We might need to go to the top on this one.  ESPN is run by a Cornell grad.  They are owned by Disney who is run by an Ithaca (d3) grad. I will write an email to the top and get back to the LL board with the response. I expect nothing but the best on this one.

Jonny U.

Quote from: UfanBill on November 22, 2025, 02:44:14 PMFinal...Muhlenberg 34-Union 26...Union just could not stop the Mules in the 2nd half. The game changed in that 3 play disaster when Patch was not on the field. (if that wasn't a stats mistake) Great effort by the Garnet. Patch was brilliant yet again...26/34 300 yds 3 TDs but the Mules held him to only 41 net yards rushing. 

Patch is a good RPO QB.  The Mules probably made him throw it and that exactly what he did.  Looks like a great game there. 

I get it.  We need to support the league and every team in it.  Thats what leagues are for or should be for in d3. Hilbert is an upstate school who wants to start a new program and the need opponents so let's help them out.  But as I'm typing this I'm still wondering if there is something else at play here...why take them in the first place?  How did that help the league?  And academics means nothing, if swathmore wanted to bring that guy with the candle back and join the league they would impact pool c the same.

The LL has the 3rd worst team in the country and the 15th worst team in the country in terms of NPI. Only two other conferences have two teams in the bottom 20.  And 10 years ago this wouldn't have mattered, but it does now. The LL should be better than that.  Maybe we should be angry at NPI or those who supported this system instead of Hilbert and Buff State. and ICgrad it looks like Ithaca was close to making the pool C bid if they didn't beat the **** out of two of the worst teams in the country. this expanded system is great for pool c and those teams who didn't win their league right? 

And IC I don't want to blame anyone for Ithaca not making the playoffs but themselves and losing to Union but we can't hide our heads in the sand here. Any league with two teams in the bottom 20 NPI are seriously hurting their chances of pool c bids.

HSCtiger you are probably right about other teams but the LL just happened to have two of those teams in the league this year. 

Quote from: unionpalooza on November 16, 2025, 10:25:08 AM

Quote from: Jonny Utah on November 16, 2025, 10:17:33 AM

Quote from: unionpalooza on November 16, 2025, 09:53:55 AM

Quote from: Jonny Utah on November 16, 2025, 08:32:36 AM

Quote from: ICGrad on November 15, 2025, 06:53:40 PMAccording to the NPI playoff tracker, of the 13 at-large bids available this season, 6 will go to schools with 2 losses.

Ithaca, not even an honorable mention entering this weekend, ended 8-2 and 4 spots out of the final playoff spot. Their two losses were to the eventual LL champion, and to JHU, who entered the weekend with the #1 NPI but lost and ended #7.

Kind of have to wonder where Ithaca lands without Hilbert in the LL this season.

^ oh, and source for the above:

https://d3datacast.com/2025/11/09/2025-d3-football-playoff-npi-tracker/

Now this is actually important. 

Buffalo State in the league doesn't bother me as much because Ithaca might just play them anyway regardless of the conference, but Hilbert is probably a program that Ithaca would say "no thanks" to if Hilbert asked to play.  So that brings us to the question of what other OCC game would have impacted their SOS number.  Curry?  Bridgewater State again?  Endicott, Utica and Brockport are also possibilities but those aren't automatic wins either. 

I tried to throw in some random numbers in to some AI calculators and if Ithaca had scheduled and beaten Curry at home (they played there last year) instead of Hilbert, then Ithaca's NPI would be 65.8 instead of 63.2.  This would have put them at the 11th pool C spot and in the playoffs. 

If someone can confirm this either way please go ahead.  The numbers are the numbers on this one it appears.  I didn't factor in Curry's other game that would have been off the schedule (that Ithaca would have replaced) so not sure if AI factored that in.  It appeared that d3's datacast NPI page uses an embedded sheet that AI can't access easily so many of the calculations were estimates on what was available.

If this is right, than Hilbert 100% impacts the LL's pool C playoff spots.

You can see the full decomposition of Ithaca on Rossi's site: https://npi-gridiron-6dee1401.base44.app/publicteamdetail?team=Ithaca&season=2025&from=PublicTeamsRecords.

Because wins against both Hilbert and Buff St. would reduce Ithaca's NPI, they are excluded; thus, Ithaca's win/loss record for NPI's purposes is 6.2-2.2.  (The weird decimals are because NPI treat home/away wins/losses differently.)  If you had instead won a game against a team that about average relative to Ithaca's other countable games (NPI of ~55 - think TCNJ), your NPI win/loss record bumps up to 7.2-2.2, which is enough to boost your NPI ~1.2 points. (So, not quite the boost AI suggested.)

That would have been enough to make Ithaca the final Pool C bid this year.

