Quote from: hazzben on September 15, 2025, 05:02:25 PMThose defensive stats don't bode well for either team when it comes to winning a conference title or making a playoff run. I don't care how good the other offense is ...

UW-River Falls had the 16th worst returning production figure for their defense. They're both inexperienced, but it'll be tough sledding making the playoffs for either if they don't improve on that side of the ball quickly.

I get it that UWRF is probably a pretty good offense, but I couldn't help but think of this as I was watching the score tick ever higher in that game:

Quote from: HansenRatings on September 02, 2025, 01:57:16 PMCoe's numbers went down quite a bit, and not just because of their QB's class year being misclassified in their NCAA roster. They also had a good deal of non-graduation roster losses on defense (maybe those guys had their class year entered incorrectly, too?). Coe's a team that has really hung their hat on defense lately, and they rank 237 out of 239 teams in returning defensive production. There's no way around it, they're going to have some major growing pains on that side of the ball.

I doubt Coe's 2024 defense gives up 700 yards of offense to River Falls.

Quote from: Schipper Strong on September 11, 2025, 06:29:17 PMwhen you are playing a team that is notorious for stopping the run and you are better at passing anyway, I just don't get it.

I love it when opponents try to "establish the run" against Wartburg. It never works. It's a terrible strategy. If a team is built for it, the Simpson game plan from last year (they threw the ball 66 times) is going to probably be your best bet. Central always seems to go into the Wartburg game with the plan to stay balanced, it doesn't work, and then by the 4th quarter they don't call a single designed run play. Coe does the same thing, and they're just stubborn enough to stick with the run game.

Quote from: Gregory Sager on September 11, 2025, 04:17:20 PMWLC qualifies twice by that rubric -- name of school and state

Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW) doesn't qualify for a double "W"??

Quote from: USee on September 10, 2025, 05:59:41 PM

Quote from: Cardinal773 on September 10, 2025, 02:24:52 PM

Quote from: USee on September 09, 2025, 11:32:25 AMHansenRatings has projections for this week:
95% for NCC win

Look, no one wants the Cardinals to win more than me.  But this seems excessive.  There are so many new faces and it's their first game of the season.  UWO has already been tested by linfield (maybe not LINFIELD Linfield, just linfield Linfield).  A win would be great, but as sacrilegious as it may sound, a tight game or even a hard-fought loss might do them some good.  Everyone needs to learn a little more about themselves.

This is a computer algorithm, not a subjective statement. I believe Hansen himself would point out the pre-season rankings/predictions aren't as robust as the mid season ones. Although he did predict the Wheaton/Mt Union score as 30-35 (29-37 actual).

I would say a few things:
1. I agree the spread & odds seem excessive. The spread is NCC -25.2. If there was a book offering that number, and if I were the sort of person who actually made wagers, I would be on the UWO side of that line.
2. Teams with a Week 1 bye actually tend to outperform their projections when their opponent played in Week 1 ("you improve the most between weeks 1 & 2" is probably not true)
3. Yes, North Central lost a lot, but so did everyone. They had the second most returning production in the CCIW and more than average nationally. Not many teams' backups have as much experience as North Central.
4. Early season projections aren't as accurate as late season projections, but that's mostly a function of conference vs. non-conference games, and the difference isn't that large. If you had perfect foresight and knew the outcome of every game before they happened, and assumed each team's rating stayed constant throughout the season, you would still have an absolute error predicting MOV of around 11.5. My model's error in conference games in ~12.2 and in non-con it's ~12.7.

Quote from: doolittledog on September 10, 2025, 11:18:59 AMAre we talking actual height and weight or listed height and weight?

That was listed weight. And I guaranteed you some of those guys had rolls of quarters in their pockets when they weighed in, and then got a little extra added on top of that.

And Jordan Downing was listed at 5'-11". I don't think that was very accurate. I'm 6'-0" first thing in the morning, but once gravity does its thing, I lose a half inch, and I'm two inches taller than that dude.

Quote from: DriftlessDuhawk on September 09, 2025, 10:05:00 PMThe DL does not have a single snap taker over 255 lbs.

Wartburg's starting DL in their two semifinals:

5'-11"/249 (All-American)
5'-11"/238 (All-American)
6'-1"/240
5'-11"/240
6'-1"/225
6'-3"/220

I played DT at ~235 lb and was the heaviest D-linemen on a 10-0 squad. Wartburg's current DC was an All-American DE at 220 lb. You definitely don't need size on the DL to dominate in DIII.

Quote from: hazzben on September 10, 2025, 09:44:18 AMGenuine question, is the portal a major challenge for ARC schools?

It hasn't been a problem for Wartburg. I can't think of any contributors the last few years who have left. Can't think of any All-Conference type of players who have left Central/Coe, either. The guys who have come in were the same sorts of transfers DIIIs have always gotten.

Quote from: DriftlessDuhawk on September 09, 2025, 01:07:13 PMDuhawks looked awful against a good but not earth shattering Hope team. Did not see a lot of improvement out of the Duhawks this year compared to last, which is certainly concerning...

It was a pretty rough day for the bottom 4 teams in the conference. By opponent-adjusted scoring margin, Luther had the 5th worst game in the nation, BVU had the 14th worst, Loras 27th worst, NWU the 39th worst. Simpson and Dubuque were more competitive that I expected them to be, though.

