Game Notes: Aurora University @ North Central College (12/30/13)

Final Score
NCC 108, Aurora 80

Game Summary
This game felt closer than it should have been in the early going. The Cardinals (7-4) needed a couple minutes to get going, but led 11-3 just over four minutes in and 16-5 about five and a half minutes in. The lead stayed around that range for several minutes but the Spartans (4-7) never wavered, narrowing the gap to two points when the halftime buzzer sounded. Order was quickly restored in the second half though as the Cardinals went on a 15-2 run to open up a 60-45 edge two and a half minutes into the frame. Still, the Spartans didn't go away, keeping within striking distance and even got within six at 77-71 with less than 10 mintues to go. From there, the Cardinals decided they'd had enough shenanigans and pulled away for a comfortable win.

Key Stats

• Miranda Grizaffi (NCC): 5-12 FG (5-12 3PT), 2-2 FT; 17 pts, 3 reb, 1 ast, 1 stl. I could have gone in a few directions for top NCC player yesterday. I decided on Miranda based on this being kind of her breakout game. She shot well last night and led her team in scoring. She was primarily aided by Larynn Shumaker (16 points on 5-8 shooting plus 6-6 on freebies) and Lauren Hernandez (12 points on 4-11 shooting).
• Anna Roszkowski (AUR): 9-17 FG, 10-14 FT; 28 pts, 20 reb (10 ofr), 2 ast, 1 blk. After the game when the Sports Information guys and a local reporter were looking at the stat sheet, somebody mentioned that this looked like a Karl Malone line. Holy crap. Roszkowski was lethal in the first half, when she had a 23-12. She was a big part of a minute stretch where Aurora maintained possession based on something like 6 or 7 straight offensive rebounds that might have killed me if it had netted more than her one point on a free throw.
• Shay Jenkins (AUR): 10-24 FG (0-1 3PT), 5-8 FT; 25 pts, 10 reb, 7 ast, 3 stl. Like Roszkowski was in the first half, Jenkins was the key for the Spartans after halftime in keeping the game close. She kept finding ways into the lane to drop home floater after floater. Regarding the rebound numbers: she's 5'4". Let that sink in. In the second half, she shot 8-16 and hit all four of her free throws.

North Central System Watch

• NCC 3PT: 17-62 (27.4%). Percentage-wise, this is lower than you'd like. But when you end up making 17 three's in a game, you can live with it a little more. The shooting seemed more crisp than it did on Saturday, which helped. I said Saturday that this team lives and dies by the three, and the numbers back it up. In the first half, the Cardinals shot 7-33 from deep (21.7%). In the second, they shot 10-29 (34.5%). If they can sustain that shooting percentage closer to 30 percent, and even a few points higher, this team will be very tough to beat.
• Aurora Turnovers: 39. That also helps matters. There weren't a lot of whistles for traveling, and Aurora didn't throw many passes out of bounds. It showed; 27 of those turnovers came off Cardinal steals. 13 players recorded at least one theft, led by Maryssa Cladis' five. Bobbi Johns and Marion Boeck each added four.

Final Thoughts
I told a number of people in the first half that there was no way we should have let Aurora hang around the way they were. Fortunately the Cardinals caught fire and put the game out of reach at the end. They close out non-conference play with the same mark they had last year at 7-4, with no real surprises. The four teams they've lost to are all good teams, especially Hope. There is an interesting stat that we've seen through 11 games. Look at NCC's schedule and results so far. They are 7-0 when scoring at least 100 points and 0-4 when they fail to hit the century mark. The Cardinals only hit that mark six times last year, so clearly in Year Two of the new system, the offense has figured out a lot of the kinks. They've actually scored just over 100 points per game this season, yet still have a total point differential of -1 on the season.

Millikin and North Park play today to hit the 11-game mark, while Wheaton plays its 10th of the year (they have a date against IIT in late January for some reason). Of all the CCIW squads, only Augustana has a losing record. Wheaton sits at 8-1 coming into today, and preseason favorite Carthage is 9-2. I was surprised to see Illinois Wesleyan is only 6-5, but they've played a ton of tough competition, with four of their five losses coming to teams in or just outside the last Top 25 poll. As usual, the CCIW is going to be a gauntlet. The Cardinals snuck into the tournament last year with a 6-8 mark in conference. I don't think it's out of the question to see the Cardinals hit .500 in conference play this year and make the tournament again, but teams will be gunning for them this year.

Talking to Michelle Roof before the game yesterday, she was thrilled that I had been back after missing a couple games and mentioned that the energy and the aura of the team just seems different at home when I'm there. I'm sure a lot of it is being in a familiar environment without having to travel and knowing the rims and such. I told her that I'm an intangible, but I want to try and give them as much of a home court advantage as I can, and if my work energizes this team, I'm happy to help. But they deserve the credit. I'm just a guy who happens to like yelling "THREEEEEEEEEE!" a lot.

CCIW play begins Saturday, and the Cardinals open at home against North Park. This is a big one for no other reason than how last year's tilt at Merner ended. Hopefully these girls can get some revenge for last year and start CCIW play on the right foot.

COAS Hands Out 2013 NFL Awards

Photo from fanpop.com.

It is said that all good things must come to an end. That means that the 2013 NFL regular season had to. There was a lot of drama all the way through and plenty of games that decided playoff fates of nearly every team in the NFL. I got to see a thrilling game send my Packers to the playoffs when Aaron Rodgers escaped a sack and found a wide open Randall Cobb for the game winner. A lot of Bears fans (including a couple at work) have been extremely classy today. And then there's the idiots that you find on the Internet who are blaming the refs for what came down to Green Bay executing when it mattered most.

Hopefully I won't be as much of an idiot on the Web. Looking back at predictions, I feel dumb about a few things (picking the Vikings at 9-7, underrating Kansas City, San Diego and Arizona), but I nailed a few teams right on the money, so there's that. Ultimately, I think I only got about half of the playoff teams correct though.

Anyway, like I did last year, I'm going to give my (unofficial) votes for the major NFL awards. It's been pretty accurate so far, but I'm certainly open to other guys winning that I don't give my vote to. Let's get to the results.

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Quarterfinals

Bowl season is in full swing now. 15 games have been played to date. And to think: we could have a system where you still play these exhibition games with teams that had decent or good seasons, and still have a playoff to decide who the best of the best truly is.

I'm onto the second round now of what I feel is the best playoff system that was designed by the authors of the book seen to your left, and it had a little bit of drama in Round 1, but now it gets tougher. The top four seeds all advanced and get a second home game, but can they replicate their early results against tougher competition? Or will we see a couple more upsets stacked onto the pair that we had from the opening round? We're about to find out.

Like last round, the higher seeds do get home field advantage, and I tried to make the weather (taken from weather.com) as accurate to real conditions as possible. Each game will simulated as a best-of-three, but I'm only taking the "clinching" game as the real result. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's get started.