That makes sense thank you.  But imagine Ithaca had two wins (looks like most top 25 teams had more) that don't even help you?  Those wins actually hurt Ithaca (and every other LL team who beat them). 

I guess there are other teams like Ithaca who could say the same.  Even Union played Morrisville State which doesn't count.

And another question.  Does beating Buffalo State by 22 points instead of 50 help Union or hurt them in terms of NPI? (EDIT it hurts them as like you said any NPI in a win less than that teams overall NPI isn't counted.....so does beating them by 200 matter?)

Yes, the more bad wins you can't count, the worse it is.  Union's NPI will make it a 10 seed; it's NPI W/L record is 5-2, because it had to drop Buff St., Hilbert and MoVille (because each actually lowers its NPI if included). The more of those games you replace with a decent team, the bigger the NPI boost.

On the Union-Buff St. score, doesn't matter, even if that game were included in Union's NPI.  NPI does not take margin of victory into account - it just looks at win, loss or tie (and whether you were home or away).

Ok so that's what I'm asking.  Ithaca beats Buff State and Union beats Buff State.  the "final Score (NPI)" is 52.9 for Ithaca and 64.7 for Union in that game.  The SOS is 10.05 for the IC game and 18.85 for the Union game. 

So am I correct in assuming that the SOS and ranking for that game is different for each team because when Ithaca plays Buffalo State, the Buffalo State/ Union game is factored in the SOS and vice versa.  And road wins count x1.1 vs away wins x.90.

Since Ithaca has a higher NPI than Union, Unions win over Buff state earns a higher sos and npi, because Buff States sos (and the sos impact on npi) is higher because of Buff States game vs Ithaca....

Not sure if that makes any sense, but it does seem clear that Ithaca could have made the playoffs if they beat pretty much anyone other than Hilbert since Hilbert had a 18.8 ranking (3rd worst in the nation) while teams like Hartwick (41.5), Alfred State (46.0), or Husson (45.8) would have gotten Ithaca (or RPI if they had won) a pool C bid.

Quote from: unionpalooza on November 16, 2025, 09:53:55 AM

Quote from: Jonny Utah on November 16, 2025, 08:32:36 AM

Quote from: ICGrad on November 15, 2025, 06:53:40 PMAccording to the NPI playoff tracker, of the 13 at-large bids available this season, 6 will go to schools with 2 losses.

Ithaca, not even an honorable mention entering this weekend, ended 8-2 and 4 spots out of the final playoff spot. Their two losses were to the eventual LL champion, and to JHU, who entered the weekend with the #1 NPI but lost and ended #7.

Kind of have to wonder where Ithaca lands without Hilbert in the LL this season.

^ oh, and source for the above:

https://d3datacast.com/2025/11/09/2025-d3-football-playoff-npi-tracker/

Now this is actually important. 

Buffalo State in the league doesn't bother me as much because Ithaca might just play them anyway regardless of the conference, but Hilbert is probably a program that Ithaca would say "no thanks" to if Hilbert asked to play.  So that brings us to the question of what other OCC game would have impacted their SOS number.  Curry?  Bridgewater State again?  Endicott, Utica and Brockport are also possibilities but those aren't automatic wins either. 

I tried to throw in some random numbers in to some AI calculators and if Ithaca had scheduled and beaten Curry at home (they played there last year) instead of Hilbert, then Ithaca's NPI would be 65.8 instead of 63.2.  This would have put them at the 11th pool C spot and in the playoffs. 

If someone can confirm this either way please go ahead.  The numbers are the numbers on this one it appears.  I didn't factor in Curry's other game that would have been off the schedule (that Ithaca would have replaced) so not sure if AI factored that in.  It appeared that d3's datacast NPI page uses an embedded sheet that AI can't access easily so many of the calculations were estimates on what was available.

If this is right, than Hilbert 100% impacts the LL's pool C playoff spots.

You can see the full decomposition of Ithaca on Rossi's site: https://npi-gridiron-6dee1401.base44.app/publicteamdetail?team=Ithaca&season=2025&from=PublicTeamsRecords.

Because wins against both Hilbert and Buff St. would reduce Ithaca's NPI, they are excluded; thus, Ithaca's win/loss record for NPI's purposes is 6.2-2.2.  (The weird decimals are because NPI treat home/away wins/losses differently.)  If you had instead won a game against a team that about average relative to Ithaca's other countable games (NPI of ~55 - think TCNJ), your NPI win/loss record bumps up to 7.2-2.2, which is enough to boost your NPI ~1.2 points. (So, not quite the boost AI suggested.)

That would have been enough to make Ithaca the final Pool C bid this year.

That makes sense thank you.  But imagine Ithaca had two wins (looks like most top 25 teams had more) that don't even help you?  Those wins actually hurt Ithaca (and every other LL team who beat them). 

I guess there are other teams like Ithaca who could say the same.  Even Union played Morrisville State which doesn't count.

