Mid-Season Playoff Prognostications

[FCS_pwns_FBS]

Six weeks down, six to go. The committee will have a very tough time picking the seeds and the at-larges this year. (Then again, I always say that around mid-season and things tend to clear up towards the end).

I know the regionalization of the bracket isn't that great but if we have 3 or more Big Sky teams count on some teams making long treks.

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Automatic Bids
**these are ranked in order from (what I predict) will be the least interesting conference race to the most interesting**
NEC – Albany
Patriot – Lehigh
Big South – Stony Brook
MVFC – North Dakota State
CAA – Old Dominion
Southern – Georgia Southern
MEAC - Howard
Ohio Valley – UT Martin
Southland – Central Arkansas
Big Sky – Northern Arizona

Seeds
#1 North Dakota State
#2 Old Dominion
#3 Northern Arizona
#4 Georgia Southern
#5 Eastern Washington
At-Large Bids

**the CAA, Big Sky, and MVFC not playing a true round-robin creates a crowd of teams from the top 4 conferences with 7 DI wins. No at-larges will come from outside these 4 conferences.**

Big Sky – Eastern Washington, Montana State, Cal Poly
MVFC – Youngstown State, South Dakota State, Illinois State
Southern – Wofford, Appalachian State
CAA – JMU, Richmond

Play-in games
Winner plays @ #1 NDSU: Lehigh @ Central Arkansas
Winner plays @ #2 ODU: Albany @ UT Martin
Winner plays @ #3 Northern Arizona: Howard @ Illinois State
Winner plays @ #4 Georgia Southern: Richmond @ Stony Brook

The Brackets
#1 North Dakota State awaiting - play-in winner
Wofford @ Cal Poly

#4 Georgia Southern – awaiting play-in winner
South Dakota State @ #5 Eastern Washington

#2 Old Dominion – awaiting play-in winner
JMU @ Appalachian State

#3 Northern Arizona – awaiting play-in winner
Montana State @ Youngstown State

[van]

N AZ may turn out to be that good, but there is no basis to give them a seed so far.

[Engineer86]

N AZ may turn out to be that good, but there is no basis to give them a seed so far.

I agree with this and I doubt SDSU gets a first rd bye

[tribefan40]

ODU can't get caa autobid. Most likely at this point looks to be jmu, who would host afte getting a bye, IMO

[Engineer86]

ODU can't get caa autobid.

They will still get in and can be seeded

[LUHawker]

Six weeks down, six to go. The committee will have a very tough time picking the seeds and the at-larges this year. (Then again, I always say that around mid-season and things tend to clear up towards the end).

I know the regionalization of the bracket isn't that great but if we have 3 or more Big Sky teams count on some teams making long treks.

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--------------------------------------------------

Automatic Bids
**these are ranked in order from (what I predict) will be the least interesting conference race to the most interesting**
NEC – Albany
Patriot – Lehigh
Big South – Stony Brook
MVFC – North Dakota State
CAA – Old Dominion
Southern – Georgia Southern
MEAC - Howard
Ohio Valley – UT Martin
Southland – Central Arkansas
Big Sky – Northern Arizona

Seeds
#1 North Dakota State
#2 Old Dominion
#3 Northern Arizona
#4 Georgia Southern
#5 Eastern Washington
At-Large Bids

**the CAA, Big Sky, and MVFC not playing a true round-robin creates a crowd of teams from the top 4 conferences with 7 DI wins. No at-larges will come from outside these 4 conferences.**

Big Sky – Eastern Washington, Montana State, Cal Poly
MVFC – Youngstown State, South Dakota State, Illinois State
Southern – Wofford, Appalachian State
CAA – JMU, Richmond

Play-in games
Winner plays @ #1 NDSU: Lehigh @ Central Arkansas
Winner plays @ #2 ODU: Albany @ UT Martin
Winner plays @ #3 Northern Arizona: Howard @ Illinois State
Winner plays @ #4 Georgia Southern: Richmond @ Stony Brook

The Brackets
#1 North Dakota State awaiting - play-in winner
Wofford @ Cal Poly

#4 Georgia Southern – awaiting play-in winner
South Dakota State @ #5 Eastern Washington

#2 Old Dominion – awaiting play-in winner
JMU @ Appalachian State

#3 Northern Arizona – awaiting play-in winner
Montana State @ Youngstown State

You along with Craig Haley at the Sports Network have Lehigh playing in the first round. Based on what? Lehigh will likely be 10-1 or 11-0. Their body of work over the last couple of years and their top 10 ranking means that they will most likely not be playing in the first round. Why do you guys think continue to stick LU in the first round? Makes no sense.

