Team by Team - Quick Takes for 2014

1. Minnesota-State Mankato (11-0)
The Mavs had a fantastic year and weathered the storm that appeared to be coming their way in the form of distractions. Todd Hoffner returns and plays the role of CEO of the football program and lets his coordinators run the offense and defense. Kudos to Coach Hoffner for the approach, and congrats to this strong Mavs team on going unbeaten in the strong South Division.

1. Minnesota-Duluth (11-0)
I predicted before the year the Bulldogs would likely go unbeaten as I didn't see a team in the North that would test them, save St. Cloud. Well, SCSU was not good, and this made the already weak North, worse. That said, the Dogs found a way to win challenging early season games against the South (Augie and Winona). UMD also had distractions, key injuries, but did not allow things to derail their unbeaten season.

3. Sioux Falls (10-1)
I had USF going 8-3 this year, and plenty of people thought that might be ambitious. With a healthy Luke Papilion and a strong defense put forth by new USF DC Tremaine Jackson, the Cougars might havevery well been the 2nd best team in the NSIC this year. Comparative scoring suggests yes. Jed Stugart could easily have been the Coach of the Year in the NSIC after taking a 6-5 team to a 10-1 year and new heights for the Cougars at the D2 level. Not getting selected to the playoffs after being 16th nationally in the polls, 5th in Massey, is a bitter pill for the Coo.

4. Northern State (8-3)
Nearly had a Mineral Water Bowl bid if USF would have made the playoffs. Now let's be real here, NSU was very much a product of the North..and it never being weaker than this year. NSU is a .500 team, maybe, in the South. Their South results scream that. That said, the Wolves deserve credit for taking care of business and also providing the North champs a mild test up in Duluth.



Jared Jacobson had a great year and finishes 3rd on the all-time list for QB yards in the NSIC. He's really compiled some nice career numbers during his 4 years.

5. Augustana (6-5)
The Vikings started out the season looking like they could be a 9-2 or 8-3 team, but ended up having to win their final game to finish at 6-5. I thought Augie was probably the 4th best team in the conference and had 3 losses as a result of playing the top 3 in the league..who were far ahead of the rest of the pack. The UIU loss was understandable with Trey Heid unable to go, but the loss against CSP was one of those defeats that's stopped the Vikings from taking the program to the next level. 6-5 was a step in the right direction for Coach OJ and his staff though, and they are still a relatively young football team.

5. St. Cloud State (6-5)
Most people thought the Huskies would take a step back as a program with the departure of do-everything QB Philip Klaphake. Instead they took a leap back towards the middle of the pack. The loss of production at the QB position was very apparent, but the SCSU defense also fell off and they found themselves in fire-fights in the North. This team is also pretty young and could be ready for a nice rebound in 2015.

5. Upper Iowa (6-5)
The Peacocks start 5-0 and give their fans visions of the playoffs. They then go 1-5 to finish the year and really got dominated by the better teams in the league. UIU possibly was the 4th best team int the league. Overall I'm giving that to Augie as they played a tougher schedule, but overall a 2nd straight winning season in Fayette is an accomplishment. Unfortunately the winning seasons are likely to come to a close with this very talented Senior class for the Peacocks graduating.

8. Concordia-St. Paul (5-6)
This was a team that had ups and downs like no other school in the NSIC. They looked like a very tough hard luck squad for the first month, then fell off and started getting blown out, and then finished strong beating teams like Augie-Winona-UIU. Week to week it was very hard to tell who they were gonna be.



CSP RB Tre Spears ended up being the leading rusher in the entire conference, yet somehow was merely Honorable Mention when the NSIC All-Conference team came out. Huh? Anyway, the Golden Bears exceeded my expectations and were one of the peskier teams for the better part of the year.

8. Mary (5-6)
Not gonna lie, the Marauders were a bit of a disappointment for me. I picked them to go 8-3 and to essentially be in the spot Northern ended up. Having their starting QB out for 75% of the season dramatically impacted the manner in which they operated offensively. The Mary defense started out better than they finished. The best linebacker in the conference (Grant Singer) getting lost to injury in the back quarter of the year certainly didn't help them any. I'm still expecting this squad to move up in the conference and to become one of the better teams in the North. However, they are losing some very talented Seniors as well.

8. Wayne State (5-6)
The Wildcats were easily better than I gave them credit for at the start of the season. I wasn't sure if there were going to win more than 1-2 games. To their credit they got strong quarterback play and their offense really changed year-to-year. Their defense looked good at first, then really fell off against Southern opponents as they gave up a lot of big plays down the stretch.

11. Minnesota State-Moorhead (4-7)
Along with Mary, I thought Moorhead would be over .500 as well. The Dragons lost plenty of close games, so a winning season was very much within reach. The offense was fantastic as expected, but the defense was the league's worst for much of the year. If their D can be addressed, they could be much much different next year as they did play the toughest schedule in the NSIC this year.

