Football schedule vote

[Brandon]

What do you mean by gross overreaction?

The MIAA worrying about numbers.

Not you. I believe you to be a genuine person and would never insult you like that.

[Hornetfan]

Gross overreaction. The reason the GNAC and LSC have problems is their geography. They can only go 180 degrees to add to their conferences. The MIAA has 360 degrees.

I had made that map for fun earlier this season.

What do you mean by gross overreaction? If you're talking about the end of the RMAC or GNAC I was just basing it on there being just 15 teams between those two leagues. I guess you could still call the league you have with current RMAC teams Black Hills, Chadron and SD Mines the RMAC but it just seems a little weird to call something the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference when none of them are in the Rocky Mountains.

[Brandon]

I am 100% behind this. Personally I think ten team leagues are the best way to go for scheduling, travel, building rivalries, etc. But unfortunately all of the movement in collegiate athletics causes a lot of administrators, mostly on the conference level, to like the relative stability of larger conferences. Think about the Lone Star and Great Northwest conferences. Both of them have dropped down at one point to where they had to come up with all sorts of strange ways to fill out their schedules - playing home and home in the same season, playing conference crossovers at the end of the year, etc.
If I could be ruler of all D2 I would realign all football playing conferences to include ten teams and cap all conferences not involving football at 12. Of course that would probably mean the end of either the RMAC or the GNAC because of the lack of schools in the west.

Gross overreaction. The reason the GNAC and LSC have problems is their geography. They can only go 180 degrees to add to their conferences. The MIAA has 360 degrees.

I had made that map for fun earlier this season.

[Hornetfan]

not playing everyone isn't the solution it'll only muddy the waters depending on the yr w/ respect to the league title & devalue it.
we need natural attrition to occur & when it does we don't add schools & then sched non con games. the damage is done as far as adding all these schools, it is what it is.
once that attrition occurs add a non con or 2. hopefully 2 but 1 is better than none.

I am 100% behind this. Personally I think ten team leagues are the best way to go for scheduling, travel, building rivalries, etc. But unfortunately all of the movement in collegiate athletics causes a lot of administrators, mostly on the conference level, to like the relative stability of larger conferences. Think about the Lone Star and Great Northwest conferences. Both of them have dropped down at one point to where they had to come up with all sorts of strange ways to fill out their schedules - playing home and home in the same season, playing conference crossovers at the end of the year, etc.
If I could be ruler of all D2 I would realign all football playing conferences to include ten teams and cap all conferences not involving football at 12. Of course that would probably mean the end of either the RMAC or the GNAC because of the lack of schools in the west.

[Predatory Primates]

Did they vote yet?

[northwest missouri state]

How did UNK go from not winning more than three games in each of their first five years in the league to winning five in 2018 and then going to a bowl game last year?
Sometimes I think winning those non-con games against teams like Panhandle State might do more harm than good for some teams by giving a false sense of worth. You see it all the time in basketball season - teams feast on lesser teams and NAIA programs in the non-con and then don't even make the MIAA tournament. They go 8-1 in the non-con but 6-13 in the MIAA and the coach gets another year because they were .500 overall.
Lincoln had the chance to play non-cons when they were in the GLVC, how'd that work for them?

FWIW the "one true champion" thing isn't that big a deal to me - of course we've never won more than 20% of an MIAA football championship. The thing that bothered me the most was the argument that ESU benefited from not playing everyone in 2012 and 2013. Say with the current set up Pitt didn't play Northwest Missouri and Central Missouri while Western didn't play Lincoln and Northeastern State. The Griffs get a road game to try and up their resume but fall to Harding while Pitt State plays beats William Jewell and Ark Tech at home (because they need the non-con home games for the suite holders). Let's say they both end up 7-2 in the league but Pitt goes 9-2 (with one of the losses to Western) while theGriffs are 8-3. Would a higher SOS be worth enough to overcome the difference in record?

not playing everyone isn't the solution it'll only muddy the waters depending on the yr w/ respect to the league title & devalue it.
we need natural attrition to occur & when it does we don't add schools & then sched non con games. the damage is done as far as adding all these schools, it is what it is.
once that attrition occurs add a non con or 2. hopefully 2 but 1 is better than none.

[Brandon]

Doesn't that reinforce the argument that GVSU should have been in in front of Lindenwood? I don't think you can argue that either of them should have been in over the five teams with one or fewer losses so it comes down to GVSU, Lindenwood and Indy for the final two spots. As a conference the GLIAC had a better non-conference record, and if I figured it correctly went 5-2 inhead to head matchups with the GLVC. So if playing non-conference is an important data point why did Lindenwood make the playoffs and Grand Valley didn't?

Because they use some horrible criteria invented because of the scheduling practices of the GAC and MIAA.

GVSU had three losses but would most likely be behind Wayne State because of the h-2-h loss.
Lindenwood had two losses (I personally think an FCS loss should count against a team).

The thing to remember is that the more non-conferences games played the bigger the margins become IF the MIAA and GLIAC are truly better than the GAC and GLVC. If they aren't, fine, stay in the current scheduling model but quit bragging about being the SEC of D2.

[Brandon]

The thing that bothered me the most was the argument that ESU benefited from not playing everyone in 2012 and 2013.

I have always felt that this has heavily influenced your thought process.

[GrifFan]

How did UNK go from not winning more than three games in each of their first five years in the league to winning five in 2018 and then going to a bowl game last year?
Sometimes I think winning those non-con games against teams like Panhandle State might do more harm than good for some teams by giving a false sense of worth. You see it all the time in basketball season - teams feast on lesser teams and NAIA programs in the non-con and then don't even make the MIAA tournament. They go 8-1 in the non-con but 6-13 in the MIAA and the coach gets another year because they were .500 overall.
Lincoln had the chance to play non-cons when they were in the GLVC, how'd that work for them?

