http://www.d3football.com/notables/2012/02/nefc-splits
Interesting article on d3football.com. Unfortunately, It appears that Pool C will be shrinking by one slot to accomodate the new conference. Looks like the two conferences will provide 7 and 8 seeds year in and year out while a strong WIAC, OAC, or CCIW team stays home!!!
I saw that also. I don't think that is a good thing, unless you expand the # of play-off teams by eight and give the #1 seed in each region a fisrt round bye.
From a strict football standpoint, I think it varies from year to year as conferences as a whole typically have up and down periods. From an NCAA D3 perspective, this is what D3 is about, giving everyone access to a championship. While the "power" conferences might not like it, the system is set up where everyone has a shot at the playoffs. If you want in, win the conference and get the pool A slot. You can't fault conferences from using the rules to their advantage.
Good post. While I realize there are some of our colleagues here who, in one sense, do not like the current arrangement in that some weaker conference teams get in by winning their league title and thus the AQ because people want to have the strongest teams in the playoffs. Yet, I guess that kind of takes care of itself anyway as those teams are obviously weeded out as the playoffs progress each week. The other side of the arguement, as you well point out, is that every school (except the independents, of course) have a shot at the playoffs, thereby providing a potential (albeit rare obviously) opporunity for some team to have a "cinderlla" venture through the playoffs and maybe, just maybe get lucky and win the entire thing. Kind of like in the NCAA basketball tourneys now at all three levels where many of the various conferences have their conference tourneys at the end of the regular season and some team that is perhaps quite good, but missed the title by a game or so, has the chance to get in. Of course, there are two sides/opinions as to that venue. Anyway, for DIII football, despite some glitches at times as many have discussed, the current system works best (at least for now! 
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This is a great post, but IMHO if we are going to have a national championship with only 32 entries-then the teams allowed in should be the top 32. Of course, I guess we can never please everyone, yet I have a hard time with a conference getting an AQ whose champion can't beat the last place team in another conference. We can agree to disagree on this point as we seem to go round and round this issue on the boards every season.
I don't disagree with you new, I would love for the playoffs to be the best 32 teams. For decent teams in good conferences I'm sure it's infuriating. Unfortunately, the NCAA doesn't see it that way, and the membership of D3 submits to its "leadership." Besides, my feeling is that most D3 presidents and boards think that the automatic qualifier gives the most students the best chance of post-season participation or are indifferent to how the NCAA handles it. Unfortunately from a competition standpoint, everyone's access to the playoffs is a key component to the D3 post season concept.
The schools from the weaker conferences pay their dues to the NCAA, just like the schools from the stronger conferences. And the NCAA has always put its emphasis upon equal access to post-season competition. It's not just D3 that operates that way. Next month is March Madness, in which everyone and his grandmother will fill out a few dozen tourney brackets and pay close attention to how they're doing in the D1 basketball tournament. Do you really think that the teams that you see in the brackets whose names you don't recognize -- teams like Texas-San Antonio, Long Island, Morehead State, and Hampton -- are among the 65 best basketball teams in Division One? They're in March Madness because the NCAA, on the D1 level as well as the D2 and D3 levels, puts equal access to national tournaments above all other concerns.
It's a central point of emphasis, and it isn't going to change. So there's no sense at all in grousing about, say, the UMAC or the NAthC getting a team into the D3 football tourney when the CCIW or the OAC or the WIAC really deserves a shot at an extra at-large slot.
