FCS Playoffs

[Sioux95]

6 hours ago, FSSD said:

Rankings clearly show MVFC as the best conference FCS this year.  Three teams, CAA - rankings near the WAC.  Five teams.  What was the conference rep doing?

Any potential that the MVFC can remove NDSUs AD from the position on the FCS selection committee?  I think it's a multiple year assignment and not looking forward to more of this.

[wheelsup]

8 hours ago, nd1sufan said:

Again, just going on this year, they lost to a power 5 FBS school and to the #1 FCS seed by 2 points. What else could they have done to improve their seed. If they had scored 3 more points against SDSU they would be. #1 seed. I know UND fans are all about if 5 or 6 plays in 3 or 4 games had gone differently we would be 10-1 or undefeated. Literally if one play had gone differently (the Payton interception when they were driving to go up 4 scores in the SDSU game) NDSU would be looking at a #1 seed.

Every teams fans thinks that.. that’s part of the fun part of being a fan! I’m sure if sdsu hadn’t false started 5x in the first half it wouldn’t have been as close as it was.

turns out they did.. 

[Big Green]

9 hours ago, nd1sufan said:

Again, just going on this year, they lost to a power 5 FBS school and to the #1 FCS seed by 2 points. What else could they have done to improve their seed. If they had scored 3 more points against SDSU they would be. #1 seed. I know UND fans are all about if 5 or 6 plays in 3 or 4 games had gone differently we would be 10-1 or undefeated. Literally if one play had gone differently (the Payton interception when they were driving to go up 4 scores in the SDSU game) NDSU would be looking at a #1 seed.

Was only responding to he Fact you said NDSU Beat Montana St badly last year as to why they are ahead of them.  Last year should not matter.

[The Sicatoka]

9 hours ago, nodak651 said:

What about item 2?

Idaho and Weber should be together (600 mi < 1200 mi) because of Item 2, and the caveat of Item 6.

They are not. Why? 

Quote

 

2. The remaining 16 teams will play first-round games and will be paired according to geographic proximity and then

placed in the bracket according to geographic proximity of the top eight seeds previously placed in the bracket;

... 

6. Teams from the same conference will not be paired for first-round games (except for teams from the same

conference that did not play against each other during the regular season; such teams may play each other in the

first round); and

 

Can @Hammersmithexplain this? 

[geaux_sioux]

43 minutes ago, Big Green said:

Was only responding to he Fact you said NDSU Beat Montana St badly last year as to why they are ahead of them.  Last year should not matter.

NDSU beat them badly because their star qb got injured. Their entire offense was built around him and the backup didn’t have the same skill set.

[siouxfan512]

10 hours ago, nd1sufan said:

Again, just going on this year, they lost to a power 5 FBS school and to the #1 FCS seed by 2 points. What else could they have done to improve their seed. If they had scored 3 more points against SDSU they would be. #1 seed. I know UND fans are all about if 5 or 6 plays in 3 or 4 games had gone differently we would be 10-1 or undefeated. Literally if one play had gone differently (the Payton interception when they were driving to go up 4 scores in the SDSU game) NDSU would be looking at a #1 seed.

You're not wrong that they couldn't have done much more. A win over SDSU, and NDSU likely has the number 1 seed, but in a season where there is such slim margin for error, I personally feel NDSU should have been the 4 and Mt State the 3, but in breaking it down there isn't a huge separation.  NDSU has a second loss, but it was to SDSU. Bobcats haven't had to face a team quite to that level, so who knows. They did beat Weber which is a strong win, but it would have been nice to see them play Sac St.

The harder argument for me (using your logic) is Sac St or SDSU. I personally think SDSU is probably the better team (though that might be because I haven't watched any Sac St.), but given Sac State's undefeated season with an FBS beat down, what more can they do to earn the #1, 

[siouxfan512]

41 minutes ago, geaux_sioux said:

NDSU beat them badly because their star qb got injured. Their entire offense was built around him and the backup didn’t have the same skill set.

Committee should have taken that into account and just awarded the championship to the Bobcats.

[siouxfan512]

4 hours ago, Sioux95 said:

Any potential that the MVFC can remove NDSUs AD from the position on the FCS selection committee?  I think it's a multiple year assignment and not looking forward to more of this.

To be fair, there were opportunities for the conference to stand out a bit more, as they have done in the past. To me, there were some missed non-conference opportunities that needed to be won. Do that, and it makes the middle of the pack MVFC teams look much stronger; then their only losses are from beating up on each other.

UND needed to step up and beat a bad Nebraska team. That would have been huge for UND and the MVFC.

UNI needed to not get complete manhandled by Air Force and lose to Sac St.