Game Notes: St. Mary's University @ North Central College (12/28/13)

Final Score
St. Mary's (MN) 99, NCC 81

Game Summary
In a game where they never trailed, the St. Mary's Cardinals (6-1) scored on their first possession and never looked back. North Central (6-4) kept it within single digits for a good chunk of the half and even pulled within three at 24-21 with 6:53 left in the frame. Then St. Mary's went on a tear, scoring 12 unanswered in less than two and a half minutes. North Central rallied and made it a 49-38 game at halftime. North Central couldn't really close the gap unfortunately, as St. Mary's pulled away slowly but surely, leading by as many as 23 points. North Central pulled to within 13 a couple times but could get no closer in the final minutes.

Key Stats

• NCC: 36 turnovers. Offensively... it was a nightmarish day for this Cardinal team. I don't know if they were tired or weren't entirely ready for the game, but they struggled. They telegraphed a lot of passes and were a little careless with the ball yesterday. Not one of their best performances this season. 20 of those turnovers came in the first half, so they did improve a bit as the game went on.
• Shelby Auseth (SMU): 12-18 FG (2-3 3PT), 2-3 FT; 28 pts, 7 reb, 3 ast, 1 stl, 2 blk. She killed in basically all facets of the game yesterday. St. Mary's was efficient from deep, and Auseth was a part of it. She also had some good looks at layups throughout the game. She took advantage of North Central's system and had herself an excellent game.
• Uzuri Williams (NCC): 6-10 FG, 1-2 FT; 13 pts, 5 reb (2 ofr), 2 stl, 1 blk. I think this was a breakout game for the junior transfer. She showed some decent moves down in the post, rebounded relatively well, and a few times in the game showed great hands on defense. I felt like she had more than the two steals. She could be a valuable piece moving into conference play next weekend.

North Central System Watch

• NCC 3PT: 8-31 (25.8%). I think this number might have looked uglier than it actually was. A few threes in the first half were pretty bad shots in that they were contested or really, really long. The Cardinals seemed short on a lot of their looks, even the open ones. It just wasn't their day. If they hit even a couple more of those (or move in a tad closer), this becomes more of a ballgame and we don't see the point disparity we did late. Such is the system: you live by the three, you die by the three.
• SMU Turnovers: 28. Not a bad total, though obviously it's bad when you turn it over more than that. North Central forced them into a few mistakes, but also notched 17 steals as a team. Bobbi Johns was her usual self, leading the team with 4 takeaways. Maryssa Cladis and Uzuri Williams each had 2 to help out.

Final Thoughts
Any post-Christmas hangovers should be gone now, I'd hope. A few players looked to be out of breath as the game went on. I noticed Larynn Shumaker breathing pretty hard coming out of the game at one point (though despite the fatigue, she had an okay game with 14 points on 6-14 shooting). Ultimately though, one of the worst offensive showings of the young season doomed this team. Side note: you know it's sad when you shoot 40% as a team and score 81 points, yet call it "one of the worst". I trust this team though. St. Mary's is no slouch and they played well yesterday. North Central gets a day to reflect and move on before non conference rival Aurora University visits Gregory Arena. They've had some struggles this year, so I'm looking forward to my Cardinals unleashing the press on them.

COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 17

Here we are. Week 17. Several weeks of hard work and determination culminate in a lot of do or die games. Eight spots of the 12 are already determined for the playoffs, but a lot of seeds aren't established yet. One thing that is though is a second straight winning record.

Last week's decent performance was enough to push me over the mark to guarantee a .500 record this season. I'll take it. Even if I go 0-16 this week I'll still finish with 132 wins, but I'm aiming for loftier heights. And a playoff berth for my team, but that's another story.

So below, you can see my final batch of NFL picks against the spread for 2013.

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: First Round

I almost did this wrong. I set a reminder on my phone to go grab weather forecasts for a couple places, but I had them set to go for Saturday the 14th as opposed to Saturday the 21st. Fortunately I caught my mistake and set it up for this weekend.

Part of me loves to process of building the playoffs more than actually running through them, but I think this does a good job of answering questions of who is more likely to be the best team in the nation. Obviously it's not the same as actually playing the games, but it's the best I can do.

If you want to see the playoff bracket as it's set up, you can view it here, or click on the link up at the top of the page. We're playing through the first round today. The simulation rules are pretty simple: higher seeds get home field advantage, and I try to get the weather conditions as accurate as I can for the game (conditions are obtained by weather.com around the predetermined kickoff time). Start times are for the Central time zone, and I try not to screw teams over with start times either too early or too late. I simulate first round games as a best-of-three to get a more accurate result, with the "clinching" game being the official result. Let's play some football.

COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 16

We're coming down to two weeks left, and I feel pretty good about how I'm picking stuff. This week provided me with one of my best showings ever, since I only missed games that were total upsets. Such is what makes gambling on football... not the smartest proposition.

Fortunately for me, this isn't based on money. Though looking at records, I'd probably have made money were I gambling. Alas, I'm not that crazy, so I'm sticking to picking for pride at this point. I need just 6 correct picks over the next two weeks combined to finish over .500 for the season. I like those odds.

So without further ado, here are my Week 16 picks.

Dreams of a Red "Purple Bowl"

Photo taken from @JeffySOniiiice

I haven't really devoted the attention to my alma mater's football team that I necessarily would have liked this year, but more important things come up. Even so, I paid as much attention as I could yesterday to the biggest football game in North Central's history.

A little over three years ago, I was in the booth at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium in Naperville for the school's first quarterfinal berth. Their opponent: one of D-III's two titans of this century: Wisconsin-Whitewater. The 2010 Cardinals had a veteran defense led by the national Defensive Player of the Year in linebacker Matt Wenger, and had some good pieces on offense, including a decent freshman quarterback in Spencer Stanek. The Cardinals started that Whitewater game in good fashion, scoring on the opening drive. Ultimately though, three Cardinal turnovers resulted in 13 Warhawk points, and Whitewater won 20-10 en route to a national title.

Driving through downtown Naperville Saturday morning I had a flashback to that day, because the conditions here were pretty similar to what they were like that fateful day, and were a little heavier out in Alliance, Ohio, where the Cardinals were but a win away from making their first ever Stagg Bowl. Their opponent: another purple-clad titan in Mount Union.

The Stagg Bowl has a long and illustrious history as D-III's title game, and moved around a fair amount in its first 20 years before settling in at its current home in Salem, Virginia. It is hallowed ground for the small schools. CCIW rival Augustana had a run of four straight titles in the 80's, but in the past decade or so, two titans have controlled Division III: Mount Union and Wisconsin-Whitewater. The two have combined to win every title since 2005, and during that time, only once has one failed to show up for their date (Whitewater last season, when they missed the playoffs). Every year, teams line up hoping to get a shot at these giants in hopes of being the ones to slay them.

And boy, did North Central do everything it could to eliminate the defending champs. In wintry conditions like there were (see above), the Cardinals still moved the ball pretty effectively. They made mistakes along the way; Stanek threw a pick-6 late in the second quarter to give up a lead. The Cardinals also struggled after scoring touchdowns and left points on the field. A pair of blocked extra points, plus a botched two-point conversion late kept the door open for Mount Union with 1:38 left to come down and take a lead. They only needed 31 seconds. The winning touchdown was a beautiful pass and great execution on the part of the Raiders, if we're talking objectively. But they left just over a minute for North Central to come back.

