Voting on D2 top 25

[ReddieDad]

Just wanting to know who votes for the top 25 on this site and then when regional rankings come out who votes for them. It doesn't seem to line up with AFCA coaches poll.

[Armo Wood]

Just wanting to know who votes for the top 25 on this site and then when regional rankings come out who votes for them. It doesn't seem to line up with AFCA coaches poll.

The D2Football.com Top 25 poll and the AFCA coaches Top 25 poll are separate national polls, they are kind of like a beauty contest in a way. Between both polls I think D2Football.com tends to have people who actually try to pay attention, where the AFCA poll almost comes across at times as playing plinko--probably due to the fact that coaches are pretty busy. [Full disclosure, I am a voter in the D2Football.com Top 25 poll.] The majority of voters in the D2Football.com poll will not typically reveal themselves because in the past some have been harassed, at least that has been my understanding.

As for Regional Rankings, those are the rankings that matter for the playoffs. The first round is released on the Monday following Week 8.

As for the voters in the Regional Rankings, their are four football regional committees--one for each Super Region or SR--known as a Regional Advisory Committee (RAC). The RACs usually consist of university athletic administrators, conference administrators, and coaches.

Each RAC has to vote based upon criteria that has been established, which can usually be found in the NCAA D2 Football Pre-Championship Manual. Once the RAC has come up with the list of Top 10 teams in their region, the vote is sent to the National Football Committee who then either approves it or rejects it based upon whether they feel the criteria was applied properly by the RAC. If the National Committee feels the criteria were not applied appropriately by a RAC then they either revise it themselves or have the RAC go back and revise it--I've heard of it being done both ways, so I couldn't tell you for sure what the standard operating procedure is. In my experience the revision is rare, but as I indicated it has happened before. I believe it may have happened to one of the SRs in 2018 or 2019.

Side note on the NCAA D2 Football Pre-Championship Manual: Unfortunately, I haven't seen it released for this year, yet. Who knows when they will release it or if they will release one this year.

[ReddieDad]

Thank you for clarification, because in years past it seems that the regional rankings don't go along with the Top 25 poll either. After some years of watching GAC football I believe they have hurt themselves in a way by having a full conference schedule and not getting to play a game out of conference. It hurts them in the regional rankings when you come down to strength of schedule.

[Armo Wood]

You're welcome.

Completely agree about the conference-only scheduling. I know for a fact that not playing non-con games hurt Henderson in 2019 when that #7 spot was between them and Lindenwood. I've been told by people who have served on RACs for other sports, that non-con games are helpful to RAC members in terms of having a measuring gauge by which to compare teams in the hunt for playoff spots.

Side note: I've heard that the GAC softball coaches demanded that the conference go from 4-game series to 3-game series so that teams could schedule more non-con games to help them both get and prepare for PO spots in softball. If that is true, the football coaches need to take a cue from the softball coaches.

[OBUGrad]

You're welcome.

Completely agree about the conference-only scheduling. I know for a fact that not playing non-con games hurt Henderson in 2019 when that #7 spot was between them and Lindenwood. I've been told by people who have served on RACs for other sports, that non-con games are helpful to RAC members in terms of having a measuring gauge by which to compare teams in the hunt for playoff spots.

Side note: I've heard that the GAC softball coaches demanded that the conference go from 4-game series to 3-game series so that teams could schedule more non-con games to help them both get and prepare for PO spots in softball. If that is true, the football coaches need to take a cue from the softball coaches.

[Inkblot]

Ideally, divisions would make perfect sense for the GAC. But the Oklahoma teams need to improve or else the natural divisions would be too lopsided.

[Armo Wood]

Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4
Non-con game	Non-con game	Non-con game	Non-con game
Non-con game	Non-con game	Non-con game	Non-con game
NWOSU/SWOSU	NWOSU/SWOSU	OKBU/SNU	OKBU/SNU
SWOSU/ NWOSU	SWOSU/ NWOSU	SNU/OKBU	SNU/OKBU
OKBU/SNU	OKBU/SNU	ECU/SE	ECU/SE
SNU/OKBU	SNU/OKBU	SE/ECU	SE/ECU
ATU/HU	ATU/HU	ATU/HU	ATU/HU
HU/ATU	HU/ATU	HU/ATU	HU/ATU
UAM/SAU	UAM/SAU	UAM/SAU	UAM/SAU
SAU/UAM	SAU/UAM	SAU/UAM	SAU/UAM
Battle of the Ravine	Battle of the Ravine	Battle of the Ravine	Battle of the Ravine

The first two years Henderson and Ouachita play Northwestern Oklahoma, Southwestern Oklahoma, Oklahoma Baptist, and Southern Nazarene, but not East Central and Southeastern Oklahoma. Starting in year three they rotate, so Henderson and Ouachita play Oklahoma Baptist, Southern Nazarene, East Central and Southeastern Oklahoma, but not Northwestern Oklahoma and Southwestern Oklahoma. The reason for the two year rotation is to allow teams to play at home against one another one year and away in another year. For example, in year one Ouachita plays at Northwestern Oklahoma and in year two Ouachita plays Northwestern Oklahoma at home.

[Armo Wood]

Ideally, divisions would make perfect sense for the GAC. But the Oklahoma teams need to improve or else the natural divisions would be too lopsided.

Fair point, but the GAC Commissioner has been emphatic in the past that the conference will never go to divisions. It's part of the reason the GAC will not take any new members at this time.

[ReddieDad]

I'm not sure how to get it done, but I believe that the conference schedule only hurts not just because of playoffs, but in recruiting and financially. No team gets to play a FCS school or lower FBS for a money game and something to use for recruiting.