USD losing to MT

ISU-Blue also lost to MT (Making MT and the BSC look a little better)

SIU had some rough non-conf games

[gundy1124]

20 hours ago, UND1983 said:

it doesn't matter what they do Saturday.  They shouldn't have been in the field by all metrics.  Alot of teams could win one game this coming Saturday.

Lots of man crushes on the Griz, I don't think that's healthy.  Big stadium, Big bid, home playoff game, no amount of complaints changes that.......moving on.

[BarnWinterSportsEngelstad]

11 hours ago, nd1sufan said:

Again, just going on this year, they lost to a power 5 FBS school and to the #1 FCS seed by 2 points. What else could they have done to improve their seed. 
............

Bison played very good on Saturday. 
That was expected. 
There was a punchers chance UND could make it interesting for the fans,
the Bison set the tempo in first 3 plays and continued with dominance.

UND sh$ting the bed helped the Bison move up a slot.
If UND could of kept it within like say 7, the jump may have not happened hampering the to move up effort.

We were so flat starting this game,  with only a some improvement after a couple of possessions - with a few sprinkles of a great play.
Flat = stage freight, punch in the gut, crowd, big game syndrome, butterflies, or any combination and more.

[stonebreaker]

On 11/23/2022 at 8:18 AM, Big Green said:

Was only responding to he Fact you said NDSU Beat Montana St badly last year as to why they are ahead of them.  Last year should not matter.

And it doesn't.  This years seedings do not account for last years games.

[Kab]

On 11/23/2022 at 10:30 AM, BarnWinterSportsEngelstad said:

Bison played very good on Saturday. 
That was expected. 
There was a punchers chance UND could make it interesting for the fans,
the Bison set the tempo in first 3 plays and continued with dominance.

UND sh$ting the bed helped the Bison move up a slot.
If UND could of kept it within like say 7, the jump may have not happened hampering the to move up effort.

We were so flat starting this game,  with only a some improvement after a couple of possessions - with a few sprinkles of a great play.
Flat = stage freight, punch in the gut, crowd, big game syndrome, butterflies, or any combination and more.

 

22 minutes ago, stonebreaker said:

And it doesn't.  This years seedings do not account for last years games.

The only way to keep the ac out of 3rd would have been a loss

t

[SIOUXFAN97]

On 11/22/2022 at 6:29 PM, Shawn-O said:

Watching the CFP weekly show. What’s stopping the FCS committee from adopting a similar practice? 

little man syndrome....(people like kolpack)

[nd1sufan]

On 11/23/2022 at 9:43 AM, siouxfan512 said:

You're not wrong that they couldn't have done much more. A win over SDSU, and NDSU likely has the number 1 seed, but in a season where there is such slim margin for error, I personally feel NDSU should have been the 4 and Mt State the 3, but in breaking it down there isn't a huge separation.  NDSU has a second loss, but it was to SDSU. Bobcats haven't had to face a team quite to that level, so who knows. They did beat Weber which is a strong win, but it would have been nice to see them play Sac St.

The harder argument for me (using your logic) is Sac St or SDSU. I personally think SDSU is probably the better team (though that might be because I haven't watched any Sac St.), but given Sac State's undefeated season with an FBS beat down, what more can they do to earn the #1, 

The committee was more than likely going to split up the teams from the same conference in the top 4 seeds anyway. If Sac at had been 1 NDSU most likely would have been the 4 seed. There is no difference between a 1&2 or a 3&4 in all reality. 

[Sioux>Bison]

On 11/22/2022 at 10:58 PM, FSSD said:

Rankings clearly show MVFC as the best conference FCS this year.  Three teams, CAA - rankings near the WAC.  Five teams.  What was the conference rep doing?

Everyone knows that NDSU and SDSU are the only good teams in the conference….   But seriously…… I don’t think anyone is on that top tier in the FCS year in year out

[Sioux94]

1 hour ago, nd1sufan said:

The committee was more than likely going to split up the teams from the same conference in the top 4 seeds anyway. If Sac at had been 1 NDSU most likely would have been the 4 seed. There is no difference between a 1&2 or a 3&4 in all reality. 

I agree....I always felt if they put Sac St. #1 NDSU would be #4 but when they did SDSU #1 I was pretty sure they would put NDSU at #3 to split them up.   

[Hammersmith]

On 11/23/2022 at 9:02 AM, The Sicatoka said:

Idaho and Weber should be together (600 mi < 1200 mi) because of Item 2, and the caveat of Item 6.

They are not. Why? 

Can @Hammersmithexplain this? 

Apparently I like you guys way too much. I just spent about a hour or so creating my own bracket from scratch to see if I could see their rationale. You're not going to particularly like it, but I see why they did it.

