UW-Oshkosh is definitely in the field. But where? Photo by Steve Frommell, d3photography.com

By Pat Coleman
D3sports.com

Going into the final week of the 2015 season, this year’s playoff picture seems pretty clear. There are a handful of fairly obvious at-large teams, with maybe one or two spots up for discussion, as things look right now. The bigger questions will be around bracketing, rather than selection. And that’s good, because putting together the best possible Division III football bracket takes some time.

Let’s take a look at what the playoff bracket could look like when the NCAA selection show goes live at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday.

In order to put this projection together, I’ve made a certain list of assumptions, which I’ll list below. That’s because there are some places where we need to decide who is going to win each of these remaining 11 conferences’ automatic bids. And we’ve made what we believe to be the most reasonable assumptions based on who each team plays this week.

This bracket assumes the following: Empire 8 – Cortland defeats Ithaca and Alfred beats St. John Fisher. Cortland has the automatic bid on a tiebreaker. (More on this later.) LL: St. Lawrence beats Merchant Marine to wrap up AQ, a week late. MIAA: Olivet beats Alma, meaning Albion wins AQ. MAC: Albright controls its own destiny and beats Lebanon Valley. MWC: St. Norbert wins title game. NEFC: Western New England beats Salve Regina head-to-head for title. NJAC: Salisbury takes care of business vs. Frostburg State. NCAC: Wabash beats DePauw in Monon Bell game for NCAC title. NACC: No projection made as neither team is regionally ranked. OAC: Mount Union defeats John Carroll. SAA: Centre beats Berry and Hendrix defeats Sewanee to win title. Pool B: Mary Hardin-Baylor defeats East Texas Baptist and Hardin-Simmons beats Louisiana College.

And based on this week’s regional rankings, the Pool B decision is clear: Hardin-Simmons is the highest ranked of the four Pool B teams in the South Regional ranking and has Louisiana College at home on Saturday afternoon.

There are six at-large bids, and the committee traditionally will sit down with a board that includes the top at-large team from each regional ranking, comparing the four teams head-to-head, then selecting one to put in the field. I’m going to fast-forward through this process a little bit because we have four teams, based on these assumptions who are clear Pool C teams: Wesley, UW-Whitewater, St. John’s and Mary Hardin-Baylor. UMHB is the most tenuous of the four at the moment, but will get a bit of a boost from beating East Texas Baptist. ETBU may or may not still be a regionally ranked team on Selection Sunday, but UMHB’s SOS will at least improve.

That leaves us two spots. The top team in each region on the board in this projection is as follows:

Alfred (East), projected 8-2 vs. D-III, .602 SOS entering Saturday (remaining steady), lost to East No. 3 Cortland, beat East No. 9 RPI.
Guilford (South), projected 9-1 vs. D-III, .482 SOS entering Saturday (slight rise), lost to South No. 5 W&L
Ohio Northern (North), projected 8-2 vs. D-III, .494 SOS entering Saturday (remaining steady), lost to North No. 1 Mount Union, beat North No. 6 (or lower) John Carroll. (Also lost to Baldwin Wallace.)
Whitworth (West), projected 9-1 vs. D-III, .529 SOS entering Saturday (significant drop), lost to West No. 2 Linfield

A quick note: With JCU projected to lose to Mount Union, that gives them two losses. Since Ohio Northern beat JCU head-to-head, they should be ranked higher and get to the table first.

I’ve bolded the wins vs. regionally ranked opponents for each of these four teams. Guilford has a deadly combination here, both the lowest SOS on the board and no wins vs. regionally ranked opponents. Generally the committee would look at a board like this and try to take the one-loss teams with an SOS of .500 or better before taking a two-loss team. Whitworth’s SOS is going to take a significant dive by playing Lewis & Clark, so it remains to be seen where the Pirates land on Selection Sunday. Here based on what we have, I’m going to put Whitworth in.

