, a loss for the Pioneers means they’ll be sitting at home next week.
Keith’s take: Hampden-Sydney. Besides Widener and the other teams that can play their way into the playoffs with wins, H-SC could change course the most on Saturday. A win over 7-2 Randolph-Macon continues the Tigers’ dominance in the series and gives them an advantage in recruiting. A loss could mean the difference between a home playoff game against somebody like Christopher Newport, Centre or Thomas More, or a road game at Salisbury, Wesley or Johns Hopkins.
Pat’s take: Trinity (Texas). Not sure it’s in a positive way, however. Austin has to be motivated to not finish the season 0-10. The Kangaroos have been fairly decent at home while the Tigers have struggled a little bit on the road.