D-II leagues start playoff jockeying

The only NCAA Division II football rankings that matter make their 2018 debut Monday.

Top 25 polls produced by the American Football Coaches Association and division2.com have provided a gauge, a sense of order, and they will continue to be published each week until a champion is decided on Dec. 15.

Super Region 3

Advisory committee

NAME;SCHOOL;CONFERENCE

Bo Atterberry;SE Oklahoma;GAC

Mike Babcock;McKendree;GLVC

Tim Beck;Pittsburg State;MIAA

Jarrett Fleming; Maryville, Mo.;GLVC

Al King;Ashland;GLIAC

Matt Mitchell;Grand Valley State;GLIAC

Will Prewitt;GAC;GAC

Kent Weiser;Emporia State;MIAA

CONFERENCES GAC (Great American Conference); MIAA (Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletic Conference); GLVC (Great Lakes Valley Conference); GLIAC (Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference)

NOTE Atterberry, head football coach at Southeastern Oklahoma, and Prewitt, GAC commissioner, are the GAC representatives; Babcock, head football coach at McKendree, is a member of the national selection committee, as is Weiser, the athletic director at Emporia State (Kan.)

But how a team did last season often plays a role in establishing preseason polls, and that order can linger as a season progresses. Just like in the FBS, once a team is ranked in Division II, it stays ranked, unless it loses more than once or twice.

That's not how it works when the four 8-man regional advisory committees begin their weekly conference calls Sunday and Monday.

Each region consists of between 40-46 teams, and while the top 10 in each region will be ranked and re-ranked after each of the next 4 weeks, only the top 7 (top 9 in rare cases) make the final 28-team bracket.

The Great American Conference, home to Arkansas' 6 Division II teams and 6 from Oklahoma, resides in Super Region III, along with 12 teams from the Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletic Association, 9 from the Great Lakes Valley Conference and 8 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, 41 in all.

One talking point used to construct the College Football Playoff Top 25 does not exist in Division II.

"The eye test doesn't matter," said Donnie Wagner, the NCAA's Associate Director of Championships and Alliances for Division II.

Since few games, except for once-a-week live streaming on ESPN3, are available for national viewing, it's more of facts-first, discuss-as-we-go-along type of selection process in Division II.

There is a set list of criteria beyond overall record that includes evaluation of strength of schedule, how teams fared when playing head to head, performance vs. common opponents, vs. teams with records of .500 or better and in road games.

Wagner said that the criteria helps sort things out, along with the competition, but the committee must delve deeper than that.

"Within all that criteria, they will be looking behind the numbers," he said. "There is subjectivity within the objective data."

The first couple of polls can be troubling to supporters of teams who happen to play their toughest opponents in the final 3-4 weeks because their strength of schedule won't even out until the end.

This is true in 12-team conferences like the GAC and MIAA, where every team plays every team, there are no nonconference games, and all the teams end up with identical of strength of schedule.

A nightmare scenario, Wagner said, might be three teams from the same conference tied at 10-1 or 9-2, because somebody most likely has to get left out. That's what happens when 41 teams from 4 conferences are vying for 7 spots.

"That's when you really get behind the numbers and look at the games," Wagner said. "You really have to look at the quality of the wins."

A conference can be left without a representative, but all the Super Region III leagues qualify for "Earned Access," a clause that includes a conference's best team as long as it finishes in the top nine of the final standings.

The GAC has put two teams in the playoffs four times in the past seven seasons, including 2014, when three GAC teams -- Ouachita Baptist (10-0), Harding (9-1) and Henderson (8-2) finished in the top 22 of the final regular-season AFCA poll, with OBU and Harding making the field.

Harding, meanwhile, started 0-3 last season, won its final 8 games and received a bid despite finishing final regular-season AFCA poll as the 33rd team receiving votes.

The Bisons reached the national semifinals, and eventually worked their way up to No. 6 in the final coaches poll.

How a team or conference has performed in past playoffs is not listed as part of the criteria the advisory committee considers, and that certainly appeared to be the case last season, even though Harding was ranked in the preseason before falling out after an 0-2 start.

Sports on 10/19/2018

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