An open letter to the SR1 playoff selection committee:

In the CIAA, you saw that Winston-Salem State can win over a team with winning record and a high output offense.You saw Bowie pour out their hearts to the final second, especially you Damon Wilson, a selection committee member.And you saw Virginia dismantling a Tuskegee team that should still get in the top seven of its region, proving that they too can compete at a high level.

Now, you have the difficult task of choosing who will fill slots six and seven, especially since everyone else is either undefeated or has one loss. This plea is for you to fill those two slots with WSSU and VSU as the sixth and seventh seeds.

There are five 9-2 teams to choose from in this situation: WSSU, Virginia State, Notre Dame College (Mountain East), Assumption (Northeast-10), and Edinboro (PSAC). All of these teams are well deserving of the two slots, but the first two are more deserving for several reasons.While I know you cant publicly consider past results, WSSU and VSU are the teams from our conference that have had some playoff success in this decade.They can give the playoff teams a game and they can win on the road.

Catawba was supposed to contend for their crown, but losing their starting QB relegated them to a 5-6 season.WSSU played them at full strength on the road early on.That matters.They are the only team to go through their conference schedule undefeated.That matters.

VSU is on a roll, having averaged 48 points a game since the first week in October.That should appease the PSAC contingent.Not only that, but VSU did this against teams with non-losing records (please overlook Lincoln, they are trying).VSU also gives up the fewest points in conference (WSSU is a close second), and they did it in the harder of out two divisions. On a moments notice, this team traveled to Alabama and put a clinic on Tuskegee.
The case against the other three schools is very clear: This bolsters SOS. The CIAA allows three OOC games, and thus you have the variations in SOS.If our conference did the same, out teams would have fewer losses because teams like Lincoln would have played more of Shaw, Fayetteville State, and Johnson C. Smith instead of those teams scheduling OOC conference games and there would be two fewer losses in our column.Thus, please discount the SOS for that factor.

Also, consider the diversity of your selection. Including Edinboro into your selection would result in the PSAC having three teams, MEC with two, and the CIAA and NE-10 with one apiece.Yes, Edinboro completed one of the best turnaround jobs in college football history; however, the PSAC is only deserving of two teams, as Edinboro was obliterated by IUP and CUP this year. Neither WSSU or VSU suffered losses to elite teams in the manner that Edinboro did.Assumption would make a good choice in the diversity, but Greyhounds have a SOS nearly equal to WSSU and certainly lower than VSU even with their nearly fully insulated schedule.

In conclusion, fans from Super Region One deserve two have the best teams to compete on a national level.