Photo by Dan Poel of D3photography.com.

The Cardinals had traded punches with a heavyweight all game. They moved downfield with relative ease much of the day. The running game was doing plenty of damage. Peter Sorensen made catch after catch, including the brilliant one depicted above that ESPN apparently completely ignored in its Top 10. I mean, look at that! How he got a foot down on his way out of bounds boggles my mind. They had an opportunity to take down the defending champs with a last minute drive. They got to the 30 of the Raiders with plenty of time and a pair of timeouts left. They just couldn't quite get it done. A 4th down pass was deflected down, and the Raiders were able to walk off their home turf with a trip to the Stagg Bowl.

Through all of that, I'm incredibly proud of my Cardinals. They thought going in that they could win. They almost did. They traded punches for 60 minutes with a team many thought invincible. You take away some of those mistakes, maybe the Cardinals are preparing for a trip to Salem. Maybe Mount Union finds another way to get through. We'll never know. But this Cardinal team took Naperville for a thrill ride that won't soon be forgotten.

Photo from the 2010 Stagg Bowl. No photographer credited.

What can't be understated though is this: the Cardinals had a chance to face the elite. A ten-game regular season slate sets the stage for 32 of the nation's best teams to do battle. It doesn't take away from the regular season; rather it enhances it. The best teams fight to run the table and earn precious home field advantage for a month of games. Including Saturday's semis, 24 of the 30 games went to the home team. The NCAA rewarded teams for regular season success, something big time college football doesn't quite seem to get. If D-III had a BCS style system, would voter fatigue have ended the Mount Union-Whitewater run of title game matchups? Would a Mary Hardin-Baylor or Linfield have made it? Would a North Central team who had only ever made it to the quarterfinals twice and making their first ever semifinal appearance have even gotten a shot? D-III is football how it should be played: the champion is decided on the field. Those of us who may be sick of seeing Whitewater and Mount Union play in Salem have no gripes. Our teams have had repeated chances and can't pull the trigger. North Central had its first shot at Mount Union Saturday and gave the champs their best shot. It wasn't quite enough. If you want them out of the title game, knock them out yourself. Pure football. Simple as that.

COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 15

We're coming down to the wire! Three weeks, 48 games remain. Only three playoff spots are locked up, and a lot of races are probably going down to the wire.

Last week was a pretty high week; I got 9 of the possible 16 games right, but Nathaniel caught fire, picking 12 right. I still hold a narrow lead at this stage.

Unfortunately, for the stretch run I decided to go separate. Just my picks will be featured here the next three weeks. You can view them coming up after the jump. Hopefully I can still do well enough on these without a foil.


Thursday Night
San Diego Chargers @ Denver Broncos (-10.5)
Lucas: Chargers. Obviously Peyton didn't like the "sucks in cold weather" narrative, and neither did Denver. I think San Diego is slightly more competent than Tennessee at this stage, though.

Sunday, Early Afternoon
Washington Redskins @ Atlanta Falcons (-6.5)
Lucas: Redskins. Even realizing that Washington is just awful, remember that of Atlanta's 21 points, all came in the first half, 7 came off kind of a fluky pick-6, and another 7 came off of a Green Bay turnover deep in their own territory. There weren't really any lengthy drives aside from the one that opened the game. And Green Bay's defense sucks. Points, please.

Buffalo Bills @ Jacksonville Jaguars (+1.5)
Lucas: Jaguars. Why do I feel like I'm all in on these guys. Maybe I should move down there and take advantage of the apparently super cheap tickets I was talking about with an old friend on Monday. Then again, I'm getting married in less than 200 days and I don't think my wife-to-be wants to move. Probably should hold off.

Chicago Bears @ Cleveland Browns (-1.5)
Lucas: Bears. How, exactly, is Cleveland favored here? I get that their defense is decent and it's Jason Campbell starting as opposed to Brandon Weeden, but have you seen the ridiculousness coming out of Alshon Jeffrey lately? Then again, if the Bears had a competent defense...

Houston Texans @ Indianapolis Colts (-6.5)
Lucas: Colts. We all remember what happened the last time Wade Phillips was in charge of a team, right?

New England Patriots @ Miami Dolphins (+2.5)
Lucas: Dolphins. WHY GRONK NO GET TO GO PLAY IN MIAMI? GRONK WANT PARTY WITH PRETTY LADIES WHILE DOING KEGSTANDS. GRONK NO CARE IF GRONK'S KNEE TORN APART AND IN TREMENDOUS PAIN!

Philadelphia Eagles @ Minnesota Vikings (+4.5)
Lucas: Eagles. Obviously snow wasn't a problem for Chip Kelly, but put them in a dome? Have fun, Leslie.

Seattle Seahawks @ New York Giants (+6.5)
Lucas: Seahawks. I'm writing off the Giants now. Partially because it's the Seahawks, but mostly because I think, for real, the Giants are done now.

San Francisco 49ers @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+5.5)
Lucas: 49ers. San Fran reestablished themselves with that big win over Seattle. Facing a weak team this week helps quite a bit.

Sunday, Late Afternoon
Kansas City Chiefs @ Oakland Raiders (+4.5)
Lucas: Chiefs. Because we have to delay giving Denver the AFC West as long as possible. Could KC finish 13-3 and be a wild card? It's doable, right?

New York Jets @ Carolina Panthers (-11.5)
Lucas: Jets. I'm sorry, but even with the disparity between these guys, I can't lay that many points. Cam Newton, please don't hurt me.

Green Bay Packers @ Dallas Cowboys (-6.5)
Lucas: Packers. Look, I'm aware it's stupid too with Rodgers likely not playing. But as bad as Dallas' defense is, is it that unreasonable to think Matt Flynn could pull out another one? Also, Dallas in December. Remember this.

Arizona Cardinals @ Tennessee Titans (+2.5)
Lucas: Cardinals. Tennessee gets a slightly weaker opponent, which helps, but I like how Arizona looks overall. Larry Fitzgerald is overjoyed that he has a competent quarterback again!

New Orleans Saints @ St. Louis Rams (+5.5)
Lucas: Saints. With the cold and winter weather that has abounded in the past week or two, Drew Brees put "playing every game indoors" on his Christmas list.

Sunday Night
Cincinnati Bengals @ Pittsburgh Steelers (+2.5)
Lucas: Bengals. Andy Dalton looks pretty good this year, doesn't he? Maybe the Bengals can actually avoid being one-and-done this time.

Monday Night
Baltimore Ravens @ Detroit Lions (-5.5)
Lucas: Ravens. Even though it's in Detroit, the Lions are the Lions. I can't shake the feeling that something is going to happen where Detroit screws themselves over. It's what they do.