Once you pair up all the eastern teams, you're left with a few leftovers. When you start to attempt to reduce flights for the second round, you see that Weber is a strong team likely to win whoever they play. Because of that, it makes sense to send the winner of Weber/??? to Montana St in the second round. If you put Weber and Idaho together(plane trip), now you've got two Big Sky Teams where the winner goes to play another Big Sky team. That's not really fair to the teams and conference, and it's not really good for the playoff or subdivision. The level of regionalization we currently have is bad enough, but that scenario would be next level. So someone else has to play Weber.

For you guys, I think it was either play Weber in Montana State's pod or play Idaho in either NDSU's or SDSU's pod. But they decided to use Idaho to pair with SELU because SELU is likely to win and that means a bus trip to Samford in the second round.

I started to get a headache at this point, so I'm stopping. I can't absolutely confirm, but at this stage in my construction project, I think the committee's bracket will likely end up with one more bus trip than if they had put Idaho and Weber together in the first round, or it's the same number of bus trips but avoids the triple Big Sky problem.

[Hammersmith]

3 minutes ago, Sioux94 said:

I agree....I always felt if they put Sac St. #1 NDSU would be #4 but when they did SDSU #1 I was pretty sure they would put NDSU at #3 to split them up.   

Ditto. Once it became fairly clear that 1/2 were going to be a pair of BSC/MVFC and 3/4 was also going to be a pair, it just makes sense to split them up.

Consider:

1/4 MVFC and 2/3 BSC. If the bracket goes chalk, you end up with conference rematches in both semis, plus the NC is a guaranteed BSC/MVFC matchup. Kinda boring when the odds favor that before the first game kicks off.

But if you split them up, then even if the bracket goes chalk up to the semis, you at least don't have double rematches. Plus, the NC now could be a BSC rematch, an MVFC rematch, or another BSC/MVFC pairing. At least the probability of a variety of outcomes increases.

At least that's how I look at it. As has been said, there is no real difference between 1&2 or between 3&4.

[nodak651]

6 minutes ago, Hammersmith said:

Ditto. Once it became fairly clear that 1/2 were going to be a pair of BSC/MVFC and 3/4 was also going to be a pair, it just makes sense to split them up.

Consider:

1/4 MVFC and 2/3 BSC. If the bracket goes chalk, you end up with conference rematches in both semis, plus the NC is a guaranteed BSC/MVFC matchup. Kinda boring when the odds favor that before the first game kicks off.

But if you split them up, then even if the bracket goes chalk up to the semis, you at least don't have double rematches. Plus, the NC now could be a BSC rematch, an MVFC rematch, or another BSC/MVFC pairing. At least the probability of a variety of outcomes increases.

At least that's how I look at it. As has been said, there is no real difference between 1&2 or between 3&4.

However, the guidelines specifically state that first round pairings should be made before placement for second round games.  You did not do that.  (Enjoyed reading your thoughts though)

2. The remaining 16 teams will play first-round games and will be paired according to geographic proximity and then

placed in the bracket according to geographic proximity of the top eight seeds previously placed in the bracket

[Hammersmith]

1 hour ago, nodak651 said:

However, the guidelines specifically state that first round pairings should be made before placement for second round games.  You did not do that.  (Enjoyed reading your thoughts though)

2. The remaining 16 teams will play first-round games and will be paired according to geographic proximity and then

placed in the bracket according to geographic proximity of the top eight seeds previously placed in the bracket

Personally, I think you're reading too much into the exact wording. (For everybody's info, the bolding and underlining is nodak651's, and not in the manual.) Creating a bracket is as much an art as a science, and the committee doesn't approach the guidelines with the exactness of a lawyer ripping apart a contract for the tiniest loophole. The purpose of most of the guidelines is to save money by avoiding air travel. That means using both the first and second rounds in synergy. If you're sitting with three unavoidable flights in round one, but a little shifting of those pairing creates the solid possibility for two bus trips in round two, that is absolutely in the spirit of the guidelines.

And avoiding the Big Sky/Big Sky to Big Sky mess is worth a lot of shifting. And let's put the shoe on the other foot. Say NDSU was seeded one year and UNI and UND were not. And say UND and UNI didn't play that year. Would it feel fair to anyone in the Valley if UND and UNI faced each other in the first round only to be sent to NDSU in the second? A guaranteed conference rematch? I think you do whatever you can to avoid a situation like that because it may be someone else(BSC) this year, but it could be you(MVFC) sometime in the future.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say most of all this late night is that this very likely wasn't any kind of attempt to screw UND or play favorites or intentionally break any rules. This was a case where a problem developed in one corner of the bracket because of the strength of the Big Sky this year and the dearth of western teams. And since all the eastern teams pair up so nice with bus trips, there weren't many other options. It came down to UND, SEMO, and SELU. One each had to be paired with Idaho, Montana, and Weber. One winner needed to go to Montana State, and one needed to go to Samford. To allow for the max possible bus trips, that means Weber and SELU can't be paired with each other. That gives us a total of four combinations, and two of those include UND/Weber. It was literally a 50/50 chance.

