Code Orange

Update at bottom.

While the teams who got into the I-AA tournament may not be all that surprising, I found the seeding to be a little shocking.

The first 3 seeds were not surprise: #1 Northern Iowa, #2 McNeese State, and #3 Montana all finished the season undefeated. Also, Southern Illinois being picked as the #4 seeded wasn’t wholly surprising given they were the only 1-loss team in the nation, and whose only loss was to Northern Iowa.

However, from that point, the surprises start coming.

9-2 Massachusetts and 9-2 Richmond were both seeded higher than 9-2 Appalachian State, despite Appalachian State’s Week 1 victory at Michigan. Massachusetts was given the #5 seed while Richmond was seeded #6. Appalachian State was seeded #7. Delaware, which lost this past weekend to Villanova, was given the #8 seed, giving Colonial Athletic Association teams 3 home games in the first round.

After that, Delaware State, which was ranked only one spot behind Delaware before the Blue Hen’s loss this past weekend, is seeded 9th, James Madison, another CAA team, is seeded 10th, Eastern Kentucky is seeded 11th, and Fordham is seeded 12th.

Rounding out the final 4 seeds are Eastern Illinois, Wofford, Eastern Washington, and New Hampshire, which became a record 5th CAA team in the tournament.

Youngstown State, who was ranked ahead of both New Hampshire and Eastern Illinois in the Coaches poll, were left out of the tournament, though apparently there is usually resisitence against putting 4-loss teams into the tournament if possible.

That makes the Bracket thus:

#16 New Hampshire at #1 Northern Iowa
#9 Delaware State at #8 Delaware
#12 Fordham at #5 Massachusetts
#13 Eastern Illinois at #4 Southern Illinois
#14 Wofford at #3 Montana
#11 Eastern Kentucky at #6 Richmond
#10 James Madison at #7 Appalachian State
#15 Eastern Washington at #2 McNeese State

Is it me, or was this bracket structured around making it as hard as possible for Appalachian State to win a 3rd straight title. First off, most people not only thought that Appalachian State probably wouldn’t be seeded that low, but could possibly jump Southern Illinois for the 4-seed due to SIU’s lack of strength of schedule and ASU’s win over Michigan. That obviously didn’t happen. Also, even though neither of ASU’s losses weren’t bad (to Wofford, who is in the tournament, and to Georgia Southern, who probably only didn’t make it because they lost to a I-A team this past weekend), apparently both Richmond and UMass have a bad loss on their record, which makes their being seeded over ASU surprising.

This also means, barring upsets, ASU will only get one home game - and that’s against probably the best team not playing at home in the first round in James Madison. If they win that game, they have to face undefeated McNeese State in the 2nd round instead of a 10-1 and more-equal-to-them Southern Illinois, who they would have faced if they were the 5 seed.

Basically, if everyone wins as they should, and ASU still wins the title, they will have definitely earned it, since they potentially have to defeat all three remaining undefeated teams left in I-AA to get there.

One also has to wonder if the first round matchups were made to make maximum hype for them. Clearly the James Madison vs. Appalachian State will be the most hyped first round game since both are excellent teams. But then you have several regional matchups in the 1st round with Delaware vs. Delaware State, Eastern Illinois vs. Southern Illinois, Massachusetts vs. Fordham, and, arguably, Eastern Kentucky vs. Richmond.

Really, only the big 3 undefeated teams got off by not having to play someone in pretty close proximity to them - Northern Iowa gets New Hampshire, McNeese State (which is located in Louisiana), gets Eastern Washington, while Montana gets Wofford.

In any case, we’ll see how this all plays out starting next week.

Update

As a commenter so eloquently pointed out, the reason there are so many regional matchups is because, well, that’s how the bracket is set up (warning, rather large pdf):

All pairings will be made by the Division I football committee. The following principles are applied when pairing teams:

1. The teams awarded the top four seeds are placed in the appropriate positions in the bracket (Nos. 1 and 4 in the upper half, and Nos. 2 and 3 in the lower half), and will be paired with teams that are in closest geographic proximity;

2. The remaining teams will be paired according to geographic proximity and placed in the bracket according to geographic proximity of the four pairings previously placed in the bracket.

So it’s kind of like pods, but in football.  It see why they do it this way - to keep teams as close as possible, and I guess there is a rationale that, if it’s a playoff, you have to beat everyone anyway, so who you play doesn’t really matter in the end.

Except, outside of first round games, I don’t see the regions holding up.  First off, Appalachian State is closer to #4 Southern Illinois than #2 McNeese State by about 400 miles (about 540 miles vs. 940 miles).  OK, one could arguably say that ASU should play down in Louisiana because none of the other 1st round host institutions (Delaware, Massachusetts, and Richmond) are closer to McNeese State.

However, if ASU is supposed to be the #5 team in the bracket, and there is no clear regional breakdown (teams in Delaware, North Carolina, Virginia, and Massachusetts being paired with teams in Iowa, Montana, Louisiana, and Illinois), shouldn’t they basically get first consideration on where to play, since no one is going to play remotely near home in the 2nd round anyway?

I mean, you look at those choices.  About the only team that doesn’t make sense to pair with McNeese State would be Massachusetts.  But about anyone could go with Northern Iowa, anyone could go with Montana, and anyone could go with Southern Illinois.  In that case, outside the first round, there isn’t really any regional integrity to maintain, so why not place them essentially as seeds?

