TOP 25

[K-Mack]

I am not secure in the fact that after our losses to graduation we should be this high.

If it makes you feel any better, neither am I. 

[USee]

In the CCIW pickem's we have a good bonus question for this weeks games.

"Who will be ranked higher in the D3.com poll after this weeks games? #5 Bethel, #15 NCC, #16 ONU or #17 Wheaton. Of course it depends on who you think will win but it poses a number of interesting questions, not all of which are tied to the results of these games.

There will be extra pressure on the voters to "get it right" this week!!  8)

[Ralph Turner]

Look at the "upsets"!

Wartburg beat Central 19-17.

SJU fell to the Cobbers!

Carleton beat Bethel!

[K-Mack]

To whom it may interest:

This is a discussion pulled from the Empire 8 board mid-week and something I felt like moving here to loop in more people beyond one conference, since it's largely a philosophical discussion.

And as we all can agree on in D3, polls are just polls, or an accurate an approximation as possible of who the most accomplished 25 teams are. I am glad they do not have a hand in the playoffs, I agonize over my weekly ballots enough as it is.

did anybody read keith's around the nation piece this week?
gave a little slam to fisher about why "this Year" 's team was rated so high.
well keith---it is only the second game of the season for everybody and all teams are trying to get themselves together.
Will they live up to the ranking---as you said it will determine itself in the coming weeks--- but why not throw a few barbs in other directions.
not trying to complain- but that barb could be said about anybody--------well minus MUC

I guess I didn't read it like that. I've always thought that polls should be put out no earlier than after the 4th week of the season. Obviously, Fisher is talented, but, much like many other teams, I think much of the rankings are based of of last season, which is, of course, irrelevant.

I think the reason he brought up Fisher specifically, is because his ranking for them is much lower than

A) Other rankings
B) Many people's general belief on Fisher

And so he wrote that line specifically as a pre-emptive answer to the question "Why is Fisher not in the Top 25 when they're ranked in the Top 15 in the .com poll and three of their last four losses have been to Mt. Union?"

Early season  Top 25 rankings are pointless for two reasons

1) It's too early to get a feel on anyone
2) Rankings don't determine playoff status anyway

SJF will be there when the season ends (Or, more specifically, when Hartwick, Ithaca and Sailsbury have come through) so I wouldn't worry about "barbs" being thrown out

bombers--- i understand what you are saying.
however the same could be said about many other teams- thats all

ddnt mean to look too much into it----i like seeing fisher named in a national conversation-- just want it all roses!

I'm not going to officially speak for Keith on this because I don't have nearly enough knowledge to do so, but I think you can also make a distinction as follows: when he says "this year's St. John Fisher team" it's not only what the players on the field have done in 2008 but it may also encompass what the 2008 players have done in previous years.

In the grand scheme of things, yes, not many teams have accomplished anything in 2008 aside from MUC, UWW, UMHB, etc. But every team has players from 2007 and earlier on it. What did those players accomplish in 2007 and earlier, or, how much did they contribute to the team's earlier success? In the preseason, that's what we have to go on -- who's back and what have they done? If Keith doesn't feel the players on this year's team have shown him much then that may be why he said what he said.

I'll flag him down for you and see if he has time to come by and elaborate.

again--Pat im not trying to make a big deal out of this---but again many teams havent shown much and have had personnell changes----just saw the alma mater there and cringed.
thats all
keith isnt out of bounds---nor am i

I think you could probably take it the other way too though.  He needed an example of a team who maybe has hit a level he's looking for yet, and used SJFC as an example not to slam them but because people in Texas, Califfornia, Oregon, Iowa, etc would recognize their success in the past few seasons on a national level.

agreed realistic.

OK,
 So you guys hit on a couple of things, one being a pre-emptive note to why is SJF not yet on my particular ballot when most everyone else clearly has them pretty high. Also, in context with what I wrote about North Central, Millsaps and St. John's, it's meant to show the range of variation in early season ballots.

 Specifically with St. John Fisher, it goes back to my style of preseason voting. I try to make my first ballot more than just a rehash of last season's playoff results and/or top 25, and that involves some projecting. I try to have a reason, any reason, to slot teams where I slot them. In the preseason that involves quite a bit of leaning on the number of returning starters and the significance of said starters.

In the preseason, voters have access to a spreadsheet that breaks down, among many other things, returning starters by position. The numbers on SJF were 4 offense/5 defense/2 specialists at that point, though it later ballooned to 7/7 by the time kickoff was published, which is quite the discrepancy. But the first time we voted between kickoff being released (after the preseason poll) was following the Week 1 games. So by then I'm going less of the returning starter data and more off of a 33-3 loss in Week 1.

Obviously they played Mount Union so you can't read too far into the loss itself, but 33-17 would've been a lot more impressive than 33-3, or 10-3 in the fourth and it got out of hand late to be 33. But it wasn't that, it was 33-0 in the third.

So granted a small sample size, but not anything that would vault SJF into the top 25 if I didn't already have them there based on my preseason vote. I didn't drop them either though. And the Week 2 result was just enough to keep them where they were.

I think with the games they have coming up, that's when we'll get the clarity on SJF and in the meantime it's not wise to push them too far up or down unless I had reason to downgrade a bunch of teams I was less impressed with or vice versa.

So it's sort of a wait-and-see for me until I get a reason to get excited about this year's team.

Perhaps if the original vote of keeping them on the fringe was based off the 4/5 number and not 7/7 I should reconsider it entirely, however what's happened since then hasn't exactly convinced me that mid-20s isn't the right spot for them right now.

So that's my story with that.

As for the logic of leaning heavily on number of returning starters and also key starters lost, I didn't rank Central in the first poll either, as they lost a star QB and RB (kind of like SJF) and a lot of key players. St. John's lost a star QB and I had them in the teeens when a lot of people have them in the single digits.