 

These were the four combinations once you decide to avoid the triple Big Sky pod and allow for the second round possibilities of Weber/Mont St & SELU/Samford:

1. Weber/UND        Idaho/SELU        Montana/SEMO
2. Weber/UND        Idaho/SEMO        Montana/SELU
3. Weber/SEMO        Idaho/UND        Montana/SELU
4. Weber/SEMO        Idaho/SELU        Montana/UND

None of them stand out to me as either really good or really bad. But it's also really late and my brain has been sputtering for hours. lol

[Nodak78]

4 hours ago, Hammersmith said:

Personally, I think you're reading too much into the exact wording. (For everybody's info, the bolding and underlining is nodak651's, and not in the manual.) Creating a bracket is as much an art as a science, and the committee doesn't approach the guidelines with the exactness of a lawyer ripping apart a contract for the tiniest loophole. The purpose of most of the guidelines is to save money by avoiding air travel. That means using both the first and second rounds in synergy. If you're sitting with three unavoidable flights in round one, but a little shifting of those pairing creates the solid possibility for two bus trips in round two, that is absolutely in the spirit of the guidelines.

And avoiding the Big Sky/Big Sky to Big Sky mess is worth a lot of shifting. And let's put the shoe on the other foot. Say NDSU was seeded one year and UNI and UND were not. And say UND and UNI didn't play that year. Would it feel fair to anyone in the Valley if UND and UNI faced each other in the first round only to be sent to NDSU in the second? A guaranteed conference rematch? I think you do whatever you can to avoid a situation like that because it may be someone else(BSC) this year, but it could be you(MVFC) sometime in the future.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say most of all this late night is that this very likely wasn't any kind of attempt to screw UND or play favorites or intentionally break any rules. This was a case where a problem developed in one corner of the bracket because of the strength of the Big Sky this year and the dearth of western teams. And since all the eastern teams pair up so nice with bus trips, there weren't many other options. It came down to UND, SEMO, and SELU. One each had to be paired with Idaho, Montana, and Weber. One winner needed to go to Montana State, and one needed to go to Samford. To allow for the max possible bus trips, that means Weber and SELU can't be paired with each other. That gives us a total of four combinations, and two of those include UND/Weber. It was literally a 50/50 chance.

 

These were the four combinations once you decide to avoid the triple Big Sky pod and allow for the second round possibilities of Weber/Mont St & SELU/Samford:

1. Weber/UND        Idaho/SELU        Montana/SEMO
2. Weber/UND        Idaho/SEMO        Montana/SELU
3. Weber/SEMO        Idaho/UND        Montana/SELU
4. Weber/SEMO        Idaho/SELU        Montana/UND

None of them stand out to me as either really good or really bad. But it's also really late and my brain has been sputtering for hours. lol

We realize it is more an art.  Ex.  Higher bid  doesn't mean you get to host.  It's time to move on and kick A$$ and take names.

[jdub27]

9 hours ago, Hammersmith said:

And avoiding the Big Sky/Big Sky to Big Sky mess is worth a lot of shifting. And let's put the shoe on the other foot. Say NDSU was seeded one year and UNI and UND were not. And say UND and UNI didn't play that year. Would it feel fair to anyone in the Valley if UND and UNI faced each other in the first round only to be sent to NDSU in the second? A guaranteed conference rematch? I think you do whatever you can to avoid a situation like that because it may be someone else(BSC) this year, but it could be you(MVFC) sometime in the future.

They literally did this exact thing last year with SIU/USD going into NDSU.

I do appreciate trying to figure out what they did and who knows what they were actually thinking (and not thinking). I don't think anyone is necessarily upset with the match-up against Weber (though an easier draw would obviously be preferable), that is just the nature of fewer western teams and regionalization being mandated. I think the majority of the venom is that they openly went against the standard that has been applied since forever (highest bid hosts, full stop). And then tried to justify while also handing Montana a home game and ignoring the same reasoning. They should just admit how the process played out and they deviated from every precedent prior to this year. Quite changing the rules without explaining that is what you're doing. On top of that, UND AD/athletic department ends up getting thrown under the bus by everyone under the sun because it looks like they cheaped out when they absolutely didn't. 

[The Sicatoka]

1 hour ago, jdub27 said:

They literally did this exact thing last year with SIU/USD going into NDSU.

So there was precedence. 

[The Sicatoka]

11 hours ago, Hammersmith said:

… is as much an art as a science, …

Which a more subtle way of saying “stogies and scotch beat out objective criteria and analytics.” 

[The Sicatoka]

2 hours ago, jdub27 said:

They should just admit how the process played out and they deviated from every precedent prior to this year. 

That would be admitting the NCAA at its core is arbitrary and capricious in its processes and dealings.