D3 Football Map

Started by FCGrizzliesGrad, September 12, 2019, 03:45:07 AM

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FCGrizzliesGrad

MAP

I was hoping to finish this before the season started but didn't make it. This is a map of every D3 football team. Each of the 4 regions has a different symbol, each conference a different color.
If you select a team, you'll get a link to their d3football page, athletic website, street view of the stadium (if available), and a street view of the campus. Street view is at the mercy of google so not every school is equal there.

A few things I noticed while doing this:
1) More schools than I expected play off campus. Some still walking distance away, some are miles away.
2) Lots of cemeteries either next to or across the street.
3) The size difference of campuses. Just knowing that some schools are well into the thousands while others are in the hundreds of students doesn't really sink in until seeing it. There's major universities that look like they'd rival D1 schools, and there's schools that if you didn't know where to look you'd never know it existed.

The map isn't perfect, I'd love to be able to choose individual conferences or schools to show but that wasn't an option. I only had 10 groups I could make so I split each region up and tried to minimize the overlap so if you only have one group selected you can easily see the geographic footprint of each conference.
Football picker extraordinaire
5 titles: CCIW, NJAC
4x: ODAC:S
3x: ASC, IIAC, MIAA:S, NACC:S, NCAC, OAC:P, Nat'l
2x: HCAC, MIAC, ODAC:P, WIAC
1x: Bracket, OAC:S

Basketball
2013 WIAC Pickem Co-champ
2015 Nat'l Pickem
2017: LEC and MIAA Pickem
2019: MIAA and WIAC Pickem

Soccer
2023: Mens Pickem

Bartman

Quote from: FCGrizzliesGrad on September 12, 2019, 03:45:07 AM
MAP

I was hoping to finish this before the season started but didn't make it. This is a map of every D3 football team. Each of the 4 regions has a different symbol, each conference a different color.
If you select a team, you'll get a link to their d3football page, athletic website, street view of the stadium (if available), and a street view of the campus. Street view is at the mercy of google so not every school is equal there.

A few things I noticed while doing this:
1) More schools than I expected play off campus. Some still walking distance away, some are miles away.
2) Lots of cemeteries either next to or across the street.
3) The size difference of campuses. Just knowing that some schools are well into the thousands while others are in the hundreds of students doesn't really sink in until seeing it. There's major universities that look like they'd rival D1 schools, and there's schools that if you didn't know where to look you'd never know it existed.

The map isn't perfect, I'd love to be able to choose individual conferences or schools to show but that wasn't an option. I only had 10 groups I could make so I split each region up and tried to minimize the overlap so if you only have one group selected you can easily see the geographic footprint of each conference.
GrizzliesGrad,
      What an awesome project....a tremendous amount of work on your part. Thanks for making the Liberty League one of the conferences, now I can see why I think  St.Lawrence  is too cold and too close to Canada...because it is. Interesting to take a map walk through the entire country. Thanks again for your work.
"I never graduated from Iowa, but I was only there for two terms - Truman's and Eisenhower's."
Alex Karras
"When it's third and ten, you can take the milk drinkers and I'll take the whiskey drinkers every time."
Max McGee
"I love football. I really love football, As far as I'm concerned, it's the second best thing in the world".
Joe Namath

Oline89

This is really informative, thanks for putting it together.  Brings up all kinds of questions.  For instance, how can Maine Maritime and Catholic possibly be in the same conference?

brewhawk

Wow that is an I,press I've project!  Thanks for putting this together.  Very interesting.
Pound The Rock!

ncc_fan

This is very cool!  I enjoyed exploring your map and clicking on specific schools.

Since you've included defunct, suspended & former D3 programs (Earlham, Frostburg,Thomas More), here are a few more for your skull & crossbones 'league':
Colorado College
Mississippi College
Swarthmore College

Teamski

Wesley College Football.... A Winning Tradition! A Coach Mike Drass Legacy.

Oline89

Quote from: FCGrizzliesGrad on September 12, 2019, 03:45:07 AM
MAP

I was hoping to finish this before the season started but didn't make it. This is a map of every D3 football team. Each of the 4 regions has a different symbol, each conference a different color.
If you select a team, you'll get a link to their d3football page, athletic website, street view of the stadium (if available), and a street view of the campus. Street view is at the mercy of google so not every school is equal there.