Record So Far
111-101 (9-7 last week)

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Official Bracket

Saturday was the BCS' final gasp. As far as drama goes, it went well for the "Cartel", what with the couple upsets and some compelling games. I maintain that having this 16-team playoff would do a lot of favors for the sport in that yesterday, basically every game would have had truer postseason impacts. It would also reduce a lot of the sheer hatred NIU suffered. I saw one person on Facebook who just lambasted them for no reason other than they were the modern day Boise State and dared tread on what elitists consider the sacred turf of the BCS. It's ludicrous.

Ultimately, that's why I started compiling stuff for a playoff system outlined in the book seen here. I'm sick of people talking crap about conferences like the MAC just because they're not the SEC, Pac-12 or what have you. So, with the regular season officially done (unless the Army-Navy game intrigues you to no end) it's time to outline what a truer college football postseason looks like.

A lot of people are arguing for either the 4-team playoff that gets implemented next year, but more people want either a four or eight-team playoff, with even some arguments for 10 or 12-team brackets. I'm arguing 16 because that gives every conference champion the opportunity to play for a national title. At that point you truly have every game really counting for something. To fill out the field, I will take 6 teams that didn't win a conference title but still had great regular seasons. Most years, this will likely mean most, if not all, one-loss teams and two-loss teams will also have a good shot.

The 16 teams will be seeded by a selection committee (read: me) with the help of some number crunching. The main reason for this is the other aspect of this playoff that really makes every game count: for the first three rounds, higher seeds get to host the games. Consider it a reward for a really good season.

Seedings are determined by kind of an organic process. I will look over schedules to try and decide who had some signature wins, how margin of victory looked, how bad their losses were, etc. I will also employ some math to help quantify things. Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS) tries to analyze how well a team scheduled its out of conference slate. While it doesn't look at record, it rewards teams for playing major conference opponents and/or on the road and punishes scheduling cupcakes. It's not entirely a fair formula, but it can help a little bit. The more significant one that I created is the Playoff Points (PP) metric, which is basically the combined number of wins of each team a given school has beaten. It's a concept I borrowed from the IHSA. I also use a pair of computer rankings created by current or former people whose formulas were used by the BCS. Current computer guy Jeff Sagarin (SAG) has a "politically correct" version he sends them, but has a better ranking that I use. The late David Rothman (FACT) also created a formula that the BCS stopped using when they decided margin of victory wasn't important (or more so, decided it went against sportsmanship, which is something of a bogus argument). His formula is public domain and I found someone at UCLA who compiles it at the given link.

So without any further long-winded explanation or grandstanding, here's how the 2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs will be arranged.

COAS/SSLYAR Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 14

Only four weeks remain in this NFL season, but there's still plenty of contention for playoff spots. It's still fairly competitive in picking games against the spread though too. Nathaniel and I each got back to at least .500 to keep numbers high, but I'm up to a 9 game lead with those 64 games left to be played. Such is what happens when despite the holiday, you go 11-5. Nathaniel didn't do too bad himself though, sitting at 8-8 on the week. Clearly, anything can happen.

Likewise in the NFL, a lot of playoff spots are still wide open. In the great tradition of December football, I use ESPN's Playoff Machine to mess up the NFL world as best I can. This was the best I could come up with: New England and Indianapolis miss the playoffs, Green Bay wins the NFC North, and the road to the Super Bowl runs through Philadelphia and... Miami?! Click here for the fun details.

Nathaniel has had a busy week, so he was only able to get quick synopses on all the games. This week, we disagree on 5 games out of the 16 on the slate. Let's see how this goes.

2013 FBS Rankings: Week 15

Other than the annual Army-Navy game, this is it for the big time college football regular season. Most teams are done, but a handful are playing their 13th games. Heck, a couple have already played 13 games and it's throwing me off. Either way, by about midnight on Sunday, we will know who won each conference and thus earned an automatic bid to the unfortunately simulated Death to the BCS Playoffs. But for this final post analyzing schedules, I figured I'd unveil my overall rankings. It only seems fair that everyone get to see what the NCSS numbers actually look like for everyone.

Before we get into that though, I was planning on sharing the final conference rankings with updates from this week, but every game on this week's slate is in conference, so there will be no changes. What I did do is for this week, put the Army-Navy game in so that I could go ahead and run the numbers here. Since neither team is in the running for the playoffs, I don't have to worry about the implications of those games. If you want to see what ultimately became the final conference rankings, check last week's post here.

Instead today after the jump, I'll have the full, final NCSS rankings for each FBS team. As a refresher, NCSS ignores record, instead focusing on whether the teams on the non-conference schedule are in a "power conference" or not, with a bonus for playing on the road. Teams are also penalized for facing FCS competition.

Full disclosure: This should be obvious, but independents will have the highest NCSS scores since none of their games are played in conference. The Sun Belt, being an 8-team conference will also have inflated scores while the Big 12 and Pac-12 might have slightly lower scores since they only play three games outside their respective conferences.

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 14 Seedings

Happy December! Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving weekend full of family (first and foremost), food and football. And really, the football part (Green Bay getting smoked aside) was amazing.

I didn't watch much football this weekend with a lot going on, but I was thrilled Saturday to see my North Central Cardinals earn a trip back to the quarterfinals of the D-III playoffs for the first time since 2010. And the Death to the BCS Playoffs get quite a shakeup as well. I didn't watch much of the big-time action this weekend, but I did see the end of the Iron Bowl. Holy crap.

With Alabama and a couple other key teams losing, there is a definite shakeup in the overall standings, which impacts the playoff seedings compared to last week. As a refresher, the Death to the BCS Playoffs are based on the system in the book whose cover is seen here, where a 16 team playoff is built from all conference champions plus at-large bids. I'm acting as a one-man selection committee who is giving tentative conference titles based on records and filling in the at larges from there. Seedings are based on a review of each team's resume, with help from a few formulas. I include my Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS, for which you can see the most up to date info based on conferences here), Playoff Points (PP, basically showing how many wins the teams you've beaten have as something of a "strength of schedule" metric), and then computer rankings compiled by Jeff Sagarin (SAG, found here, using the rankings in order of the list) and the late David Rothman (FACT, found here, though his formula is public domain and rankings based on his algorithm is compiled by someone at UCLA) which use margin of victory as a factor.

So with all the chaos and math in mind, let's see how things unfold.

Game Notes: Benedictine University @ North Central College (11/26/13)

Final Score
NCC 102, Benedictine 98

Game Summary
Assistant SID Drew Sauer stole my line about "a tale of two halves", but it was completely true in this game. The Cardinals (3-1) took a couple small leads early, but the Eagles (1-3) stormed back and went on a 9-0 run to go up 18-10. The Cardinals would battle back to tie and even take a couple more small leads before another Benedictine run of 12 straight points in about 90 seconds. The Eagles would lead by as many as 14 before settling into a 12 point gap at the break. Whatever Michelle Roof said in the Cardinal locker room clearly had an impact, as they made small pushes to climb back into the game, taking a 68-67 lead with 12:26 left. Benedictine didn't go quietly despite the Cardinal outburst, even leading by 6 with 5:46 to play before back to back threes tied the game. Later, tied at 91, the Cardinals pulled away with a couple well-timed triples and decent free throw shooting to pick up their third win of the year.