FWIW the "one true champion" thing isn't that big a deal to me - of course we've never won more than 20% of an MIAA football championship. The thing that bothered me the most was the argument that ESU benefited from not playing everyone in 2012 and 2013. Say with the current set up Pitt didn't play Northwest Missouri and Central Missouri while Western didn't play Lincoln and Northeastern State. The Griffs get a road game to try and up their resume but fall to Harding while Pitt State plays beats William Jewell and Ark Tech at home (because they need the non-con home games for the suite holders). Let's say they both end up 7-2 in the league but Pitt goes 9-2 (with one of the losses to Western) while theGriffs are 8-3. Would a higher SOS be worth enough to overcome the difference in record?

UNK has done a great job. Maybe the process wouldn't have taken five years if they'd had a chance to play some non-cons. Or maybe you're right and that would be counterproductive. I'd rather each program make that decision for themselves.

Yes, the silo schedule is great for distinguishing between two MIAA teams (although your hypothetical can happen in a silo schedule too--who gets seeded higher between a 9-2 Northwest team and an 8-3 Emporia team that beat them head to head?). But how do we compare a 10-1 MIAA team vs. a 10-1 (or 9-2 or 11-0) GAC team?

[catbacker07]

My thought process is that they know for sure what the SOS will be going into a season. If you are scheduling out of conference games you don't know for sure what your SOS will be. And if you aren't playing everyone in your league, you don't know what your SOS will be either.
You can try to schedule tough but what happens when the non-con you though was going to have a good year and help your SOS loses their best player to an injury and limps home at 3-8?
That's what I mean by being in control. .

[Hornetfan]

My thought process is that they know for sure what the SOS will be going into a season. If you are scheduling out of conference games you don't know for sure what your SOS will be. And if you aren't playing everyone in your league, you don't know what your SOS will be either.
You can try to schedule tough but what happens when the non-con you though was going to have a good year and help your SOS loses their best player to an injury and limps home at 3-8?
That's what I mean by being in control. .

[Hornetfan]

2019 SR3 Non-Conference Records

GLIAC
14-9 .608

GLVC
12-11 .521

MIAA
0-0 .500

GAC
0-0 .500

Doesn't that reinforce the argument that GVSU should have been in in front of Lindenwood? I don't think you can argue that either of them should have been in over the five teams with one or fewer losses so it comes down to GVSU, Lindenwood and Indy for the final two spots. As a conference the GLIAC had a better non-conference record, and if I figured it correctly went 5-2 inhead to head matchups with the GLVC. So if playing non-conference is an important data point why did Lindenwood make the playoffs and Grand Valley didn't?

[Hornetfan]

A few thoughts:

There have been co-champions in three of the six years of the silo schedule, which undermines the "one true champion" argument. Wright and Peterson make the point that the head-to-head helped seed the co-champs, which is fine, but I'm not sure why distinguishing between Northwest and UCM this year is more important than being able to make broader comparisons between the conferences in the region.

Every other conference sport manages to schedule non-conference games. Because of the team size, football has a different challenge, but other conferences (and our own conference history prior to the last few years) would suggest that the difficulties are not insurmountable.

I simply don't see a way forward for programs like NSU and Lincoln to get competitive when they are only playing MIAA teams. Give them the flexibility to schedule a couple of non-con games where they can get some wins and get some confidence (or some money), and who knows?

How did UNK go from not winning more than three games in each of their first five years in the league to winning five in 2018 and then going to a bowl game last year?
Sometimes I think winning those non-con games against teams like Panhandle State might do more harm than good for some teams by giving a false sense of worth. You see it all the time in basketball season - teams feast on lesser teams and NAIA programs in the non-con and then don't even make the MIAA tournament. They go 8-1 in the non-con but 6-13 in the MIAA and the coach gets another year because they were .500 overall.
Lincoln had the chance to play non-cons when they were in the GLVC, how'd that work for them?

FWIW the "one true champion" thing isn't that big a deal to me - of course we've never won more than 20% of an MIAA football championship. The thing that bothered me the most was the argument that ESU benefited from not playing everyone in 2012 and 2013. Say with the current set up Pitt didn't play Northwest Missouri and Central Missouri while Western didn't play Lincoln and Northeastern State. The Griffs get a road game to try and up their resume but fall to Harding while Pitt State plays beats William Jewell and Ark Tech at home (because they need the non-con home games for the suite holders). Let's say they both end up 7-2 in the league but Pitt goes 9-2 (with one of the losses to Western) while theGriffs are 8-3. Would a higher SOS be worth enough to overcome the difference in record?

[NWFanatic]

Would they be allowed to have a 12 game schedule to get in a non con game?

[catbacker07]

A few thoughts:

There have been co-champions in three of the six years of the silo schedule, which undermines the "one true champion" argument. Wright and Peterson make the point that the head-to-head helped seed the co-champs, which is fine, but I'm not sure why distinguishing between Northwest and UCM this year is more important than being able to make broader comparisons between the conferences in the region.

Every other conference sport manages to schedule non-conference games. Because of the team size, football has a different challenge, but other conferences (and our own conference history prior to the last few years) would suggest that the difficulties are not insurmountable.

I simply don't see a way forward for programs like NSU and Lincoln to get competitive when they are only playing MIAA teams. Give them the flexibility to schedule a couple of non-con games where they can get some wins and get some confidence (or some money), and who knows?

GREAT point on the last paragraph.