A few things I noticed while doing this:
1) More schools than I expected play off campus. Some still walking distance away, some are miles away.
2) Lots of cemeteries either next to or across the street.
3) The size difference of campuses. Just knowing that some schools are well into the thousands while others are in the hundreds of students doesn't really sink in until seeing it. There's major universities that look like they'd rival D1 schools, and there's schools that if you didn't know where to look you'd never know it existed.

The map isn't perfect, I'd love to be able to choose individual conferences or schools to show but that wasn't an option. I only had 10 groups I could make so I split each region up and tried to minimize the overlap so if you only have one group selected you can easily see the geographic footprint of each conference.

Keystone didn't make the map, I think they join the ECFC officially next season

Captainred81

This is fantastic... GREAT JOB!!!
Any W.I.N is a B.F.D

archgemini24

Biggest observation I can make is that the East Region is massive. 148 teams? No wonder that region looks and shakes out so differently each year.

North being the smallest seems just as odd, but because they are all so much closer the committee can shuffle them a bit to avoid conference rematches in the playoffs. I am sure UMHB gets annoyed at having to beat HSU (often another top-10 team) twice a year just get to the Quarterfinals.

This is awesome work.

FCGrizzliesGrad

Just to catch up on stuff...

Former teams I only went back 5 seasons. I could go back and add more later but it was already taking longer than expected and I needed a break. I will try to keep it updated each season with any future changes such as Keystone joining.

My original plan (and work) was to do a basketball map but there's far more schools in that and it's much harder to pinpoint which building houses the court compared to an outdoor field. Maybe next summer I'll go back to work on that.

East: 9 conferences and 74 teams
West: 7 conferences and 63 teams
South: 6 conferences and 56 teams
North: 6 conferences and 54 teams
If you wanted to balance the numbers (without regard to balancing the strength of each region) you could move the PAC to the north, and move the MAC and NJAC to the south to leave each region with 7 conferences and a span of 55-65 teams but the east would be incredibly weak compared to the other three (and that is also including the NESCAC in their numbers).

I've noticed there's 3 natural borders within the dense part of the map... One is along the New York-Pennsylvania border, one is in western Pennsylvania, and one runs through northwest Indiana and eastern Illinois.

Finlandia is a long way from anyone, but it's a reaaaaaaaaaaaly long way from the rest of the north region. I know they want to keep everyone in a conference in the same region, but they'd fit so much better in the west.
Football picker extraordinaire
5 titles: CCIW, NJAC
4x: ODAC:S
3x: ASC, IIAC, MIAA:S, NACC:S, NCAC, OAC:P, Nat'l
2x: HCAC, MIAC, ODAC:P, WIAC
1x: Bracket, OAC:S

Basketball
2013 WIAC Pickem Co-champ
2015 Nat'l Pickem
2017: LEC and MIAA Pickem
2019: MIAA and WIAC Pickem

Soccer
2023: Mens Pickem

Inkblot

Quote from: FCGrizzliesGrad on September 18, 2019, 02:39:03 PM
My original plan (and work) was to do a basketball map but there's far more schools in that and it's much harder to pinpoint which building houses the court compared to an outdoor field. Maybe next summer I'll go back to work on that.

I mapped them all in Google Earth a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how to transfer that to Google Maps.
Moderator of /r/CFB. https://inkblotsports.com. Twitter: @InkblotSports.

Inkblot

Moderator of /r/CFB. https://inkblotsports.com. Twitter: @InkblotSports.

SJSUPhil

I'm a college football buff and a geography buff, so your map has special meaning to me. Thank you very much for putting it together.  :)

FCGrizzliesGrad

I've updated the map to the new 6 regions, added Keystone, and moved several to the gone list.

If anyone knows of new stadium locations or changed websites for any team in the past couple years let me know and I'll get it updated
Football picker extraordinaire
5 titles: CCIW, NJAC
4x: ODAC:S
3x: ASC, IIAC, MIAA:S, NACC:S, NCAC, OAC:P, Nat'l
2x: HCAC, MIAC, ODAC:P, WIAC
1x: Bracket, OAC:S

Basketball
2013 WIAC Pickem Co-champ
2015 Nat'l Pickem
2017: LEC and MIAA Pickem
2019: MIAA and WIAC Pickem

Soccer
2023: Mens Pickem

crufootball

Quote from: FCGrizzliesGrad on August 10, 2021, 08:57:34 AM
I've updated the map to the new 6 regions, added Keystone, and moved several to the gone list.

If anyone knows of new stadium locations or changed websites for any team in the past couple years let me know and I'll get it updated

Haha love the skull and crossbones on the fomer D3 schools.