Key Stats

• Kim Wilson (NCC): 6-14 FG (5-13 3PT)- 17 pts, 1 ast, 2 stl. Kim all but kept the Cardinals in the game in the second half with a good shooting effort. Even without a rebound, she also played pretty good defense. In her second start of the season, she was probably the key figure in this win, though there were plenty of others.
• Marion Boeck (NCC): 2-5 FG (all 3PT), 2-4 FT- 8 pts, 5 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl. Marion missed the first few games due to injury, but looked pretty good in her first game back. She got some key rebounds, with a couple coming in the last two minutes when it was a one-possession game, while also picking up one of her threes after a rebound to double the Cardinals lead. Huge to see from the lone senior on this squad.
• NCC: 7* charges drawn. The asterisk is used because it's unofficial (though honestly, I wish every place was like Aurora Christian where the charge was kept as an official stat). This Cardinal team drew an astounding five (five!) in the first half alone, which frustrated the hell out of Benedictine's coach. The Cardinals picked up a couple more early in the second half, and it obviously affected the Eagles, who ended up having to settle for pull up 5-footers instead of layups.

North Central System Watch

• NCC 3PT: 18-63 (28.6%). I mentioned in the season preview that if North Central could improve its three point shooting even a couple points to 28%, it could mean the difference between a win and a loss. And it really showed in this game. What astounded me was at halftime, the Cardinals had shot 7-38 from deep. It was bad. A lot of it had to do with the Eagles buckling down in a 2-3 zone, keeping a close eye on Larynn Shumaker and daring everyone else to shoot. Other than Kim Wilson, no one else was really hitting. But for whatever reason, they caught fire in the second half. Marion Boeck's two threes came in the second stanza, Maryssa Cladis all three of her triples after halftime, and Anita Sterling hit a couple as well. As a team, the Cardinals shot 11-25 from deep in the second half. If they can shoot that well over the course of a whole game... oh man.
• Benedictine Turnovers: 30. This is a season low so far for NCC to force, but for the Eagles it was a season high (and probably will remain so, given NCC's system). A few of these probably came on those charges, but the Cardinals also managed 15 steals. AnnMarie Bachmann led the way with three thefts, while four other Cardinals notched two (including last year's leader Bobbi Johns).

Final Thoughts

Photo taken by the NCC Sports Information Department.

I can't help but feel like this is a game last year's Cardinals would have lost. I feel like it still could have been, with somewhat shaky free throw shooting late (I blame that stupid rim on the west end of the court). But this team showed poise and never gave up despite a pretty sizable defecit in the first half. Like the Ripon game, the Cardinals should carry memories of this contest as they go forward this season. This game is a reminder that they can get hot at any time and they're capable of beating just about anyone on any given night. A long road trip looms after Thanksgiving, so I won't have any more reports until we near the end of 2013. Hopefully we'll be talking about a team on a long win streak as we approach the new year and another trip through the Gauntlet.

2013 NCAA FBS Rankings: Week 14

For a lot of teams, this is the end of their regular slate. For others, there's still the first weekend in December, whether it's for Game 12 or the conference title game. By then, a lot of the playoff teams will be decided, but seedings will still be up in the air.

Yesterday's batch of seedings can be found here, but today I'm focusing on one of the last sets of changes for conference's rankings of their out of conference scheduling. I think we're done with cupcakes so the SEC can come out from under its rock now. You know what, hold that thought.

For last week's rankings, click here.

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 13 Seedings

Saturday was my 24th birthday, and that morning I tweeted out a short list of things I wanted from the sports world for my birthday. Of those, a couple came true (including North Central's football team moving on) while others didn't (I'm kind of mourning D-Rose's latest knee injury). But the one I forgot to throw out there was for the BCS to undergo a little chaos, just to eff with people. Sure enough, it happened.

Of course, the drawback for this is that I need to reevaluate my playoff seedings, which takes a little bit of work. Granted, I've been updating my numbers weekly, so that part isn't new, but needing to shift teams around is also a responsibility I need to take. Every week I've had to do some shifting around, some weeks more than others. This might be one of the more chaotic weeks. And last week was pretty chaotic.

As a refresher, the 16 team field is made up of the ten conference champions, plus six teams selected "at large", then seeded in regular fashion. The official criteria to select at large teams and seed the field isn't concrete, but is based off of a mixture of Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS, most recent data for conferences can be found here), Playoff Points (PP, basically the total number of wins of the teams you've beat), and computer rankings based on formulas created by Jeff Sagarin (SAG, found here, but I'm retweaking based on a closer reading of Sagarin's header and using the official "rating" column as his ranking, as it is a synthesis of his two other score-based rankings) and the late David Rothman (FACT, compiled by someone from UCLA, which can be found here). I also peer over schedules and try to decide as best I can how things should be seeded So without further ado, here's how I would seed a playoff if the season ended today.

COAS/SSLYAR Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 12

We're onto the last of the set of bye weeks in this NFL slate, so after this week, it's full-on 16 game sets. For Nathaniel, that might be a key difference in overcoming his defecit. It grew last week, as we both finished under .500, but I took two of the three games we differed on to push my lead back up to six games.

Obviously, as has happened so far this year, anything can actually happen on any given Sunday. And usually, it's gone against common wisdom (or at least, my and/or Nathaniel's wisdom) and has dragged us down to near .500 overall. So really, neither of us is any better at this than you would be flipping a coin to pick games, except our rationales behind them are usually way better than "This is what flipping a coin got me."

This week we disagree on a whopping seven different games, so my lead could be gone by Sunday night. I imagine not, but we're probably looking at a shift of a few games.

So without further ado, let's move on to this week's set of picks.

NCAA FBS Rankings: Week 13

It's been a busy past few days, with North Central basketball underway, and a lot of football this past weekend. I'm looking ahead now to the upcoming week of games, seeing as the action starts tonight with a couple MAC games. These are all factors that are important going forward to the last few weeks of the season for playoff purposes.

This week's rankings will have some big movement, if my spoiler from yesterday's playoff seedings post are any indication. If you want to see where we're at through the first 12 weeks of the season, you can view last week's schedule rankings here.

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 12 Seedings

After a busy night on Saturday involving 7 hours of basketball and some personal chasing sandwiching it, I headed home and listened to the end of USC-Stanford. Oh man. Great finish, and it throws a major monkey wrench into the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

I think I've said it on here before, but I'll say it again: for all its flaws, big time college football does seem to have the best regular season. And I still think an expanded, 16 team playoff wouldn't diminish it in any way. After all, the other divisions (D-III, for example) all have playoffs, and that same idea of "Every game counts" holds true, more so than in the big time. The NCAA unveiled its D-III bracket yesterday, and like in this system I've been outlining here, basically all conference champions get an automatic bid (except for a couple that don't want to hand one out), and everyone else has to battle for 5 at large bids. It makes more games meaningful for everyone. Isn't this how it should be in the big time?