I don't really understand how Loras fell off the cliff so hard last year (and apparently continuing into this one). England was good, but the defense fell off worse than the offense did, and they were consistently above average for a few years. The coaches didn't suddenly forget how to coach in a single offseason.

Quote from: CarollFan on August 27, 2025, 09:15:23 PMWheaton preview. They open @ Mount Union. Are we headed for end of season NPI calculations to make playoffs?

https://athletics.wheaton.edu/news/2025/8/27/2025-wheaton-football-season-preview.aspx

As far as the NPI side goes, if Wheaton goes 8-2 with losses to Mount Union and North Central, they should be in the playoff. They were so close last year at 8-2, and that second loss was to a UWO team that didn't finish as high in NPI as Mount Union should. Even if Mount somehow goes 8-2 themselves, Wheaton's NPI will be higher. Plus, there's an extra Pool C team this year with the ECFC disbanding.

Quote from: hazzben on September 02, 2025, 02:02:16 PMTotally Pat, in the macro I think you have to approach it that way. So Bethel's numbers are a maybe little better than advertised, but a lot of teams probably feel a little better than what was reported under the strict criteria.

They're not any better. With ~75% of all rosters analyzed as of 8/29 (Bethel was part of that 75%), Bethel ranks 227th out of 239 teams in returning defensive production. Sixth fewest games started returning in the country. They also rank among the 10 lowest in returning TFLs and Sacks.
https://hansenratings.github.io/2025%20Returning%20Production.html

Quote from: HansenRatings on August 15, 2025, 10:17:30 AMJust posted on Twitter: 2025 Conference Preview

As I note in the tweet, the run of simulations that I used for these projections assumed that Coe's QB, Krousie, was coming back. He was listed as a Junior on their official NCAA roster, but he graduated. He was about 2/3 of their passing production, so that's going to be a pretty good dip in their projections when I re-run after incorporating all roster updates.

EDIT: Krousie's lost productions is going to be worth ~1.75 ppg, which will put Coe essentially in a tie with Central for 2nd highest rating in the conference. This would move the Coe vs. Wartburg win probability in Wartburg's favor by ~3%, and Coe vs. Central in Central's favor by ~4%. The net result on the Pool A race is probably about 4-5% lower odds for Coe, and about 3/5 of those odds going toward Wartburg, and about 2/5 toward Central.

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Revisiting this since I've re-run my numbers with a full roster analysis.

Conference Record Projections
Wartburg: 7.3-0.7
Central: 6.6-1.4
Coe: 6.2-1.8
Dubuque: 5.1-2.9
Loras: 2.8-5.2
Simpson: 2.7-5.3
NWU: 2.3-5.7
BVU: 2.2-5.8
Luther: 0.8-7.2

Pool A (conference championship) odds
Wartburg: 56.5%
Central: 24.9%
Coe: 15.4%
Dubuque: 3.0%
Simpson/Loras: 0.1%
The other 3: 0.0%

Overall playoff odds
Wartburg: 71.4%
Central: 48.6% (win vs. RMC and this will go up quite a bit)
Coe: 29.7%
Dubuque: 4.0%
Simpson: 0.2%
Loras: 0.1%
BVU/NWU/Luther: 0.0%

Coe's numbers went down quite a bit, and not just because of their QB's calss year being misclassified in their NCAA roster. They also had a good deal of non-graduation roster losses on defense (maybe those guys had their class year entered incorrectly, too?). Coe's a team that has really hung their hat on defense lately, and they rank 237 out of 239 teams in returning defensive production. There's no way around it, they're going to have some major growing pains on that side of the ball.

Quote from: DriftlessDuhawk on September 01, 2025, 04:21:06 PMNWU plays an NAIA team, which does not leave me much to comment on, as I know hardly anything about NAIA football.

To set a baseline for this one - my model has NWU as more than a 2 TD underdog. Dakota State's primary conference (NSAA) played their last season of football in 2024. It was one of the lower-tier conferences in NAIA, and they've now joined the Frontier conference, which is arguably the premier conference in NAIA. They were consistently mediocre in the NSAA. They'll probably struggle in the Frontier. So in if we look back at this game in hindsight and DSU goes something like 1-9, and think, "I thought Dakota State was supposed to be better than that," they probably are better than that.

Quote from: Schipper Strong on August 28, 2025, 01:26:28 PMWhy are the Rams on an upswing of that magnitude? Are the trains shaking the field on pass plays?  I can't see what would cause that kind of swing.

I think you're aware, but just so we're all on the same page, it was a joke.

Quote from: doolittledog on August 28, 2025, 09:39:17 AMWe are 1 week away from Coe @ Cornell opening up the season

Anybody have any predictions on who will win this matchup? I fit a model on the Kohawks' margin of victory since 1998, and it says this year's game should be a ~38 point win for Coe, but by 2028, Cornell will win by nearly 100 points. The Rams are on the upswing!

Quote from: jekelish on August 17, 2025, 04:59:25 PM

Quote from: HansenRatings on August 13, 2025, 10:08:51 AMJust posted on Twitter: 2025 Conference Preview

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Well that's interesting, I didn't realize that Jess Hoel had pulled himself out of the portal so that's certainly gonna make McMurry dangerous this year in their final season in the SCAC.

I've been having a heckuva time confirming whether some of the "Players to Watch" are coming back or not, but in Jess's case, I'm pretty confident he's coming back. He retweeted a McMurry graphic with his image right before camp started.