After today I look really smart for doing that, but that logic is also the same logic that had me placing Wesley and Missisippi College way high (many starters back, star QB in the Choctaws' case, 5 A-As in the wolverines' case, I believe).

So no system is really foolproof because the results are going to mess with your ballot one way or another.

But if you want to discuss the validity of the logic, I am willing to listen.

[retagent]

It's pretty much a crapshoot, especially this early in the season. Then there's matchups and rivalries. The Concordia victory over St John's is a good case in point. Surely the Johnnies will drop in the polls, as well they should, but these two teams have regularly played tough, close games - last year being the exception. SJU outgained the Cobbers 307 - 183 and otherwise won the statistical battle, except for turnovers and otherwise uncharacteristic sloppy play. The unsettled situation at QB also contriutes to the inconsistency, and makes it more difficult to tell what SJU will be in a few weeks. Time will tell, and it looks like an interesting year in the West, and from what little I've seen pretty much all over. It also makes for an interesting discussion about rankings, which may be the point of having ratings in the first place.

[Ralph Turner]

As part of the South Region Fan Poll (and borrowing from the East Region and continuing Matt Barnhart's tradition), I have listed the votes, so the fans can see where the voters have voted.  It would be cumbersome to do all 25 in the Top 25, but it would give us an idea of the breadth of support that a team might have.

As you look at last week's South Region, the big question was, "who's 3rd?"  We had 4 teams within 6 votes of each other.

I am sure that that degree of introspection goes into ".com Top 25" as well and we can see how this week's South Region Poll "shakes out".

I agree that it is early, but Fans want to see Polls. 

The amazing thing that I can take from this early season is that Pool C appears to be wide open.  From a Pool C perspective, the MIAC and IIAC are wide open.  The Centennial looks strong.  HSU has a chance at A or C. What's happening in the CCIW and OAC.  Is the bigger NJAC morelikely to be a 2 Pool C bid conference?  Trinity-Millsaps looks like a Pool A-C game.  I think that we must pencil in two Pool C's who have lost their Pool A bids to Cinderellas. 

The early message, once again, is "Leave not doubt".

[K-Mack]

Agreed ret and Ralph.

Regarding the newest poll, Ralph, isn't this where you point out the difference between, say, No. 24 and 25 by highlighting the difference in points?

The whole SJF spiel is less relevant now because they move into the top 25 (mine anyway) pretty easily this week given who lost.

I think Willamette gets help by association with Concordia-Moorhead (Bearcats beat Cobbers in Week 1)

[Ralph Turner]

...
Regarding the newest poll, Ralph, isn't this where you point out the difference between, say, No. 24 and 25 by highlighting the difference in points?

The whole SJF spiel is less relevant now because they move into the top 25 (mine anyway) pretty easily this week given who lost.

I think Willamette gets help by association with Concordia-Moorhead (Bearcats beat Cobbers in Week 1)

Look how close the teams cluster in the bottom half of the poll!

10  EauClaire  349 votes
11 -SJF            340 votes ("Perfect #12 is 350 votes in the Perfect Top 25).

12 Wesley 289     
13 W&J      274       (275 Votes is a perfect #15)
14  Franklin  248    (250 Votes is a perfect #16)
15  CWRU     235
16  Ithaca     224    (225 Votes is a perfect #17)
17  Cortland   205  (200 Votes is a perfect #18)
18  SJU           196
19  Millsaps     185
20  Redlands   176  175 Votes is perfect #19)
21  Trinity        156  (150 Votes is a "perfect #20")
22  Wartburg   144
23 Central       129
24  HSU           122  (125 votes is "perfect #21")

This tells me that the voters have a good idea about the 11 teams who should be ranked in the 7 slots at #15 thru #21.

We will now watch the best teams solidify their positions.   

[Foss]

Random note: Willamette's 38 points is the lowest number of points for any team ranked in the top 25 since the D3football.com poll's inception.

[Pat Coleman]

Ah hah, someone read our news release.

[Foss]

Pat, believe it or not I haven't yet. Embarrassing to say but I had too much time on my hands tonight and looked through all the previous polls. Which release are you referring to? Wish I would have read it first, would have saved me a lot of time. 

[Pat Coleman]

It's what I send to the schools, papers and wire services. I figured you'd read it on someone's site, sorry.

All the football polls are in the database era so I was just able to pull out all the No. 25s and sort them by fewest to most points.

[Mr. Ypsi]

It's what I send to the schools, papers and wire services. I figured you'd read it on someone's site, sorry.

All the football polls are in the database era so I was just able to pull out all the No. 25s and sort them by fewest to most points.

Which leads to the inevitable question: what's the greatest number of points it has ever taken to crack the top 25?

[Mr. Ypsi]

The only real 'head scratcher' I saw this week was Wabash 'monkey-stomping' Chicago, yet getting passed by two teams.  Salisbury was not a shock, since their victim, Christopher Newport, had received 36 points in the previous poll, but I was quite surprised that Wheaton also jumped them.  Wheaton did a number on CUW, but their big jump the previous week was for beating then-#5 Bethel, which now seems a bit less impressive than it did then.  Did voters receive tape of the Wabash/Wheaton scrimmage, and the Thunder 'won'?

[Pat Coleman]

It's what I send to the schools, papers and wire services. I figured you'd read it on someone's site, sorry.

All the football polls are in the database era so I was just able to pull out all the No. 25s and sort them by fewest to most points.

Which leads to the inevitable question: what's the greatest number of points it has ever taken to crack the top 25?

Not surprisingly, since there is little consensus in July, it's a preseason poll, where it would've taken 128 to match Johns Hopkins at 25 in 2004. Among regular season polls it's the 103 that JHU got the next week.