So with all the games from this past weekend done, here's how I would seed the 16-team playoff. All ten conference champions make it, plus six at-large teams. Selection criteria isn't set in stone, but involves Non-Conference Schedule Strength (up to date conference averages can be found here), Playoff Points (basically, you get points for however many wins the teams you beat have), and computer rankings that factor margin of victory done by Jeff Sagarin (I use the "BCS Predictor" set found here) and the late David Rothman (his formula is public domain, and someone who uses it compiles rankings here). There's no exact formula for combining these factors, just me as a one-man "selection committee". For last week's seedings, click here.

Game Notes: Hope College @ North Central College (11/16/13)

Final Score
Hope 126, NCC 56

Game Summary
This game was a stark contrast to yesterday's affair. Lauren Hernandez hit a three on the opening possession to give the Cardinals (1-1) an early lead. It lasted for about a minute as the Flying Dutch (2-0) worked their way down the court quickly in transition a couple times and scored the next 15 points. Hope even stole North Central's line change strategy for subs a few times to keep fresh legs out there. Transition buckets kept adding up, and Hope led 71-30 at the break. The second half took a while for being a blowout, and Hope just kept adding to the lead. They topped the century mark about halfway through the frame, but there were a lot of fouls and free throws that stopped the clock and extended this game longer than it needed to be.

Key Stats

• NCC: 51 turnovers. Really, I should just leave this here and be done with it, but I think this told the tale. You can't be this careless with the ball and expect to win. Hope logged 32 steals in the win, a lot of them on really bad/telegraphed passes. Hope has a lot of size in the post, and they made it almost impossible to get entry passes, yet the Cardinals kept forcing it in there. Too bad.
• Rebekah Llorens (HOPE): 9-14 FG, 5-6 FT- 23 pts, 3 reb (2 ofr), 3 stl. The tournament's Most Outstanding Player, Llorens had plenty of open looks for layups all game long. A lot of it stemmed from fantastic ball movement by the Dutch to beat North Central's traps, but she made the most of her opportunities. I'm a little surprised she only had 3 boards, but they shot over 50% from the floor in the game, a given when you get so many easy layups.
• NCC: 17-21 FT (81%). In all the darkness of a 70 point loss, I did want to find something for this team to hang their hat on, and for me, it's how well they've done at the free throw line through 2 games. Tacking on last night, they're sitting at about 78% as a team. Freshman DeJa Moore was 10-11 from there to lead the way for the Cardinals. Considering as a team, they shot about 65% last year, I'm very happy with this. It bodes pretty well for the close games that CCIW play is bound to bring.

North Central System Watch

• NCC 3PT: 5-19 (26.3%). Hope played pretty good defense, so the Cardinals didn't get to jack up nearly as many threes as they normally do. And percentage-wise, it's an improvement to about what they shot last year. I think eventually, the shots will start to fall a little bit more as this team gets into the pace of the regular season.
• Hope Turnovers: 32. Hope came into the season ranked 9th in the country, and I had heard someone praise them as being very fundamentally sound. So at the end of the day, to force 32 turnovers is probably the best any team will do against them this season. The Cardinals logged 15 steals out of those 32 turnovers, paced by Sofia Svensson, who had 3, and three other Cardinals had 2, including last year's leader, Bobbi Johns.

Final Thoughts
Unfortunately, the prevailing thought pregame was that something like this was bound to happen, but it's sad to see it unfold this way. Even in a 70 point loss, we learn where this team is at going forward (spoiler: I'm not looking forward to the Wheaton or Wesleyan games), and you can tell there's a lot of youth on this team. I think they'll grow from this game and get a chance going forward to do a little damage over the rest of non-conference play. There are going to be games like this one. The question is, how do you bounce back from them? They're home on Wednesday against Lake Forest, so we'll find out then.

Game Notes: Ripon College @ North Central College (11/15/13)

Final Score

NCC 113, Ripon 111 (OT)

Game Summary

In an incredibly back and forth game, the Red Hawks (0-1) had control and most of the lead, but the Cardinals (1-0) never trailed by more than 5 and even took the lead here and there. Ripon had a 6 point lead with about 7 minutes to go in the first half when the Cardinals started to make a run. A few well-timed layups and threes got the Cardinals back into it and they led by 6 at the break. North Central came back out of the locker room pretty quickly, building the largest lead of the game at 10 points a couple times. Ripon worked their way back, finally tying the game about halfway through the frame. It was a war of attrition from there, with neither team able to pull away by more than 5 points, when Ripon did it with about 2 minutes to go, then again with about 35 seconds left after North Central tied it. Fortunately NCC got a three point play and a charge before a game-tying layup forced overtime (which was then nearly averted by a halfcourt heave that juuuuussst missed going in). In the extra frame, neither team led by more than 2, but a botched play turned out all right with less than 4 ticks left, and the Cardinals may have a legend in the making.

Key Stats

• DeJa Moore (NCC): 5-9 FG (0-1 3PT), 4-6 FT- 14 pts, 5 reb (2 ofr), 7 ast, 2 stl. Your hero of the night. I heard encouragement from NCC's bench for DeJa to "Attack #12 [of Ripon], she can't guard you!" And sure enough, she attacked the basket well tonight, including when it mattered most. She found room for a layup at the end of regulation with the clock winding down to force the extra session, and in overtime took the ball out under the basket with 7.5 seconds left following a timeout. She tried to get an entry pass into Larynn Shumaker, saw it bobbled, but ended up with the ball under the basket, and somehow found a way to put it home.
• Larynn Shumaker (NCC): 6-12 FG, 13-15 FT- 25 pts, 3 reb (2 ofr), 1 ast. With the main weapon of the arsenal (see below) not working, the Cardinals turned it over to their star in the middle, and Larynn showed that she worked hard in the offseason. Just like last year, she can beat anyone in the post to get a good look, and 50% shooting from the floor is a good start. What really impressed me though was the amount of times she got to the line and converted. As a team, the Cardinals shot 37-48 from the line. The 11 misses scared me at times tonight, but 77% from the stripe as a squad isn't too shabby.
• Sofia Svensson (NCC): 5-13 FG (1-3 3PT), 0-2 FT- 11 pts, 12 reb (8 ofr), 3 stl. In basketball, you need someone to do the dirty work: grab a few rebounds, play tough defense, dive after loose balls, and the native of Sweden did just fine in her first collegiate game. We could maybe argue that she tried a little too much, resulting in a couple fouls that could have been avoided, but I was impressed by her heart and hustle. They couldn't have pulled this win off without her.

North Central System Watch

I did this part last year too, but I'm getting rid of the line changes. It's going to be about 40 a game, what with all the pressing and such. So instead, I'll focus on the two keys of the system on each end.

• NCC 3PT: 8-46 (17.4%). So much for the 30 percent prediction. A lot of these threes were open looks, but they just didn't fall. They seem to fall in some key situations though, when the Cardinals need a bucket to open up some space or get back in a game. I'm not expecting a 20-48 line every night, but if they can make maybe 12-15 a game, I think they'll be all right.
• Ripon Turnovers: 39. Granted, in women's basketball, turnovers seem to be a lot more prevalent, but holy crap. Of those, 24 came off of North Central steals (Bobbi Johns and Uzuri Williams each had 4 to lead the way). The Cardinals drew two or three charges tonight and forced one five-count as well. So far, the 10-second rule addition hasn't had an impact.

