Playoff question

[skinny_uncle]

There seems to be a large disparity in the number of games played. Most of the Valley is halfway through their conference schedule. Too many schools have only played one or two games. Is there a minimum number of games to qualify for the playoffs?

[Professor Chaos]

4 game minimum for at-large consideration. I don't think there's any minimum for an autobid (that's up to each individual conference to decide).

https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2021-02-09/how-2020-21-fcs-football-season-will-work


How will the rest of the FCS playoff field be determined?

How will at-large teams be chosen, in a season that allows scarce opportunities for non-conference play and inconsistent scheduling models from conference to conference? That's the "million-dollar question," acknowledged Moats.

"It's going to be really difficult to determine because with the unlevel playing field in terms of games being played, we're going to have to look at the team completely with all the criteria that we do have," Moats said.

First, here's what's known for sure, as far as playoff criteria goes: Tolliver said the championship committee has determined that at-large candidates must play a minimum of four games this season to be considered for selection.

As for the other traits the committee will look for to fill the bracket, Moats noted quality wins as a factor, particularly in non-conference and FBS play.

"Even if you have an FBS win, somebody that might've played in the fall and won an FBS game, that certainly would help," Moats said. "We have some tools in our tool box."

[SDFS]

There seems to be a large disparity in the number of games played. Most of the Valley is halfway through their conference schedule. Too many schools have only played one or two games. Is there a minimum number of games to qualify for the playoffs?

I think the Valley got a jump on other conferences because they had 4 indoor facilities (UNI, UND, USD, NDSU) to play in... so they could be confident in scheduling. Other conferences not so much. NOTE: That has been UND's big advantage going into this spring season. They have a large indoor practice facility. So, they were much sharper than say SIU who had much of the practice schedule wiped out or limited.

[Preferred Walk-On]

There seems to be a large disparity in the number of games played. Most of the Valley is halfway through their conference schedule. Too many schools have only played one or two games. Is there a minimum number of games to qualify for the playoffs?

There should be a pretty large number of 4 win teams; however, I think this is the year where the committee will definitely count number of losses rather than the number of wins beyond the threshold the Professor has pointed out. Two losses, and you are on the bubble, hoping it does not get popped (which for a decent number, it will get popped). Three losses, see you in the fall.

[Sonic98]

There seems to be a large disparity in games played this Spring

[BEAR]

Last year we were removing teams for number of losses.

This year we are squeezing them in for number of wins. xlolx

These are strange times indeed.

[Professor Chaos]

Keep in mind there are only 6 at-large spots to fill which is less than half of what it would be in a 24 team field. There might be some pretty good teams left out... consider this scenario posed by Sam Herder:

https://twitter.com/SamHerderFCS/status/1373065071136493571

There's no way the MVFC gets 4 at-larges with how insular all the schedules are this spring. One, possibly two, of those teams would get left out... no idea how they'd choose who's in and who's out.

Seeding is going to be even more of a mess this year as well. I'm not sure if they're still going to have 8 seeds or just 4 (like it used to be when the field was only 16 teams) but how do you seed these teams from multiple conferences with basically zero OOC games to judge the relative conference strength by? The selection committee will be even more of a punching bag than usual this year and there's probably going to be several teams who get hosed when it comes to seeding and at-large selection.

[JayJ79]

Seeding is going to be even more of a mess this year as well. I'm not sure if they're still going to have 8 seeds or just 4 (like it used to be when the field was only 16 teams) but how do you seed these teams from multiple conferences with basically zero OOC games to judge the relative conference strength by? The selection committee will be even more of a punching bag than usual this year and there's probably going to be several teams who get hosed when it comes to seeding and at-large selection.
with little to no OOC games, no one can truly claim that they got "hosed"; because there would be no objective data to back up that claim. I mean, people will still claim it, because people always whine about such things, but anyway.

It wouldn't surprise me if the committee just set up matchups to reduce travel cost as much as possible, and then assigned "seeds" to best enable that setup

[Professor Chaos]

with little to no OOC games, no one can truly claim that they got "hosed"; because there would be no objective data to back up that claim. I mean, people will still claim it, because people always whine about such things, but anyway.

It wouldn't surprise me if the committee just set up matchups to reduce travel cost as much as possible, and then assigned "seeds" to best enable that setup
That's true but the playoffs themselves will give teams and fans ammo to say "told you so". Say a 6-1 team with a (perceived) weak schedule gets an at-large over a 5-2/6-2 team with a (perceived) stronger schedule and proceeds to get throttled in the first round. Or a 7-0 team is given the #2 seed with a weak schedule squeaks by a weak AQ in the first round and then gets to host an unseeded (or lower seeded) team that looked much more impressive in the first round.

These types of things happen in a normal year and are latched onto pretty well (like Furman getting an at-large and SDSU getting seeded last year) but this year there's little to no regular season evidence to fall back on say "well, the committee was justified because...." if you're trying to compare teams from separate conferences after the fact. They'll be flipping plenty of coins to put together the bracket and they're going to be wrong in some cases but there's really no other way to do it given the circumstances.

[HootyHoo]

At this point it is obvious that the Missouri Valley conference is vastly superior to any football conference invented by man. No school outside of the conference has a chance to get within three scores of even the worst valley team. Sam Houston, Kennesaw St, James Madison, and Weber should just quit and focus on basketball or some other Canadian sport. Curling is always enjoyable.

[ysubigred]

At this point it is obvious that the Missouri Valley conference is vastly superior to any football conference invented by man. No school outside of the conference has a chance to get within three scores of even the worst valley team. Sam Houston, Kennesaw St, James Madison, and Weber should just quit and focus on basketball or some other Canadian sport. Curling is always enjoyable.Finally making sense hoo.

https://media0.giphy.com/media/c41LpTKOH6vZjNKOXa/giphy.gif?cid=349c9dd7j1hbcdvsu9p9db6kpbvpqyj0a8gp 23bxijmf33qc&rid=giphy.gif

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