[woffordgrad94]

I'd just forfeit rather than take that draw. It would make no sense to have to travel all the way out to Cal Poly with another far away trip to North Dakota on tap if we win. I'd tell the NCAA to keep that crap, we weren't going. Maybe that would make them think about sending teams thousands of miles for games in the future if we took a stand and refused the draw. Ridiculous if this happens. They are pricing the fans like me out of following the damned team and that's totally unacceptable.

[Engineer86]

ODU can't get caa autobid. Most likely at this point looks to be jmu, who would host afte getting a bye, IMO

Auto bid and playoff seeding are two different things. If ODU wins the league, but is not the champ, they will still likely get the seed

[FCS_pwns_FBS]

You along with Craig Haley at the Sports Network have Lehigh playing in the first round. Based on what? Lehigh will likely be 10-1 or 11-0. Their body of work over the last couple of years and their top 10 ranking means that they will most likely not be playing in the first round. Why do you guys think continue to stick LU in the first round? Makes no sense.

If teams from the top 4 conferences with 7 DI wins or more are getting left out (a real possibility this year), then I have a hard time seeing the committee giving Lehigh a first-round bye, especially with their OOC schedule. The stock on Lehigh's win over Liberty has dropped considerably and so has Lafayette's win over W&M.

[woffordgrad94]

Has a team ever refused a playoff invitation/draw before? Because I mean it, if I were in charge at Wofford and we were given the draw that the OP here posted I would not ****ing do it...no way in hell. And this post has gotten me mad as all hell just before I get off work too. Bummer.

[tingly]

Big Sky/former Great West teams would hardly accept road invites if they reacted like that to long trips. Wofford can take it, temper or not.

[Go Apps]

ODU is not eligible to win the CAA

[Engineer86]

If teams from the top 4 conferences with 7 DI wins or more are getting left out (a real possibility this year), then I have a hard time seeing the committee giving Lehigh a first-round bye, especially with their OOC schedule. The stock on Lehigh's win over Liberty has dropped considerably and so has Lafayette's win over W&M.

11-0 is tough to look past

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

11-0 is tough to look past

This is all based on right now. If Lehigh is 11-0 at the end of the year they'll be in very good shape and will have a great shot at a seed. I think they'll be in solid shape at 10-1 as well.

[Professor Chaos]

Has a team ever refused a playoff invitation/draw before? Because I mean it, if I were in charge at Wofford and we were given the draw that the OP here posted I would not ****ing do it...no way in hell. And this post has gotten me mad as all hell just before I get off work too. Bummer.
Just because they're paired with Cal Poly? Someone has to do it. Look at the other two second round matchups involving unseeded teams in his projection. Youngstown St at Montana St and James Madison at App St. Montana St can't play Cal Poly due to both being in the Big Sky and the other 3 are also basically on the east coast (YSU being a bit closer).

It's good discussion to critique these playoff projections but in almost every bracket there will have to be some head scratching geographic pairings merely due to lack of options.

[Engineer86]

ODU is not eligible to win the CAA

Does it matter? if they have the best record, seedings do not depend on the auto bid.

[Engineer86]

True I keep forgetting this only considers current status.

[JMUNJ08]

Auto bid and playoff seeding are two different things. If ODU wins the league, but is not the champ, they will still likely get the seed

Correct. JMU vs ODU Nov 17th is getting juicier as conference mates beat up on 1 another. Winner very well may be CAA champ (forgetting about eligibility) and get the seed.

[Reign of Terrier]

I'm reaching pretty far here, but if Wofford wins their next 3 games, they've all but sealed the autobid for the SoCon. If we win our next 4, we likely seal an outright title, and if we win our next 5, we seal a top 3 seed IMO.

I will go out on a limb and say Wofford will win the SoCon if we win our next 2 games.

Furman and Samford can still make some noise from the Socon in terms of making the playoffs. Of course Samford needs 3 wins in their next 4 games, and Furman can't slip up at all.

I honestly don't know what to think of App State other than the fact that they need 3 more wins but they still have 4 very tough opponents to play.

Overall, I think Wofford has the best chance to make the playoffs out of the socon. Even if we lose our next 2 games, I just don't see us losing to the citadel or Samford with the team not having a "big opponent" to look forward to. In other words, our schedule has kind of played out to where we've had our "easy" games first, our hard games in the middle, and our "medium" games at the end. We won't be looking forward to App State while we're playing GSU, and we're not going to look forward to the citadel while at ASU. From there, regardless if we're 7-0 or 5-2, I don't see us looking past the citadel, samford, or chattanooga given, at best we need to win one more game to seal the conference or at worst we need to win every game to make the playoffs.

