Quote Originally Posted by Professor Chaos View Post
Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to seeding the Big Sky and CAA teams is how the unbalanced conference schedule in those leagues makes the conference W/L record kind of misleading.

Amongst the Big Sky seed contenders these are the conference teams that they missed. In parenthesis is each opponents rank in the current Big Sky standings (note that while UND is technically an Independent games against them do count in the Big Sky conference standings).
EWU: Idaho St (T4), UND (N/A), Montana (T5), NAU* (10), Sacramento St (13)
Weber St: UC Davis (T1), Montana (T5), Portland St (T7), Cal Poly* (T7), Idaho (9)
UC Davis: Weber St (T1), Montana St (T5), UND (N/A), Portland St (T7), Southern Utah (12)

*Weber St played Cal Poly and EWU played NAU as OOC games (each won)

UC Davis seems to have the edge there for easiest schedule missing Weber St, Montana St, and UND.


For the CAA:
Maine: Delaware (T2), JMU (T2), Stony Brook (T2)
Delaware: Maine (1), JMU (T2), W&M (7)
JMU: Maine (1), Delaware (T2), Albany (12)
Stony Brook: Maine (1), Elon (6), W&M (7)
Towson: Rhode Island (T8), UNH (T8), Richmond (T10)
Elon: Stony Brook (T2), W&M* (7), Villanova (T10), Albany (12)

*Elon/W&M was scheduled but was a hurricane cancellation

Maine seemed to benefit the most here and Towson the least. Stony Brook and Delaware also had it a bit easier each missing 2 of the top 6 (all playoff contenders) and getting each of the bottom 5.
This is a seriously good point I was pondering the last few days. The CAA and Big Sky, and to a lesser degree the MVFC, and Southland but the quality is a bit lower there at least recently, all have an advantage in that some teams do not face the entire gauntlet of ranked conf teams.

Scheduling can make a difference in the eye test W/L record and they can benefit from a good conf record while not facing the best a conf has to offer. It is what it is, and you have to dig down to see what the true conf SOS was, but it does give them a leg up when it comes to viewing their conf record. I know some teams in those conferences do draw the short straw and face the best teams. They usually get hosed, but not always and those teams are obviously very solid. The SOCON, of all the major Conferences, is the only one to not have this situation. We face every team, every year.

I may have to do some research and compare the schedules of some of the past playoff teams and what conference SOS they had and how it impacted their playoff performance.

It is an interesting topic.