And another question.  Does beating Buffalo State by 22 points instead of 50 help Union or hurt them in terms of NPI? (EDIT it hurts them as like you said any NPI in a win less than that teams overall NPI isn't counted.....so does beating them by 200 matter?)

Quote from: ICGrad on November 15, 2025, 06:53:40 PMAccording to the NPI playoff tracker, of the 13 at-large bids available this season, 6 will go to schools with 2 losses.

Ithaca, not even an honorable mention entering this weekend, ended 8-2 and 4 spots out of the final playoff spot. Their two losses were to the eventual LL champion, and to JHU, who entered the weekend with the #1 NPI but lost and ended #7.

Kind of have to wonder where Ithaca lands without Hilbert in the LL this season.

^ oh, and source for the above:

https://d3datacast.com/2025/11/09/2025-d3-football-playoff-npi-tracker/

Now this is actually important. 

Buffalo State in the league doesn't bother me as much because Ithaca might just play them anyway regardless of the conference, but Hilbert is probably a program that Ithaca would say "no thanks" to if Hilbert asked to play.  So that brings us to the question of what other OCC game would have impacted their SOS number.  Curry?  Bridgewater State again?  Endicott, Utica and Brockport are also possibilities but those aren't automatic wins either. 

I tried to throw in some random numbers in to some AI calculators and if Ithaca had scheduled and beaten Curry at home (they played there last year) instead of Hilbert, then Ithaca's NPI would be 65.8 instead of 63.2.  This would have put them at the 11th pool C spot and in the playoffs. 

If someone can confirm this either way please go ahead.  The numbers are the numbers on this one it appears.  I didn't factor in Curry's other game that would have been off the schedule (that Ithaca would have replaced) so not sure if AI factored that in.  It appeared that d3's datacast NPI page uses an embedded sheet that AI can't access easily so many of the calculations were estimates on what was available.

If this is right, than Hilbert 100% impacts the LL's pool C playoff spots.

Quote from: Caz Bombers on November 15, 2025, 04:40:56 PM

Quote from: Jonny Utah on November 15, 2025, 04:30:29 PM

Quote from: Machiavelli on November 15, 2025, 04:17:06 PMSo in other news: Hartwick beat Hilbert 52-0. Let that sink in.

I wasn't involved in this conversation so much but my understanding was that Hilbert (and Buff State) were added because some LL teams were having difficult times finding OCC opponents.  So this is exactly what they wanted. 

Not sure Hilbert will at this pace but who knows. Its a Catholic School with unknown funding so maybe they will be ok in the long run but it is tough for "new" programs to build in the New England/NY area.  Trying to think offhand who these teams are?

Mt. Ida
Alfred State
Anna Maria
Caselton
Morrisville
UNE
Dean
New England College
Husson
University of New England (not to be confused with New England College)
Becker

I guess who am I to judge.  These are colleges who want to play d3football and that's a good thing.  Mt. Union and the OAC had a bunch of duds every year.  Never really stopped MUC.

Mount Ida and Becker both closed quite a while ago now.

I know just showing the fate of the "new" programs that popped up.

Quote from: Machiavelli on November 15, 2025, 04:17:06 PMSo in other news: Hartwick beat Hilbert 52-0. Let that sink in.

I wasn't involved in this conversation so much but my understanding was that Hilbert (and Buff State) were added because some LL teams were having difficult times finding OCC opponents.  So this is exactly what they wanted. 

Not sure Hilbert will at this pace but who knows. Its a Catholic School with unknown funding so maybe they will be ok in the long run but it is tough for "new" programs to build in the New England/NY area.  Trying to think offhand who these teams are?

Mt. Ida
Alfred State
Anna Maria
Caselton
Morrisville
UNE
Dean
New England College
Husson
University of New England (not to be confused with New England College)
Becker

I guess who am I to judge.  These are colleges who want to play d3football and that's a good thing.  Mt. Union and the OAC had a bunch of duds every year.  Never really stopped MUC. 

Quote from: Jonny Utah on November 15, 2025, 03:28:36 PMUnion is the best team in the LL this year.  They deserve the bid.  Good luck to them. 

They probably don't have the horses to make it real deep but a clutch QB and a team that has an edge can do amazing things in the playoffs.  Union has both of those. 

Sorry for jinxing this!

Union is the best team in the LL this year.  They deserve the bid.  Good luck to them. 

They probably don't have the horses to make it real deep but a clutch QB and a team that has an edge can do amazing things in the playoffs.  Union has both of those. 

