Lots to talk about today, so let's get to it.

We'll start with Showdown Saturday. What a sham. The Northwest-Washburn game wasn't all that bad until the fourth quarter, but UCM, inexplicably STILL ranked, forgot they had a football game to attend.

So who was more impressive? Northwest's win over the 'Bods or Pitt's demolishing of the Mules? While I think both proved their points and showed the two teams at the top of the conference, I'm going to go with the Bearcats. Washburn has proven their worth this year and knocking them off is a feat. I'm not going to say Central isn't a good win, especially in the way Pitt did it, but UCM is now 0-3 against teams with winning records and is beginning to prove themselves worthy of only a bowl bid.

Ah, postseason. We'll get to that in a minute, but we're not done talking about Saturday yet.

So Missouri Southern dropped 68 points on Southwest Baptist? Man, I can't wait to see what Western does this week. There's still some football to be played, and SBU has three more MIAA teams on their schedule, but I think I told you they might be a little overrated last week.

Central Oklahoma, another team joining us next year, fell to a future family member for the second straight week. No big surprise there. The Bronchos have done about nothing as an Independent this year and are in for a tough go of it next year.

We can talk more about our future members in later blogs, but for now let's get back to the postseason.

Regional Rankings

Most of us are seasoned pros at this. We've been involved in one way or another with Division II football for a long time and the system is ingrained into our heads. But for those of you who might be new to the MIAA and/or Division II, here's a quick breakdown of how it works.

The top 6 teams from each region get in. The top 2 earn a bye with 3 hosting 6 and 4 hosting 5. The winner of 4v5 heads to 1 and the winner of 3v6 heads to 2. The highest remaining seed then hosts the regional final. When we get down to the four semi-finalists, the NCAA re-seeds to determine host sites. This year, Super Region 4 matches up with Super Region 2, while SRs 1 & 3 will face off. The national championship game is then played in Florence, Ala., at the home stadium of North Alabama.

There's this thing called Earned Access, which says if a conference winner lands in the Top 18, that teams gets an automatic bid into the playoffs. But in the MIAA's region, SR4, that doesn't come into play because the GAC and GNAC don't qualify for Earned Access.

So here's the first set of Regional Rankings for Super Region 4.

1. Midwestern State (7-0) LSC
2. Pittsburg State (8-0) MIAA
3. Northwest Missouri (7-1) MIAA
4. Washburn (7-1) MIAA
5. Abilene Christian (5-2) LSC
6. West Texas A&M (5-2) LSC
7. Missouri Western (6-2) MIAA
8. Ouachita Baptist (5-2) GAC
9. Humboldt State (6-1) GNAC
10. Central Missouri (5-3) MIAA

I don't see a problem with any of this. The seeds are figured by a combination of win-loss, strength of schedule, in-region wins, wins against teams over and under .500, team color, the number of male cheerleaders and year the institution was created. In other words, it's tough to nail down (though the posters on the D2 Message Board usually get it pretty close).

If you wanna argue Pitt State deserves to be No. 1, I'm okay with that. They have wins against two other regionally-ranked teams while Midwestern's only one came against Abilene last week.

So you've got Northwest hosting West Texas for the right to head to Pitt State and Washburn hosting Abilene for a trip to Midwestern.

But as I mentioned above, there's still a lot of football to be played. Missouri Western desperately needs to win out, including an big upset over Northwest, to get in. Central has a lot of ground to make up, and a matchup with Washburn left on the schedule, so like I said, they're pretty much a bowl team this year.

Ouachita and Humboldt also need help, but with all these MIAA and LSC teams playing each other in coming weeks, anything can happen.

High 5

So since I skipped a High 5 last week, I'll give you one final ranking for the season before we concentrate fully on Regional Rankings. Here it goes.

1. Pittsburg State - No longer any question here. At 8-0, they have established themselves as the class of the MIAA.
2. Northwest Missouri - It looked kinda shaky there for a minute, but the Bearcats are back. Actually, they never really went anywhere, they just lost a game, which for them, makes it seem like they went somewhere.
3. Washburn - A tough end to the game last week, but the 'Bods are still a step above most in the league.
4. Missouri Western - Looking good through the easy stretch of games, things get interesting in coming weeks.
5. Central Missouri - If you go back to the beginning of the season, it's what I expected, but the glimmers of hope had me wanting more out of this team.

Note: A previously-published version of this blog had the second-round playoff matchups wrong. My apologies. It is correct now. The 4v5 winner heads to 1 and the 3v6 winner heads to 2.