Tiers of a crown

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As Keith McMillan touched on his 2008 season review, I have a theory that tries to make sense of who beats whom during the Division III football season. Instead of thinking about the landscape in terms of regions or conferences, I break it into three tiers.

• Tier I are the elite teams who are likely to finish as national champion. This is a very small group.

• Tier II has great teams who will have great seasons. They will likely win their conference and usually go a couple rounds in the playoffs. But, unless everything breaks for them, they will not win a national championship.

Come playoff time, one or two Tier IIs will be upset by a Tier III. Most Tier IIs will knock each other off in the early playoff rounds or lose to a Tier I, often by 14+ points. If a Tier II team plays a tremendous game and Tier I team plays poorly, an upset is possible.

• Tier III teams are everyone else who makes the playoffs or just misses it. They are good teams and their accomplishments should not be diminished. But, unless they have a very favorable draw, they will be eliminated in the first two weeks of the playoffs. Tier III might beat Tier II if it plays a tremendous game, but the same Tier III is highly unlikely to do that twice in the same postseason. And they definitely don’t beat Tier I.

So why bring this up before teams even break training camp? Why worry think about the playoffs at all when there are hundreds of good stories to follow between now and the Stagg Bowl on December 19? Because the fun of this theory lies in predicting which teams go in which tiers and that changes every year, particularly for Tiers II and III. And that, like the Top 25 Poll released today, is a matter of debate.

Based on my preseason ballot, I’d break them down like this.

• Tier I: Mount Union, UW-Whitewater

Recent seasons make it easy to slot the Purple Raiders and Warhawks here and they stand alone.

• Tier II: Mary Hardin-Baylor, UW-Stevens Point, Hardin-Simmons

These teams could beat a Tier I if they play great and the Tier I stumbles. That’s what separates them from the teams in Tier III who aren’t beating Mount Union or UW-Whitewater. UW-Stevens Point is an easy choice since they return a lot from the team that beat UW-Whitewater last year. Mary Hardin-Baylor hasn’t gotten over the Warhawk hump, but they’ve been competitive. Since the games between teams at this level should be competitive, Hardin-Simmons gets the nod.

A couple more teams will rise to this level, like Wheaton, Wartburg and Willamette did last year. But the first two lose a lot on defense and the third a lot on offense. And if you ask me which teams could upset the two purple powerhouses — and that’s a requirement to be in this tier — right now it’s three’s company.

• Tier III: Everyone else in the Top 25 or receiving votes

This does not mean every other team will have the same level of success. And there will be some wonderful stories at this level that will help define the season ahead. But this is how I see the landscape now.

You know, given all the games that have been played. 🙂

Conference cost cutters

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Economic problems have not spared Division III member institutions. Financial struggles have claimed Colorado College and Blackburn football, are close to claiming UW-La Crosse baseball and are threatening Greensboro College entirely.

Note: Principia also discontinued football but has publicly stated finances were not the reason.

Against that backdrop, some conferences are taking measures to cut costs. The WIAC announced a Cost Reduction Plan especially targeted at cutting travel costs. Elements of the Plan include:

• Later start times to minimize hotel stays
• Conference playoffs limited to six teams
• Restricting teams to no more than one trip during the regular-season outside of an established regional perimeter.
• Exploring the feasibility of scheduling one additional WIAC football team as a nonconference game beginning with the 2011 season.

The Conference’s release cites $250,000 in direct budget savings associated with these moves, but it’s hard to spot exactly how it impacts football or basketball in 2009-2010. The men’s and women’s basketball tournaments were already at six teams last year. Conference Commissioner Gary Karner clarified that the regional perimeter is not defined by the administrative regions (west for football and men’s basketball; central for women’s basketball) so games against the CCIW, MIAC and MWC aren’t effected. The regional perimeter is also not defined by the very broad geographic region that stretches from Texas to California anyway. Of course, the WIAC is much more than three sports, so these actions may very well have a stronger impact elsewhere.

Nevertheless, this is a good move that seeks a conference-wide solution instead of leaving individual institutions to fend for themselves with whatever level of resources they have. Since all these public institutions have the same resource base (Wisconsin tax payers), equity is particularly important.

Members of the Centennial Conference are also working together to reduce costs. Executive Director Steve Ulrich reports that the Conference will limit the size of travel squads to the NCAA championship max plus 20 percent and change starting times to avoid overnight trips. Other measures will impact Conference championships in indoor track and field and golf. Two conference members also had a unique swim meet in which both teams were the home teams.

Football coming to George Fox?

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It’s looking like the quiet undercurrent of football at George Fox that has existed over the past several years is going to get a little louder after the school received a $1.2 million gift to help build a sports complex.

The school also referenced women’s lacrosse as a potential companion sport.

We had a really disappointing start to the offseason, with Blackburn and Principia dropping football, then Colorado College, in what remains a baffling decision, doing the same. But Stevenson, Pacific and Presentation plan to take the field in 2011, with Hendrix presumed to be joining them.

George Fox has been talking about football for a while. The concept appears to come up at Lynchburg on occasion. Southern Maine has explored football more than once in the past decade. It got discussed at Rochester Tech. And while the latter two don’t exactly need more enrollment, anywhere where enrollment is a concern will be a prime candidate for Division III football.

Even at Centenary (La.), where the school recently gave its notice it was leaving the Division I Summit League, could be headed for Division III and could add football.

There’s plenty to be happy about this offseason. Which only makes Colorado College more mind-boggling.