Final Thoughts

Hey look, my head! Oh, and a basketball game. That too.
(Photo by NCC Sports Information Department)

At some point this season (read: the heart of CCIW play), this team will come to a bump in the road. Looking back to a game like this will hopefully give them some confidence to turn it around. Objectively, this was a really good game: 24 ties, 13 lead changes, no lead bigger than 10. For the fans who came in starting at 7 for the men's game (they won, by the way), they got to see a thrilling end to what, in most circumstances, could be called an instant classic.

There was just one, teeny tiny, eensy weensy problem... the NCAA's stupid insistence on the hand check rule for this season. Granted, we had an overtime period, but over the course of those 45 minutes of play, a whopping 73 fouls were called, resulting in 93 free throws. It was terrible in the first half, which took just over an hour to complete. I understand the idea of wanting to clean up the game and that eventually players will adjust, but my goodness. A lot of these calls were legitimate fouls, but there were enough ticky-tack ones that made this game a bit of a headache. Let them play, refs.

Anyway, I'm back at it tomorrow. Ripon gets a shot at Bluffton University's women's team, who got beat 83-59 by #9 Hope College in the early contest, for third place at noon. 2:30 sees Valor Christian College try to right the ship from their loss to NCC by facing Trinity International University. Finally, the 5:00 women's title game pits the Cardinals against Hope. I'm hoping the Cardinals can build some momentum off a big win there and take home the tournament championship!

"Noboby Believes In Us!"- An NCC Basketball Preview

2012-2013 was, by most accounts, a successful year for North Central College in its athletic pursuits. They added a 30th national championship as the men's cross country team added another title to its illustrious history. They added six other conference titles, plus a conference tournament title, as well as making some noise in multiple championship tournaments and competitions. The basketball court saw plenty of success, as both the men's and women's teams improved from the prior year and made a lot of memories. They have a great chance to make more noise and more memories this coming season. Yet it seems like I'm the only one who isn't technically a member of any of the teams who thinks so.

NCAA FBS Rankings: Week 12

We're getting closer to the end of the regular season and the games are starting to get more dramatic and have more purpose. Granted, in reality it's only for a small handful of schools, but when approaching it with a playoff in mind, look at how many games have implications! Every game really does count!

At the lower levels this is an important week too. D-III is on its last week of the regular season, but a good chunk of the field is set in stone (including my North Central Cardinals!) and a lot of teams are fighting for those precious few at large spots. A lot of the big conferences aren't decided yet either with a few weeks to go, and most remaining games are in conference, but there are some interconference battles this week.

So if you want to see where the playoffs stand coming into this week, here's yesterday's post with the seedings. You can view last week's NCSS rankings here.

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 11 Seedings

Eleven weeks are in the books, and another unbeaten has fallen.

Granted, that unbeaten falling is somewhat old news, as Oregon lost to Stanford Thursday night, but it's still kind of a big deal. At this point, we are down to only six undefeated schools at the highest level. Glancing at standings before I even start to crunch playoff point numbers, there will definitely be a shakeup again this week. And to think, some idiots believe a playoff would damage the regular season.

As a reminder, this playoff is set up based on the playoff outlined in Death to the BCS by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter and Jeff Passan. 16 teams get in: the ten conference champions and six at-large bids are awarded to the remaining pool. Criteria aren't set in stone, but I use a combination of metrics outlined in last week's post about seedings. In the meantime, if you want to see how I've ranked conferences based on their overall scheduling to date, you can view the most recent rankings here. Below are the new Death to the BCS Playoff seedings with all games through November 9th taken into account.

COAS/SSLYAR Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 10

We're officially past the halfway point of the NFL season, or as former Bears coach Lovie Smith would say, "We're in the third quarter of our season... we like our team... Luke is our quarterback... we have a lot of football left to play." Did I mention I miss Lovie?

Anyway, Nathaniel and I are back at the NFL picks against the spread this week. There are 14 more games on this week's slate, and recently we've displayed a decent amount of groupthink. Of course, last week I won both the games we disagreed on to expand my lead a tad, but still. This week, we disagree on half of the matchups, so Nathaniel can narrow my lead quite a bit by the time Veterans Day rolls around. Even with that though, there's a fair amount of groupthink though, since our rationales on a lot of the games we agree on do overlap. Anyway, onto the picks.

2013 NCAA FBS Rankings: Week 11

We're into November, and with it, approaching the end of the college football regular season. There are only four weeks left for teams to prove themselves one last time for an insane system that doesn't fairly decide a championship. But that was a rant for yesterday's post on the latest Death to the BCS Playoff seedings.

For the most part, all play is staying within conference, but there are some non-conference battles still going on, either with independent schools or pansies padding their schedule with late cupcakes.

There's not a lot of baking this week, and a few non conference battles. You can view those below, as well as up to date rankings. You can view last week's batch here.

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 10 Seedings

You'd think before writing last week's seedings I'd look closer at upcoming matchups.

I mentioned the ACC title game being between Miami and Florida State, not bothering to notice that they were playing each other on Saturday. This does in fact bring us down to seven unbeatens left in big time college football. Odds are at least one of these will fall, if not more, but I'm kind of hoping they all win out just to cause a mess at the top.

So in the meantime, we've played 10 weeks of the college season, and we just have the month of November left to get through. Looking a bit at schedules, I can see why BCS proponents make the regular season argument, because there are some really compelling matchups left on the docket, though I still think those matchups would be enhanced with Wetzel, Peter, and Passan's playoff system.

I remain a one-man selection committee, but like the first two weeks of seedings, I'm not going in totally blind. To aid my selections, I've been crunching numbers and pulling other numbers from other sources. Next to each team I have their seed from the previous week and a few metrics. "NCSS" stands for "Non-Conference Schedule Strength", and tries to objectively capture how well a team schedules its non-conference slate. A higher score correlates to (but isn't perfectly indicative of) a tougher schedule. "PP" stands for playoff points, and is basically the win total of all the teams a school beat. (Note: a school's win total includes wins over FCS teams, but you don't get any playoff points for actually beating them). "SAG" and "FACT" are computer rankings done by people who either currently or used to do them for the BCS and either were kicked out for using margin of victory (for FACT, created by the late David Rothman) or still use margin of victory in another formula, but have a "politically correct" version they send to the BCS (for SAG, created by Jeff Sagarin; the Death to the BCS Playoffs use the "PREDICTOR" rankings after using other, less accurate Sagarin rankings the first couple weeks). As a reference as well, current conference "champions" are based on conference record if the season ended today, with the tie being broken by overall record.

If you want to see how last week's seeds fell, you can see those here. Below are this week's updated seedings.

2013 NCAA FBS Rankings: Week 10

We're starting to come down to the home stretch in the college football season. Most of the have-nots have been weeded out, and early yesterday I came out with new playoff seedings through 9 weeks of games.