11. Winona State (4-7)
Simply stated, the first losing season since Coach Tom Sawyer's rookie year with the Warriors back in 1996. That says a lot about the continuous success of the program under Coach Sawyer. However, the Warriors became very predictable offensively and they also had some key injuries that really hurt them. Jack Nelson took a step back as their offensive leader and will need to be more efficient next year for the squad to rebound from this terribly disappointing season.

The Warriors defense looked better than last year for about the first half of the year, but then fell off again in the back half of the campaign. For the 2nd straight season it looked like when the team realized that they couldn't make the playoffs that their motivation and push just wasn't there during the last few games of the season. If you would've told me before the year that this young WSU team was going to be 4-7, I would've said you're crazy. I had them at 9-2 and close to the playoff discussion.

13. Bemidji State (3-8)
About where I thought they'd be this year. This is a team that's just having trouble keeping up with the new Northern Sun, but did fairly well in the old version of it. Part of me thinks they should be better in the North, but their defense really let them down this season and they had to win shootouts.

13. Southwest Minnesota State (3-8)
I said in the preseason the Mustangs would take a full step back with their OL from last year exiting stage left. I didn't think they'd fall to a 3-8 record, worst in the South. Tyler Tonderum really struggled without his OL from last year, and he was dinged up as well. I'm not sure the 90-28 loss to Pitt State in the MWB at the end of last year didn't have a hangover impact on them this season a bit as well. That game really took what was a really nice season for the Mustangs and gave it a black eye.

15. Minot State (1-10)
It was hard to expect much from Coach Hughes and his new staff given the late arrival and such. The Beavers were pretty much who I thought they'd be this year. There will be a lot of heavy lifting needed to change the culture of the program right now.

16. Minnesota-Crookston (0-11)
I'd love to be able to say that the Golden Eagles were competitive in games and that they gave some teams a scare. However, they didn't do that and they were seldom close in games. I'm not sure what needs to happen to get the ball rolling at Crookston, but it does seem that everyone in the league does wish them well and would like to see them succeed given they don't seem to be in a position to succeed.






Playoff Pairings

You might not have heard, but the D2 Playoff Pairings came out last Sunday afternoon. Yup, they did.

So if you're reading this column you already know the back-story here and who made it and who did not. After seeing the 11th hour Shenanigans that occurred with the bracket posted above, I reached out to my NCAA guy and asked how the things that happened to the NSIC teams....happened..

The football committee evaluates each team over their entire body of work. Amongst these three leagues (Great American, MIAA and the Northern Sun) there are no cross comparisons to be made as all three leagues virtually play conference games only. The committee has to evaluate these teams (along with teams from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference) based on the selection criteria which includes not only the win/loss percentage and strength of schedule but the quality of teams they have won and lost to.

Donnie Wagner
NCAA Associate Director, Championships and Alliances


Now let me say that Donnie has been good with me and we've had more communications than I've posted here. Essentially what I was able to find out through communications with him and others is the reason Harding finished ahead of USF is the Regional Committee felt better about the high profile win the Bison had than the lack of a high profile win for the Cougars. Along with this I've found that who you lose to essentially is irrelevant. (otherwise Pitt isn't the 3rd seed)

Harding is a good team and is about 1 snap away from being the #1 seed in this region having blown their game late with OBU about a month ago. They are a team deserving of the playoffs in the same way USF is. If USF wasn't the team getting worked in this deal, it was going to be Harding. Heck APU kinda got a tough deal too, only having 1 loss but not having the SOS.

Here is the thing that chaps the hide of NSIC folks. The criteria and the application of it has been solid for the past few years and it's been strictly statistical. People on this D2 forum have run the SOS numbers and have come out with the teams and the order correctly for years. While the numbers were certainly extremely close, you go with the numbers. This isn't about creating better matchups or giving each conference equal representation. It's about selecting the 6 qualified teams based on the criteria you've put forth and have been using consistently for a while now.

USF was barely ahead of Harding in SOS, but they were ahead. On top of that they played an extra game. IF you are seeing the USF and Harding thing a tie, how's that not give USF the edge for the 6th spot? They played and won an extra game, risking a chance of a loss and injury, etc. When did 9-1 become the same as 10-1? Did I miss a meeting..? This same thinking can certainly be applied to Mankato and OBU, and yes Kato was slightly ahead there too. The amount of games played and won was completely ignored here.

Duluth and the MIAA thing is something different all-together. UMD has a .444 SOS and the MIAA schools finish with a silo mark of .500 for their SOS. While the MIAA teams have a much better SOS, they also have a loss while UMD does not. In the past the only time you see a jump of an unbeaten team is if you are looking at a massive difference of nearly 100 points in SOS, to the point where the difference is terribly obvious. Needless to say this wasn't nearly THAT bad.