In other news:

In d2, Minot State broke the all time NCAA record in TOP with a 47:43 of possession time.

https://msubeavers.com/sports/football/stats/2025/northern-state-university/boxscore/9488

Quote from: ICGrad on November 10, 2025, 10:53:29 AM

Quote from: Jonny Utah on November 10, 2025, 08:57:37 AM

Quote from: Bartman on November 10, 2025, 08:45:18 AMWell RPI gets knocked out of Receiving Votes in the poll, which is understandable. When was the last time no LL team received votes in the poll? Ithaca needs to beat Cortland to save the league's reputation   

Yea just not many good OCC wins this year and with this new scheduling agreement its probably not getting any better.

Year-over-year Strength of schedules of the top 4 Liberty League teams:

Hobart - 2024: 61 / 2025: 75
Ithaca - 2024: 37 / 2025: 117
RPI - 2024: 42 / 2025: 122
Union - 2024: 56 / 2025: 102

Of the 4, Hobart still has a game against Buff St, so they will take a hit, whereas the other 3 should all see their SoS rise (Union/RPI play each other, Ithaca plays Cortland). Hobart essentially swapped out a game against Keystone (ranked 210 in 2024) with Hilbert (ranked 232), explaining why their SoS hit was so mild.

But the Hilbert effect is real...

(source: Massey)

Reading this again and the Hilbert effect may sound like a joke but it is 100% impacting LL and E8 teams ability for the 13 at large bids.

Quote from: Machiavelli on November 10, 2025, 11:48:12 AM

Quote from: Jonny Utah on November 10, 2025, 08:36:05 AM

Quote from: Machiavelli on November 08, 2025, 07:34:51 PM

Quote from: ICGrad on November 08, 2025, 07:14:09 PM

Quote from: Machiavelli on November 08, 2025, 05:23:27 PMThe RPI 2 point conversion was nothing more than an adrenaline rush decision after a blocked punt TD. It was dumb. Had they just kicked the PAT, I have zero doubt they would have won. But they didn't, and here we are. May not matter in reality, but losing matters and losing sucks. And they shouldn't lose to an inferior team. Great game either way, but crumby ending.

Zero doubt? Really?

Yeah. Zero.

Mach's Spot-On Week 10 Predictions:

Ithaca - 13
RPI - 41
There, I said it. I think RPI takes the Ithaca boys out to the woodshed.

Did you have any doubt with this pick?

HEY OHHHHHH

Anyway points scored doesn't really mean much.  The most important W:
TOP:
ITHACA: 34:16   
RPI:    25:44

Fun fact, Ithaca is 1-8 in TOP this year with only one win vs RPI.

Fine, I was making picks with my heart. I told you before the game, JU, Ithaca's QB scared the shizz out of me. And he was good. He just has a knack for big plays and keeping drives alive, and that's huge in these types of games. RPI's Defense just couldn't get off the field.

Still steaming about the 2pt conversion. As far as I'm concerned, if you wanna go for 2, line up and call a 2pt conversion play. Faking the kick and tossing the ball to a corner of the endzone with fingers crossed, it was just kinda gross. I had a bird's eye view for that play and it was very obvious and wasn't even really close to being successful. I'd rather they lined up and just called a non-fake play. But they should've just kicked it, played defense, maybe kick a field goal, or take it to OT.

Now, in typical LL fashion, it's all gray going into the last week and only Union controls their own destiny.

Yea kind of like I said above if you fake an XP in a situation like that you better either have something special planned or know the defense isn't going to cover it properly.  That was the old standard JV football TE/Wing pause and hit the corner fake.  Like you said they would have had a much better chance with a planned 2 point play that I'm sure they have.

Quote from: Bartman on November 10, 2025, 08:45:18 AMWell RPI gets knocked out of Receiving Votes in the poll, which is understandable. When was the last time no LL team received votes in the poll? Ithaca needs to beat Cortland to save the league's reputation   

Yea just not many good OCC wins this year and with this new scheduling agreement its probably not getting any better.

Quote from: Machiavelli on November 08, 2025, 07:34:51 PM

Quote from: ICGrad on November 08, 2025, 07:14:09 PM

Quote from: Machiavelli on November 08, 2025, 05:23:27 PMThe RPI 2 point conversion was nothing more than an adrenaline rush decision after a blocked punt TD. It was dumb. Had they just kicked the PAT, I have zero doubt they would have won. But they didn't, and here we are. May not matter in reality, but losing matters and losing sucks. And they shouldn't lose to an inferior team. Great game either way, but crumby ending.

Zero doubt? Really?

Yeah. Zero.

Mach's Spot-On Week 10 Predictions:

Ithaca - 13
RPI - 41
There, I said it. I think RPI takes the Ithaca boys out to the woodshed.

Did you have any doubt with this pick?

HEY OHHHHHH

Anyway points scored doesn't really mean much.  The most important W:
TOP:
ITHACA: 34:16   
RPI:    25:44

Fun fact, Ithaca is 1-8 in TOP this year with only one win vs RPI.