[heath]

Auto bid and playoff seeding are two different things. If ODU wins the league, but is not the champ, they will still likely get the seed

Thanks for the infoxlolx What Tribe was referring to was the original thread showing ODU as the CAA auto bid.We all know the CAA will have a few at large teams,and ODU will have to be one of them. Will Lehigh get to host a playoff game,if they win the PL? What's holding them back from that happening?

[LUHawker]

If teams from the top 4 conferences with 7 DI wins or more are getting left out (a real possibility this year), then I have a hard time seeing the committee giving Lehigh a first-round bye, especially with their OOC schedule. The stock on Lehigh's win over Liberty has dropped considerably and so has Lafayette's win over W&M.

LU was 10-1 last year with the only major change in the OOC schedule being UNH, which was an OT loss. Yes, Liberty not as strong as last year, but if LU puts up 10-1/11-0 and wins the PL, mark it down that they get a bye. Once again, too much bias around the top 4 conferences. What does the issue of a team with 7-4 record being left out have to do with whether LU gets a bye. You're mixing your arguments. One is, which teams should get it, the other is which ones get a bye.

[UNHFootballAlum]

Based upon your preditction of Richmond being an at large from the CAA, the UNH-Richmond game this weekend will be a big game. If UNH continues to play the way it has the past 2 weeks, they will get in teh playoffs

[WrenFGun]

You along with Craig Haley at the Sports Network have Lehigh playing in the first round. Based on what? Lehigh will likely be 10-1 or 11-0. Their body of work over the last couple of years and their top 10 ranking means that they will most likely not be playing in the first round. Why do you guys think continue to stick LU in the first round? Makes no sense.

Easy. Terrible Resume.

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

Easy. Terrible Resume.

So you're saying Lehigh didn't deserve a bye last year either?

[woffordgrad94]

They should allow same conference playoff match ups in an effort to alleviate travel concerns. Sending a team 3000 miles is ridiculous. Fans can't make that trip. Wofford gets punished for being small, and it sucks for me. Who could I write to about this?

[Engineer86]

Thanks for the infoxlolx What Tribe was referring to was the original thread showing ODU as the CAA auto bid.We all know the CAA will have a few at large teams,and ODU will have to be one of them. Will Lehigh get to host a playoff game,if they win the PL? What's holding them back from that happening?

I don't think they have made a real effort at a bid. Disappointing

[WrenFGun]

So you're saying Lehigh didn't deserve a bye last year either?

Correct, they did not. Lost to the only quality team they played.

[Engineer86]

Correct, they did not. Lost to the only quality team they played.

And beat the CAA champ xrotatehx let me know when Orlando gets his feet in boundsxrulesx

[roTSU50]

out of all the OVC teams. You pick UT Martin??? interesting. I know it is early and all, but EKU, JSU, and WE(TSU) are all in the mix.

[van]

Thanks for the infoxlolx What Tribe was referring to was the original thread showing ODU as the CAA auto bid.We all know the CAA will have a few at large teams,and ODU will have to be one of them. Will Lehigh get to host a playoff game,if they win the PL? What's holding them back from that happening?

the highest bid is what determines host for non-seeded teams, some folks here need to get better informed on how the play off selection and host sites are determined.

[Hawk98]

If teams from the top 4 conferences with 7 DI wins or more are getting left out (a real possibility this year), then I have a hard time seeing the committee giving Lehigh a first-round bye, especially with their OOC schedule. The stock on Lehigh's win over Liberty has dropped considerably and so has Lafayette's win over W&M.

Lehigh was 10-1 with a similar schedule last year and got a bye. If they are 11-0 this year, they aren't going to play the first week.

[james_lawfirm]

Has a team ever refused a playoff invitation/draw before? Because I mean it, if I were in charge at Wofford and we were given the draw that the OP here posted I would not ****ing do it...no way in hell. And this post has gotten me mad as all hell just before I get off work too. Bummer.

Well, I think the answer is ... yes. However, the only example I can think of is the year, 1990? +/-, that Holy Cross was ranked #1 in the then I-AA world, but refused to play in the playoffs. Other examples probably exist. The entire Ivy League refuses to play. I understand that Holy Cross would now play in playoffs if they qualified somehow.