Also, am I the only one who notices that their regional pairings could have been made considerably easier if they had just made ASU the #4 seed - something which some people believed would happen anyway (and they certainly had a strong argument for it).  In that case, you’d have Richmond being paired with ASU as a no-brainer.  Southern Illinois being paired with Northern Iowa as a no-brainer.  I already said UMass shouldn’t go to McNeese State, so they’d get shipped out to Montana, and then Delaware gets paired with McNeese.

I won’t even get into the issue of whether one gets to play a home game or not.  While, for practical purposes, the better team should always get the home game in the playoffs, it’s not guaranteed (and why it’s not is simple: $$$).

Also for perhaps another day is what I consider to be the unfair advantage the CAA gets by being a conference with 12 teams, yet playing only 8 conference games and not having any sort of conference championship game.  This conference was built to maximize the number of teams it can put into the I-AA tournament since everyone does not play everyone else (Case in point: UMass and Richmond, the conference co-champions, didn’t play).  The only other conference like this is the Ohio Valley, but it’s somewhat mitigated by the fact that it’s only 10 teams, so they don’t play 1 team instead of not playing 3 teams. (The MEAC also has 10 teams, but they play 9 conference games).

And I didn’t even notice this: the apparent last team in, New Hampshire has 4 losses - all in conference (meaning they were 4-4 in their conference).  Georgia Southern  also has 4-losses, they were thisclose from winning the conference (they ended up going 4-3 in a conference where everyone had at least 2 conference losses), and one of their losses was to a I-A team.  Why did New Hampshire get in as a 5th CAA team over Georgia Southern as a 3rd Southern Conference team?

Or why did New Hampshire get in above a 4-loss Youngstown State team, where 3 of their 4 losses are against 2 of the 4 seeded teams in the I-AA tournament and Ohio State?

Or why did they get in ahead of 4-loss Elon, who also went 4-3 in the Southern Conference, plus lost by only two touchdowns to South Florida?

Or why did they get ahead of a 3-loss Norfolk State team, who also lost to a I-A team (Rutgers)?

The more I look at it, the more the selection of New Hampshire makes absolutely no sense, and it’s just aggravated by the fact that it gave the CAA a record 5 teams in the tournament.  The only argument one could make is that they beat Marhsall (which is a comparable game to Georgia Southern vs. Colorado State, and Georgia Southern lost - but then again Georgia Southern lost to fewer I-AA teams too).

So even with the correction that teams are placed regionally, it still doesn’t make sense to me.

Well, so much for the anticipated Big 12 playoff.  We’ll still get part of it next week when Missouri and Kansas face off, but now a Big 12 team in the title game is no longer assured.  Even more, it may not even be Oklahoma who represents the southern division in the Big 12 title game.  Oklahoma’s loss gives them 2 conference losses and ties them with Texas.  If Texas defeats Texas A&M and Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma, it will be Texas who plays in the Big 12 title game.

Speaking of title games, Boston College played their way into the ACC title game with a 20-17 come-from-behind victory at Clemson.  They’ll face the winner of Virginia Tech/Virginia, who play next weekend.

Meanwhile, in the SEC, LSU had already clenched the SEC West title, but the SEC East race got a tad bit clearer as Georgia’s win over Kentucky boots Florida from the race.  Georgia almost clenched the East title, but Tennessee was able to come back and beat Vanderbilt.  If Tennessee defeats Kentucky next weekend, Tennessee will play in the SEC title game.  If they lose, Georgia will play LSU.  Georgia is finished with their SEC schedule.

In the BCS conferences without a formal title game, Ohio State clenched the Big 10 title by defeating Michigan 14-3 in a sloppy game, both in the weather, as well as with Michigan’s offense, who couldn’t get anything going on the ground or in the air.

In the Big East, West Virginia’s win over  Cincinnati set up a de facto Big East championship game next week with Connecticut.

In the Pac 10, Arizona State controls their own destiny now, but plays USC next Thursday, and then Arizona after that.  If they were to lose, Oregon would be next in line,  If Oregon loses, then it falls into USC’s hands.  However, if all hell breaks loose, you could end up seeing a 4-way tie for 1st place in the Pac 10 between Arizona State, USC, and 2 out of Oregon, Oregon State, and UCLA.  That could happen if Arizona State loses to both USC and Arizona, USC loses to UCLA, and Oregon loses to Oregon State, UCLA, or both.

In non-BCS conferences, the Conference USA Eastern title will be determined next week. UCF has a one game lead on East Carolina, but East Carolina owns the head-to-head tie-breaker.  That means if UCF were to lose to UTEP and East Carolina defeats Tulane next weekend, East Carolina would win the division.

The Western Division is in a similar situation where Tulsa and Houston are tied for the division lead with 2 losses, but Tulsa defeated Houston earlier.  It all comes down to Tulsa, as Houston is finished with their conference slate.  If Tulsa defeats Rice, they win the division.  If they lose, Houston wins the division.

In the MAC, the conference title game is now set: Miami vs. Central Michigan.

In the Mountain-West, Brigham Young all but has the conference title, but Utah could still feasibly pull out the come-from-behind upset in the conference race. However, Utah will have to beat BYU next week to keep their hopes alive, and then hope BYU gets upset by San Diego State in the final game of the season.  That was the game delayed by the California fires earlier in the season.

In the Sun Belt, it is essentially a two team race between Troy and Florida Atlantic.  FAU is 1 game behind Troy, but they get to play the Trojans in the last game of the season.   Depending on how tie-breakers work, MTSU could still have a shot, but Troy would have to lose to FAU as well as MTSU, while Florida Atlantic would have to lose to Florida International.

In the WAC, the title will be determined by the Hawaii/Boise State game next weekend.