Around the Nation board

Started by Pat Coleman, September 22, 2005, 03:16:50 PM

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Ralph Turner

Quote from: Ron Boerger on June 18, 2013, 05:05:28 PM
I found it pretty interesting that Johns Hopkins posted complete copies of both Lindy's and Sporting News' D3 previews ... copyright, what's that?
Why do Lindy's and Sporting News want to enforce their copyrights against JHU?

Ron Boerger

Oh, I don't know, perhaps because anyone reading it for free courtesy of JHU probably now won't buy the special issues in question?

ADL70

As opposed to those who read for free courtesy the newsstand?  Do you think they expect to sell many copies for just the d3 content?
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Kira & Jaxon's Dad

ATN on a Sunday?  :)

Keith, MTU hasn't lost a Home opener since 1987, not 1997.  ;)
National Champions - 13: 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2015, 2017

Pat Coleman

Quote from: Kira & Jaxon's Dad on September 08, 2013, 08:47:12 PM
ATN on a Sunday?  :)

Keith, MTU hasn't lost a Home opener since 1987, not 1997.  ;)

The sentence says season opener, not home opener, though.
Publisher. Questions? Check our FAQ for D3f, D3h.
Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.

Kira & Jaxon's Dad

Quote from: Pat Coleman on September 09, 2013, 12:43:52 AM
Quote from: Kira & Jaxon's Dad on September 08, 2013, 08:47:12 PM
ATN on a Sunday?  :)

Keith, MTU hasn't lost a Home opener since 1987, not 1997.  ;)

The sentence says season opener, not home opener, though.

Haven't lost a "Season Opener" since 1987 also.
National Champions - 13: 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2015, 2017

K-Mack

It's just a typo everybody. The info was correct when I read it in Lenny's notes. Must have been lost somewhere between there and my fingers.
Former author, Around the Nation ('01-'13)
Managing Editor, Kickoff
Voter, Top 25/Play of the Week/Gagliardi Trophy/Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year
Nastradamus, Triple Take
and one of the two voices behind the sonic #d3fb nerdery that is the ATN Podcast.

AUPepBand

Pep just doesn't hit all the right threads on these boards. Just now learned the K-Mack is off to "greener pastures" of sorts. (If you're working at the Washington Post anywhere near the Obituaries Department, please give Pep's regards to Obit Editor Adam Bernstein, whom Pep met at an International Obituary Writers Conference in Las Vegas, NM back in 2004, when he missed Mayberry's Traffic Light Festival).

Pep has long appreciated Keith McMillan's contributions to this website in general, and, in particular, his personal visit to Merrill Field a few years back. Would love to see him at Merrill Field again someday, since there's a new home grandstand, new field turf, a "Li'l Alf" mascot roaming around, and King Alfred mounted on a fine white steed, ready to ride a victory jaunt with each AU touchdown...all new developments since his visit.

Pep wishes K-Mack all the best!

+K
On Saxon Warriors! On to Victory!
...Fight, fight for Alfred, A-L-F, R-E-D!

Bombers798891

Really liked your ATN discussion of the polling process. I do agree with Frank that there's not "zero" information to go on in a Week 0 poll, but I'm okay with moving teams significantly because current season data trumps returning starter, 2012 performance. I do think there needs to be more than just a loss/win, but a look at an underlying performance.

I brought up Salisbury on the E8 boards. They took a huge tumble out of the polls, but I was okay with it, not so much because of them losing but because a triple option team losing major components and then struggling to run the ball effectively would be a major red flag. There are underlying performances beyond the results that I think tell us important things.

I was curious though: How would you handle an injury? Let's say a pass-heavy team loses its starting AA QB to an injury. Does their ranking reflect the injury? Or do they retain the benefit of the doubt?

Pat Coleman

One of the things I think to keep in mind with an early poll is it can either validate or contradict your preseason notions. Whitewater is the great example this week -- there was some benefit of the doubt that the program that was in seven consecutive Stagg Bowls could get back to that level. Even though they came back and won, they scored SEVEN points in three quarters, and offense was the big issue last year in their struggles. If you thought UWW would bounce back, that game had to give you pause and any push you might have given them in the preseason had to be reconsidered.

Quote from: Bombers798891 on September 12, 2013, 12:02:50 PM
How would you handle an injury? Let's say a pass-heavy team loses its starting AA QB to an injury. Does their ranking reflect the injury? Or do they retain the benefit of the doubt?

For me, I might bump them down a few spots while the player is out if the team's on-field performance warrants it but I would remember how I thought about them and be willing to push the team back up faster if the first-teamer comes back and the team performs like it should.
Publisher. Questions? Check our FAQ for D3f, D3h.
Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.

smedindy

"Stability" is bunk because it bakes in pre-conceived notions that may be ill-advised or faulty. I see this happen in *other* polls where the confirmation bias is strong. We should avoid that, and I think this poll does for the most part.

You can do all the research and the forecasting you want, but sometimes teams just face plant, and others surprise. Get the face planters out of the way.

K-Mack

Quote from: smedindy on September 13, 2013, 05:41:22 PM
"Stability" is bunk because it bakes in pre-conceived notions that may be ill-advised or faulty. I see this happen in *other* polls where the confirmation bias is strong. We should avoid that, and I think this poll does for the most part.

