16 Conferences

[GorillaTeacher]

Yes. Good analysis. Playing elite teams should be rewarded. Beating Fort Lewis isn't the same as beating Grand Valley. I haven't thought of a foolproof way to quantify that through rules or criteria.

I don’t think there is a singular good way to quantify it. SOS isn’t really a good measure of how empirically good a team is. It’s only as good as the W/L of the teams you played. One would like to think having 2 or fewer losses would imply your team is actually competitive, but as we saw over last weekend, that isn’t really the case. I truly don’t understand why the ncaa puts so much emphasis on statistics, in what anyone with basic statistics class could tell you is too small of a sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think doing away with regions, awarding 15 for the conference champs and 9(13 if we must) at large, even though conference champ is far from infallible.

The committee should seed them from there 1-24(28) based off their acumen and whatever data they see fit and is available.

I expect conference delegates and members of the national d2 media(Brandon and his crew) to go into a dark room and make the sausage. And we all question and speculate, but we move on with tournament with competitive games and upsets and a couple of duds.

reseed when you get to 4 teams remaining.

[Predatory Primates]

I don’t think there is a singular good way to quantify it. SOS isn’t really a good measure of how empirically good a team is. It’s only as good as the W/L of the teams you played. One would like to think having 2 or fewer losses would imply your team is actually competitive, but as we saw over last weekend, that isn’t really the case. I truly don’t understand why the ncaa puts so much emphasis on statistics, in what anyone with basic statistics class could tell you is too small of a sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think doing away with regions, awarding 15 for the conference champs and 9(13 if we must) at large, even though conference champ is far from infallible.

The committee should seed them from there 1-24(28) based off their acumen and whatever data they see fit and is available.

I expect conference delegates and members of the national d2 media(Brandon and his crew) to go into a dark room and make the sausage. And we all question and speculate, but we move on with tournament with competitive games and upsets and a couple of duds.

reseed when you get to 4 teams remaining.

1 from every conference still defeats the purpose, and kills the competitiveness.

[Predatory Primates]

And I'm definitely not saying block all the teams from soft conferences. Heck the MIAA was reallly weak for a long time. The rmac has gone from being an absolute joke where schollies were capped way below the d2,max to a conference that turns out some legit teams., etc,, etc...

There definitely still needs to be a path to do that, more noncons would help to identify those teams.

[Argonut]

Of course on the first point.

My previous thoughts were more along the lines of not knowing how to adjust criteria/weight criteria/etc. to encourage playing the best teams possible.

Last week, Assumption was 8-1 and UWF was 8-1. I doubt you think Assumption is equal to West Florida. My concern is finding a better way to differentiate the two. I don't think it's currently accomplished using the OWP x 2/3 + OOWP x 1/3 equation.

If all conferences are playing each other during regular season there will be a conference record against other conferences that could used as part of the formula. I recognize that there will not be enough OOC games to compare every conference with another, but you have to start somewhere and I’m sure there’s a statistical expert that can make use of a conference to conference weight factor in the performance index numbers.

[Brandon]

1 from every conference still defeats the purpose, and kills the competitiveness.

I think that's the compromise that could even make this a 1% possibility.

[GorillaTeacher]

I think that's the compromise that could even make this a 1% possibility.

It’s so tragic that 1% is the likelihood of anything substantial changing for the better.

I understand that D2 football is a niche spectator sport with fractions of the budget of FCS schools(also, niche). The NCAA has no desire to enhance or promote the product to anything but what the status quo is.

Their singular goal is to minimize expense, and maintain a semblance of fair and impartial. Football, though, isn’t fair or impartial. You get out what you put in, and why should the conferences that don’t put in the resources be rewarded with an opportunity to play in the post season if the bare minimum is all they have an interest in.

There are so many D2 teams that put a good to great product on the field. Much better than what many fcs and fbs schools put out there.

[GorillaTeacher]

1 from every conference still defeats the purpose, and kills the competitiveness.

Any conference not get at least 1 representative in? I don’t think you’re wrong, btw. Uindy did not deserve a spot, Ouchita, likely didn’t deserve a spot, but they’re conference champs. I just think the numbers and calculations give the committee an understandable out when defending someone making the tournament that shouldn’t have. People think they’re gospel to the playoff field and moan when someone is left out that had the numbers but was a crappy team. The committee is gospel, though. Not the spread sheet.

[Predatory Primates]

Any conference not get at least 1 representative in? I don’t think you’re wrong, btw. Uindy did not deserve a spot, Ouchita, likely didn’t deserve a spot, but they’re conference champs. I just think the numbers and calculations give the committee an understandable out when defending someone making the tournament that shouldn’t have. People think they’re gospel to the playoff field and moan when someone is left out that had the numbers but was a crappy team. The committee is gospel, though. Not the spread sheet.