So as we start Week 10 today, I should get back to schedule analysis. We don't have many more out of conference games, but for the independents, this is kind of important, and it's also good to document all the late-season cupcake feasting that happens (looking at you, SEC...)
 
So below you can find this week's numbers, as well as how each conference now stacks up to this point in the season. You can find last week's rankings here.

2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 9 Seedings

One thing I will credit the current system for: they do do a pretty good job of creating some drama in the college football regular season. I still think more could be created with a playoff, since more games would have implications, but what do I know? I'm not a money-laden, easy-to-be-bought sheep who believes every lie the big conference commissioners spit out for a long time. Hold on, let me get off my soapbox.

A couple of the unbeatens fell from the pedestal this week, leaving us with only 8 teams at that mark through 9 weeks of football. Of these, amazingly only one is guaranteed to fall (and at the latest, that would be during the ACC title game between Florida State and Miami). Could you imagine if we have 7 undefeated teams at the end of the regular season? How much anger would that drum up against not only the current system, but even the "College Football Playoff" that will debut in 2014? If this year were the first year of that and those seven unbeatens held firm, you'd have to snub three teams. Obviously we know Kirk Herbstreit doesn't have a problem pissing off fan bases of schools from mid major conferences, but Fresno State's fan base would be upset too. On a bigger scale, you'd have to keep one of the following teams out: the winner of FSU/Miami, Baylor, Ohio State, Oregon, or Alabama. This is why 4 teams is not enough. Of course, knowing the way college football works, 4 of these teams will probably end up losing and we'd have to discuss the merits of their wins and losses, which is why we need a 16 team field. Give every conference champ a berth, add in at larges to fill the field, and let them play to decide who's the best. Isn't that the way football was meant to be?

But enough of my grandstanding. With Week 9's results taken into account, here's how I would seed the 16 team field if the season ended today. If you want to see last week's setup and a key to the acronyms next to each team, you can view it here.

Game Notes: Minnesota Wild @ Chicago Blackhawks (10/26/13)

Final Score

Wild 5, Blackhawks 3

Game Summary
A bit of an ugly game for the Blackhawks (6-2-3), who came out kind of flat in the early going. The Wild (6-3-3) never trailed, tallying the first goal midway through the opening frame. They scored early in the second to double the lead. A Hawk goal was taken away due to a high stick, but they came down and scored a couple minutes later. The Wild would get it right back and go up 3-1 after two. The Hawks never got closer in the third. Ultimately though, it was not a great night for Corey Crawford, who only stopped 80% of the shots he faced while Niklas Backstrom held off 33 of the 36 shots the Hawks threw at his net.

Three Stars

3. Ryan Suter (MIN). 2 A, 2 SOG, +1. One of Minnesota's high-priced acquisitions of the 2012 offseason notched a helper on Zach Parise's opening goal in the first, which was kind of a soft tally for Crow to let up. His second came in the 2nd period on the #1 star's first goal.
2. Niklas Backstrom (MIN). 33 SV, 3 GA, .917 SV%. Backstrom picked up his first win of the year, and didn't look bad doing so. He made some big stops to help keep the Hawks out of the net.
1. Jason Pominville (MIN), 2 G, 6 SOG, +2. Pominville ultimately had the game-winning goal in the third to, for all intents and purposes, put the game out of reach.

Final Thoughts

Not a great outing for the Hawks, back home off their Florida swing. It also drops my in-person record to 1-1 (the win coming last season against Nashville). It was really nice to get back to the Madhouse though. Jim Cornelison nailed the anthem as always (and I think it seemed louder than the first time, but that could be me). But the atmosphere was, of course, great. I just wish the outcome could have been as well. Going 1-7 on power plays just isn't going to get it done. Kane did have a nice goal on the one, but they just couldn't get enough done on Backstrom. On the other end, the Hawks were only listed as having 4 giveaways, but it sure seemed like more (probably because the giveaways promptly led to Wild goals). As it is though, it's a long season with plenty of games left. You'd like to have something from a game against a division foe, but the Hawks get them up in the Twin Cities on Monday, hopefully with a good chance to get some revenge for tonight's setback.

COAS/SSLYAR Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 8

Momentum is a fickle thing.

After one week of picking games, Nathaniel actually held a slim lead over me before I bounced back. At this point we've slowed down from our early success and are seeing some lower scoring weeks. Maybe we're thinking wrong about teams after seven weeks, maybe parity actually rules. Probably a little of both.

I saw Nathaniel for the first time in a while last week and the first thing he told me was, "You're kicking my ass in [Pigskin Pick 'Em]." Which is somewhat true; I hold an 8 game lead. But there are 10 weeks left, and plenty of time for me to fall off the table.

In Week 8, we disagree on 5 of the 13 games on the slate. As I was entering these, it seemed like we agreed on more than 8 games, but all the disagreements got clustered together. Might have been part of it. So at least for this week, my lead is safe. But how safe? Let's find out.

I'm Telling On You For Being Better!

Photographer unknown, from Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Life is often full of grey areas. Sports, to a degree, is an area that goes against this. In competitive leagues, only one thing ultimately matters: when the clock hits zero, which side's number is higher?

Whether I've developed credibility as a writer or not in the couple years since I started COAS or not, I did play competitive sports for a few years when I was younger. Those days are over, but the lessons they taught remain, and always will. And, like almost all athletes, the defeats my teams suffered taught us more than any victories ever did.

Between T-ball, basketball and soccer for the Fox Valley Park District, soccer and basketball for St. Paul's, and basketball for Aurora Christian, I played in a lot of games. My teams won our fair share, but we also lost plenty. And amongst those games were plenty of blowouts. I remember one season in Park District basketball where Nathaniel and I played together on a completely stacked team. We won our first two games by combined scores of 52-6 and 46-0 (how I remember these when I was like 10 at the time, I'll never know). And it's not like we kept the starters in the whole game. We had a 10-kid roster, and our coach rotated between two 5-man lineups over the course of the game. It's not like he was trying to run up the score; our team was just flat out better than everyone else.

I've been on the other side plenty of times too. My freshman year at Aurora Christian, I was one of about 10 or 11 guys. And we got our butts handed to us plenty of times. I remember in our first game we didn't score until midway through the third quarter. It was bad. But the other team didn't taunt us, and they did eventually call off the dogs and bring in the end of the bench. But we learned from it. Eventually, we got better as a team, and while we still weren't that great, we weren't that awful team that needed almost 20 minutes of game time to score.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that, when I heard news coming out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area yesterday... I was offended.

2013 NCAA FBS Rankings: Week 9

You know we're getting to the good part of football season when we start talking playoffs, and every game really starts to have serious implications. We are that far now, since I have my first Death to the BCS seedings out. And these will probably change a fair amount over the next month or so. Such is the nature of college football.

Now that I'm caught up on my spreadsheet and all my numbers I should be good to go to update the weekly rankings of each conference. If you want to see where everyone ranked through 8 weeks with some tweaks since I had to reenter all the numbers, you can find those rankings here. In the meantime, here's where we stand with the one game that started last night and the several more to be played yet through Saturday.