So what's the committee do..? They move up 1 MIAA team (even though they are both .500 SOS and 1 loss) and drop UMD in the process. Does the math justify it? No. Why would they do that then? Hmmm. Maybe because they wanted to break up the all-MIAA game, and have a 1 team from each conference bracketing setup..? Yes..that one. For anyone to suggest otherwise is an insult to the intelligence of the person you are talking to. One coach said the old line.."If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck....it's a duck." Yes, it's a duck alright.

So what's it matter if UMD drops down to 4? Well, that means if they end up against Pitt State (3) in the Regional Final they will be on the road..for starters. Also, they now get the defending champion of D2 coming into their yard instead of a Harding team who's had no playoff success. You tell me which team you'd rather face. Exactly.

Don't get this all twisted, I can understand why the committee took Harding and bumped up OBU. I get their logic. However, when you have been applying your criteria in such a way (SOS) on a consistent basis, don't expect those who experience the fallout as a result of the change in methodology to be pleased with things. People like to know what they are shooting for, and not to have a moving target.

Now there's been some people saying that maybe the reps for the Northern Sun (2) didn't make a strong enough case for the teams within the conference. Since there are 8 people on this committee, I'm fully assuming that the NSIC reps put their best foot forward. The thing that I find odd is that the results certainly didn't go the way expected and the two chairs of the committee were from the conferences who most benefited from the alternate decisions that were made. It's hard to feel like the Northern Sun's interests weren't under-represented this last weekend.


How do we change this problem with silo scheduling that's taking place in the NSIC, MIAA, and the GAC?

Here are my thoughts on an idea that's clearly better than what we have now..

Keep the same North vs South format....and with a 4 year scheduling cycle in which you play all 8 teams in the other division.

Quick rules would be..(11 game schedule)....and I will be using USF as my example..

7 games against your divisional opponents (ie....USF against all 7 other South teams)

2 games against the other division....1 home, 1 away. This means a team like USF would see teams like UMD and SCSU 1x each within a 4 year span, no matter if it was home or away..they'd get to play them 1x. This would satisfy the "being able to play each team in the NSIC" discussion, while also added 2 games to the schedule = less belly aching from the athletic directors about having to schedule games and the difficulty of that..(which is the main issue at hand here, and they are the decision makers, don't forget that)

1 game against an OOC opponent..or choose not to schedule a game for that week, your call Mister AD. (giving you the chance to tho..and we all understand how this provides variety and potential enhancement to SOS for postseason hopefuls)

Week 11....conference finals week..South vs. North..head to head....1 vs 1, 2 vs 2...all the way to 8 vs 8. This would give the teams who are top 3 in either division a bump in SOS since this would be like a non conference game (in terms of helping SOS). So if you are a unbeaten team and you get 1 loss as a result of this game, you would still be at the top of the 1-loss SOS ranks in the region. This would also give you a true conference champion.

If you don't like being in a #7 vs #7 game..or #8 vs #8 game....do better so you don't find yourself in that game. Just sayin.

Determining home field for those games would need to be on some criteria like....overall record, higher spot in the D2 polls (avg of the 2), or overall SOS as defined by the NCAA, etc. Another way home field could be done would be letting 1 division get all the Week 11 home games, and the other division gets the Week 11 games the following year. For example..in 2016 all Week 11 games are hosted by the North teams. This way they would know they are hosting a game in Week 11, they just wouldn't know the opponent yet.

This would give us games in week 11 such as.....UMD at Mankato, Northern at USF, Augie at SCSU (maybe), Mary at UIU, etc. (I haven't looked into each matchup..but using overall record, then in-division record)

My quick thought is this would make for a far more interesting regular season....you are playing for postseason obviously, but also for placement in the year ending games (week 11)....but also getting a non conference game if you choose to schedule one. The non conference game would seemingly be best to schedule for week 1....as the schedule for everyone else would need to start rolling in week 2..(2 weeks of North vs South, 7 weeks of divisional play, and then week 11 is the championship week for the conference)

This format would also allow for lower NSIC teams to find games against NAIA teams within the region (easy to do) or for a team to find an FCS game if they wanted to as well, raising the profile of their program. (USF or Augie vs SDSU, USD, etc) By having OOC games at the start of the year it would give additional data to help show that the NSIC is one of the top conference in the D2 world. In the current setup none of the teams are able to have a favorable SOS, due to silo-scheduling.


Number of teams in the dance..

In addition to re-incorporating out-of-conference games, the field of teams needs to be addressed. Currently there are 171 D2 football teams and 24 make the dance. 14%. FCS is 23%. I'm not saying it needs to be 23%, but if you did 32 teams you would have a better number to work from and it would be 18% of the teams making the playoffs. With more teams coming to D2 this slow delay seems silly. 28 is expected to be the number of teams next year, but that's still too small a number.