IDK about this season, but there have been seasons when conferences don't get anyone in.

Someone is gonna complain, no matter what. If the goal is the best 28, there has to be an eye test.

The way I reconcile it in my head now is to assume that the best 16 still get in with the other 12 spots being playoff welfare.

What you suggest would be the same result.

The only way I see to get the best 28 is some kind of committee and poll system, and that would be purely subjective. Heck there aren't even newspaper writers who cover most d2 teams locally anymore, let alone nationally. The infrastructure just doesn't exist. The current polls don't even churn out the 25 best. There just isn't enough reference and aren't enough trained eyes on D2 to get it right that way. The best we can probably hope for is a better job of seeding in attempt to get the best teams to meet up late rather than early.

[CatFan88]

IDK about this season, but there have been seasons when conferences don't get anyone in.

Someone is gonna complain, no matter what. If the goal is the best 28, there has to be an eye test.

The way I reconcile it in my head now is to assume that the best 16 still get in with the other 12 spots being playoff welfare.

What you suggest would be the same result.

The only way I see to get the best 28 is some kind of committee and poll system, and that would be purely subjective. Heck there aren't even newspaper writers who cover most d2 teams locally anymore, let alone nationally. The infrastructure just doesn't exist. The current polls don't even churn out the 25 best. There just isn't enough reference and aren't enough trained eyes on D2 to get it right that way.

You need to let the best 28 go. The best 7 from each region does not equal the best 28 nationally. That's not the goal. The goal is to get the best 7 in each region and let the regional champions fight it out for the NC. If you want the best 28, the regional concept needs to go away and replaced by a system that actually ranks teams 1-28.

[Predatory Primates]

You need to let the best 28 go. The best 7 from each region does not equal the best 28 nationally. That's not the goal. The goal is to get the best 7 in each region and let the regional champions fight it out for the NC. If you want the best 28, the regional concept needs to go away and replaced by a system that actually ranks teams 1-28.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. I don't think the best 7 from each region is even the goal. I think the top 2 to 4 from each region is the goal with the rest being playoff welfare. NW being gifted a playoff spot this season when the numbers didn't work was an attempt to do just that, imo.

[voicefromthestands]

So do away with conferences. Divide schools into districts. Set say 10 schools in a district. Allow two games out of district. Assigned by NCAA. Realign Districts every two years. Use conferences for everything but football.

[CatFan88]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. I don't think the best 7 from each region is even the goal. I think the top 2 to 4 from each region is the goal with the rest being playoff welfare. NW being gifted a playoff spot this season when the numbers didn't work was an attempt to do just that, imo.

Pretty confident regionalization is a forever thing with D2. So whatever system the NCAA employs, it will only get better and be justified when they force schools within a region to start playing each other. And there can't be any conference scheduling alliances.

[Predatory Primates]

Pretty confident regionalization is a forever thing with D2. So whatever system the NCAA employs, it will only get better and be justified when they force schools within a region to start playing each other. And there can't be any conference scheduling alliances.

That's not how the NCAA works. They are a co-op, and most of the members have no reason to vote for that.

[GoneBlastin]

If all conferences are playing each other during regular season there will be a conference record against other conferences that could used as part of the formula. I recognize that there will not be enough OOC games to compare every conference with another, but you have to start somewhere and I’m sure there’s a statistical expert that can make use of a conference to conference weight factor in the performance index numbers.

It sounds like what you are proposing is similar to the old FIFA rankings where each conference gets a coefficient assigned to them based on their play in the last championship which helps adjust for conference strength and the individual team rankings adjusted accordingly. It wasn’t a perfect system for FIFA but could prove better here if teams were ranked 1-24.

[bigmrg74]

I don’t think there is a singular good way to quantify it. SOS isn’t really a good measure of how empirically good a team is. It’s only as good as the W/L of the teams you played. One would like to think having 2 or fewer losses would imply your team is actually competitive, but as we saw over last weekend, that isn’t really the case. I truly don’t understand why the ncaa puts so much emphasis on statistics, in what anyone with basic statistics class could tell you is too small of a sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think doing away with regions, awarding 15 for the conference champs and 9(13 if we must) at large, even though conference champ is far from infallible.

The committee should seed them from there 1-24(28) based off their acumen and whatever data they see fit and is available.

I expect conference delegates and members of the national d2 media(Brandon and his crew) to go into a dark room and make the sausage. And we all question and speculate, but we move on with tournament with competitive games and upsets and a couple of duds.

reseed when you get to 4 teams remaining.

I do like your idea of having Brandon or a D2football.com representative in the old smoke filled room when they are picking the playoff field. Most of the committee guys just don't have the time to go through and watch the games needed to be pretty knowledgeable about D2 football overall, just their own little, small corner of it. Even if he doesn't have a vote, his voice in the room could be useful to the committee.