You can do all the research and the forecasting you want, but sometimes teams just face plant, and others surprise. Get the face planters out of the way.

Yeah I don't think we should be beholden to any articificial confinements like "don't drop a team x number of spots in one week" or whatever. I think you rank the 25 best teams knowing what you know, and that can very well change the following week too.

One of the reasons it's not a perfect process (search the word "artscience" used on this board) is because it's hard to determine whether you're ranking the past or ranking what you project the future to be based on what has happened in the past.
Former author, Around the Nation ('01-'13)
Managing Editor, Kickoff
Voter, Top 25/Play of the Week/Gagliardi Trophy/Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year
Nastradamus, Triple Take
and one of the two voices behind the sonic #d3fb nerdery that is the ATN Podcast.

dahlby

The re-ranking article, within the NWC section, incorrectly referred to PSU
defeating Chapman.

bleedpurple

#2728
Not sure if this is a proper place to continue a podcast topic, but i'll give it a whirl. You guys touched on a topic on which I have an opinion that goes completely against the grain regarding a Conference tie-breaker to determine the Pool A NCAA bid. I will preface this by saying, I am an idealist when it comes to D3 football. Perhaps naively, I think the nature of D3 and its participants set it apart from the other divisions. We all know the types of things I mean: genuine student-athletes playing for the love of the game, sportsmanship, relationships among rival coaches that are not undercut by the continual threat of job loss, etc.   And best of all, all these positives (and there are many more), do not compromise the competitiveness in the Division in the least.

Two values that I hold dear drive my opinion behind the tie-breaker solution. I know these are not shared values, so I understand why nearly everyone disagrees with me.

The first value I will call, "The Sanctity of the Saturday". That simply means that we all have only so many College Football Saturdays in our life. They are very limited. And each one is special and meaningful for different reasons.  Having been born into a football coach's home, football saturdays were ingrained in heart and mind. They were simple, they were fun, they were fun, and at the end of the day, I was rooting for only one thing to happen. I wanted my team to win. If my team was 3-3 and we were hosting a 2-4 team, I was excited for us to win and stay ahead of them. A team doesn't have to be 10-0 for Saturdays to be special. One of the beautiful things about college football is that 100 guys ( or 75, pick the number) are all fighting together with ONE single goal. Win the game. Nothing else matters. If the team wins, the blunders of the game are simply stories the kids will have to tell years later.  In my opinion, anything that takes away from a football team having MORE than one goal detracts from football saturday.

The second value is sportsmanship. I think everyone knows what that is. In my opinion, any rule that would cause the value of sportsmanship to clash with a separate value is unacceptable.

For these reasons, the tie-breaker system that I would favor is:
1. head to head record between the teams
2. Determine the auto bid completely by chance.

I feel like the other tie-breakers I've seen are evaluations of data that were not on the radar of the 100 men who banded together to take the field on that Saturday. Point differential? Why impose a rule that would cause a team to get as many points as they can against a defeated foe when it could be a day that hard working back-ups could actually see the field?  Why put a coach into a position of having to choose between what is best for his players and his relationship with the other coach? I'm not saying it's a hard decision, I'm saying a coach should not be in that position in the first place. Number of Quarters led? Paying attention to that messes with the flow of a game.  Other coaches voting? That takes it off the field anyway, why give politics a chance to rear it's ugly head.

I have never heard an argument that has swayed me there is a better way to determine the Pool A bid for a conference that is superior to chance (if the head to head didn't sort it out).  I know players and coaches want to "earn it on the field".  But they didn't. Obviously, neither team went undefeated, unless of course they are part of the MWC and even I can't write a post long enough to address the stupidity of all that.  To me, to slice and dice "how games were won" after the fact takes away from "The Sanctity of Football Saturday".  To put coaches in a position of needing to "win by as many points as possible" goes against the value of sportsmanship.

"Rose Bowl Rule"? Don't like it. There are athletes on each team that were not the year before. Each team is different and should have equal access.

How about this for a tie-breaker:
1. Head to head records
2. A tournament pitting team captains in a game of paper, scissors, rock in a nearby Buffalo Wild Wings.  Both teams could fill the place and the event could be streamed online.  ;)

The only problem with this idea is that the players might actually WANT the tie.  :D

jknezek

With some help I went through the ODAC tiebreaker a few days ago. For football it starts with head to head. If there is a multi-way tie where one team did not defeat ALL the others tied, it goes to what the ODAC calls a 5 point system. With 8 teams in the league, there are 180 points available (5*8 + 5*7 + 5*6 and so on). Each team adds up the points they received for beating their opponents. The team with the most points wins. So if 3 teams are tied at the top, they split the total points for spots 1-3 and each team earns a share of those points for winning. It's a bit convoluted, but basically what it amounts to is you are rewarded for beating the top teams.

Sadly the converse is true. All other things being equal, of the the three tied at the top, the team that lost to the worst team will garner the most points. So you are either given the A bid because you beat the best of the conference, or you are given the A bid because you took the worst loss. You can choose how to look at it. But I thought it was an interesting alternative.

If the points are still tied between 2 or more of the teams, then it goes to point differential ONLY between the remaining contenders. If there are only 2 teams left, that actually can't be tied since we don't have ties in football anymore, however if those 3 or more are still tied then it goes to a Rose Bowl rule.

Pretty comprehensive, but the 5 point rule was kind of interesting.