Quote Originally Posted by Redbird 4th & short View Post
My team didn't make playoffs, so i had a little more free time than some of you. but the playoff results got me thinking about conference cannibalization.

And before I throw some stats out there which I think will help meaure conference cannibalization as it relates to FCS selection committee peformance this year .. I want to first congratulate the selection committee for doing a decent job in a very tough year. There were some mistakes, but it seemed like there were far less glaring mistakes than in past seasons. I also want to say it is still generally improving since the utter stupidity that went on from 2011-13 that saw MVFC get 2, 3, and 2 teams. Biggest mistake this year did come at expense of MVFC .. getting just 3 teams, but again ... far less glaring issues in a year that will go down as the "Year of Parity".

So here is a measure of conference cannibalization I think fairly/objectively represents how much a conference cannibalizes itself. The committe should pay much closer attention to this .. it is simple math, nothing more, if you accept Massey picking the top 6 teams from each conference. I'll only use the top 3 conferences with arguable premise these 3 are equally good if you focus ONLY on their top 6 teams .. granted it is per Massey, but if you look these 6 teams, you could maybe argue 1 or 2 of the 18 not being top 6 in their respective conferences .. those 6 teams are in Massey order:

- MVFC: NDSU, SDSU, UNI, ISUb, ISUr, WIU
- CAA: Maine, JMU, Delaware, Towson, SB, Elon
- Big Sky: EWU, Weber, UCD, Mont St, Idaho St, Mont

So the measure is simply to count the # of games played by each of the above teams against the other 5 top 6 teams in each conference. So each team can play a max of 5 games against top 6 teams ... you can't play yourself, it's frowned upon (on airplanes anyway, thanks a lot Bin Laden ). So counting by conference:

- MVFC has 10 total teams, so our top 6 teams logically played the most at 27 of 30 possible games against each other (90%), and went 14-13 in those 27 games; for entire MVFC it is on avg 8 of 9 = 89% ... close enough

- CAA has 12 total teams, so their top 6 teams played 2nd most at 20 of 30 possible games against each other (67%), and went 10-10 in those 20 games; for entire league it is on avg 8 of 11 = 73% .. close enough

- Big Sky has 14 teams, so their top 6 teams logically played the least at just 18 of 30 possible games against each other (60%), and went 9-9 in those 18 games; for entire league ist is on avg 8 of 13 = 62% .. close enough

So the obvious point being if we on-leveled the top 6 teams records so that all cannibalized each other at same % ... take MVFC at 90% ....

- MVFC would have same # of losses
- CAA would have 7 more games with 7 more losses shared among those 6 teams
- Big Sky would have 9 more games with 9 more losses shared among those 6 teams

How would that have impacted playoff selections ??

The math is very simple and objective .. the only aspect that can really be argued is picking top 6 per Massey and my assumption the 3 conferences are pretty equal in their top 6. Also, this does not factor anything in for OOC results or SOS.

Thoughts on this ? Any flaws in my thinking ?
Nice effort. It would be nice to quantify this. As you point out, there are several simplifying assumptions (6 teams? 4 teams? half of conference so it's proportional to the size of the conference? a third of conference? Massey? Sagarin? AGS?, etc.). But my main criticism would be that you stopped too soon. Who cares if the Big Sky would have 9 more losses (I'll accept the previous assumptions and your numbers for argument's sake)? We don't pick conferences for the playoffs. You would need to go back and distribute those losses to the individual teams since that's who is under consideration for a playoff spot.

To use the two teams I'm most familiar with - UM and MSU - it wouldn't make sense to spread those additional losses evenly among the top teams of the conference (9 losses/6 teams=1.3 losses per team). MSU played all but one of the teams you've listed for the Big Sky. We didn't play UCD. UM only played 2 of them (UCD and MSU). So we played 4 of the 5 possible, while they only played 2 of the 5. MSU gets 1.3 extra losses for the 1 game they missed while UM gets 1.3 for 3 missed games? Assuming you're on the right track, IMO you're not going far enough.

I doubt you can find a good way to quantify this without it becoming terribly complex. But maybe with some refinement you can get a rough approximation that's useful as a data point when comparing teams.