However, whether a team has refused to play simply because they did not like their draw, I doubt it. Come on now ... I think you should re-think your position. I recall the year (recently -- 2007?) that Wofford got sent to Montana AND BEAT THEM!!!

I've been to Montana. It's worth the trip. It's even better if you win.

[Twentysix]

They should allow same conference playoff match ups in an effort to alleviate travel concerns. Sending a team 3000 miles is ridiculous. Fans can't make that trip. Wofford gets punished for being small, and it sucks for me. Who could I write to about this?

A playoff game in Germany featuring NDSU would have atleast 2000-5000 bison faithful in attendance xlolx ;)

Sounds like wofford just needs to man up.

[JMUNJ08]

A playoff game in Germany featuring NDSU would have atleast 2000-5000 bison faithful in attendance xlolx ;)

Sounds like wofford just needs to man up.

You assume that N Dakotans would be allowed to travel internationally... If not, still 5k...

[Twentysix]

You assume that N Dakotans would be allowed to travel internationally... If not, still 5k...

We would just take our horse drawn carriages up to Hector INT'L lol.

[NoDak 4 Ever]

A playoff game in Germany featuring NDSU would have atleast 2000-5000 bison faithful in attendance xlolx ;)

Sounds like wofford just needs to man up.

Over 10k made the 1000 mile trip to Frisco for the NC game last year.

I personally, living in Ohio,made it to 3 Bison games last year. 6000 miles total.

If you have the love, you have the love.

[CopperCat]

MSU would get at least one home game, given their average attendance thus far is well over 17k a game. Not only that, EWU would be seeded over NAU as well.

[woffordgrad94]

I feel like I get screwed because I graduated from and support a very small FCS school- lots of travelling. But you guys are right...I can't do anything about it and just have to man up and deal with it. I can either plan a long playoff trip if that's what we get, or just resign myself to follow along on ESPN3 and/or radio.

But maybe Wofford will win the SoCon, get a seed, and make it all moot. There's always that chance. If Wofford just wins games, they aren't at the mercy of a committee quite as much.

[DJKyR0]

I feel like I get screwed because I graduated from and support a very small FCS school

Hypothetically screwed. You realize the scenario you're fretting over is entirely fictitious at this point, right?

[caribbeanhen]

They should allow same conference playoff match ups in an effort to alleviate travel concerns. Sending a team 3000 miles is ridiculous. Fans can't make that trip. Wofford gets punished for being small, and it sucks for me. Who could I write to about this?

any democrat should do

[woffordgrad94]

Hypothetically screwed. You realize the scenario you're fretting over is entirely fictitious at this point, right?

Yes, I realize that. The original poster is assuming Wofford losses to GSU and ASU. If we win thiose games, we probably win thwe SoCon and get a seed. Then this scenario will not occur. So our fate is in our own hands///we just have to WIN!!!!!!

[woffordgrad94]

any democrat should do

xlolx good one

You won't find many Dems at Wofford.

[Reign of Terrier]

xlolx good one

You won't find many Dems at Wofford.

perhaps in 1994, but in 2012, I can tell you that you're wrong xnodx

[woffordgrad94]

OK I'm wrong. No biggie there.

[tribefan40]

Auto bid and playoff seeding are two different things. If ODU wins the league, but is not the champ, they will still likely get the seed

Wasn't saying anything to the contrary. Just pointing out the fact that odu can't get the autobid, as was stated in the original post. Barring an upset or two, winner of the JMU/ODU game will be looking at a seed, IMO.

[tribefan40]

They will still get in and can be seeded

Again, wasn't arguing that they could not or would not get in and be seeded, just pointing out the facts.

[tribefan40]

Does it matter? if they have the best record, seedings do not depend on the auto bid.

Really? 3 posts? Who's arguing any different?

[JSUBison]

Here's a projection from college sports madness.

http://www.collegesportsmadness.com/fcs-football/bracketology

He must have Poly losing a couple later on. I think Poly is in the running for a seed, or a first round bye at worst. I also don't see Towson making it, and App State vs Wofford in round 1 is a no go.

[NoDak 4 Ever]

Here's a projection from college sports madness.

http://www.collegesportsmadness.com/fcs-football/bracketology

He must have Poly losing a couple later on. I think Poly is in the running for a seed, or a first round bye at worst. I also don't see Towson making it, and App State vs Wofford in round 1 is a no go.

Oh man, that would be sweet. Get Heinecke in the Fargodome to get the Chris Lum treatment.