Down to the last spot. The new board:

Alfred lurks out there, a tough matchup for many. But does a 'bad loss' outweigh a really high strength of schedule rating? Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3phpotography.com

Alfred (East), projected 8-2 vs. D-III, .602 SOS entering Saturday (remaining steady), lost to East No. 3 Cortland, beat East No. 9 RPI.
Guilford (South), projected 9-1 vs. D-III, .482 SOS entering Saturday (slight rise), lost to South No. 5 W&L
Ohio Northern (North), projected 8-2 vs. D-III, .494 SOS entering Saturday (remaining steady), lost to North No. 1 Mount Union, beat North No. 6 (likely lower) John Carroll. (Also lost to Baldwin Wallace.)
UW-Platteville (West), projected 8-2 vs. D-III, .544 SOS entering Saturday (slight fall), lost to West No. 3 Oshkosh, lost to West No. 4 Whitewater, beat West No. 8 Dubuque, beat North No. 10 North Central

Now we get into the gray area – how much of a strength of schedule advantage is worth an extra loss?

Certainly, the 100-plus points by which Alfred remains up on Guilford would qualify. Perhaps the 60 points advantage for UW-Platteville would as well. Three of the four here have wins vs. regionally ranked teams. For Platteville, both losses are to teams that are higher in their respective region than the team Guilford lost to. And Alfred is the only one on the list with a “bad loss” – which is old terminology but is a loss to a sub-.500 team. Ithaca would be 4-6 in this projection.

The last spot on the list is always subject to a lot of debate. As a committee of one, I’m looking for any common opponents among the group and it’s limited (both ONU and Alfred had narrow home wins vs. Utica). Alfred has the best SOS. Platteville has the best losses and two wins. Ohio Northern has the best single win. Guilford has the best record.

I’m going to take UW-Platteville in this spot. I have a hard time taking someone that lost to a .500 team, and I have a hard time taking someone that beat nobody who’s regionally ranked if there’s a viable alternative.

But if you’re a Guilford fan, you can take some solace in the fact that Muhlenberg was in a similar position last year at this time and got in. But it seems that the .500 strength of schedule mark is something a one-loss team with no wins vs. regionally ranked opponents really needs in order to get in the playoffs. Muhlenberg was there last year. When Selection Sunday rolls around, though, Moravian might be the one in this seat, and Guilford might never even get onto the board.

Before we move onto the bracketing, a couple of alternate possibilities. First of all, projecting Cortland flat-out to beat Ithaca in the Cortaca Jug game, even though Cortland has a long streak in this rivalry, is asking a lot. Let’s entertain the alternative – if Cortland loses, they’re just plain out, at three losses. Alfred or St. John Fisher wins the automatic bid and the loser of that game is also out. We’ve already got St. Lawrence winning the Liberty League so the first team on the board in the East after Wesley would likely be RPI. RPI would take a big hit to its SOS from playing winless Union but would still be above .500. However, they’d have no wins against regionally ranked opponents and are not likely to get in. That gives Guilford/Moravian another shot at getting in. Moravian would likely be above .500 in SOS with a win vs. Muhlenberg.

What if Frostburg beats Salisbury? Then Wesley is the automatic qualifier from the NJAC. Salisbury is not an at-large candidate (and Frostburg wouldn’t magically jump in, either).

Let’s entertain one more possibility: East Texas Baptist beating Mary Hardin-Baylor. Here I think we might have a situation of ETBU playing spoiler. The problem is that ETBU lost to Texas Lutheran earlier in the season and TLU is ahead of them in the regional rankings. ETBU would definitely be regionally ranked, meaning TLU would be 1-2 vs. regionally ranked opponents. TLU could get in as an at-large on those credentials, but wouldn’t UMHB still be ahead of TLU because they’d have the same number of losses and UMHB would have the head-to-head win?

All things to consider. Let’s move on to the bracketing.

The committee wants to pick the top four teams and put them as No. 1 teams in their own separate brackets whenever possible. Typically of late, that has meant two South teams, or two West teams, getting No. 1 seeds while the East does not. But this year, it seems that three top seeds could come from the West. Here’s how that would work out:

I’ve picked Mount Union, St. Thomas, Linfield and UW-Oshkosh as No. 1 seeds. And then we also want to pick four No. 2 seeds to match up with them. 

Here's the bracket:

If you're on mobile, that might be tough to read, so here's a link to download it.

It's possible to get top seeds for St. Thomas, Linfield and UW-Oshkosh. And honestly, it we were to split Johns Hopkins into a separate bracket, how much easier would the travel be? This particular selection is pretty West-heavy, plus we have the added bonus of Hendrix and Huntingdon, who would have to fly almost anywhere they go after the first weekend. (Hendrix could bus to UMHB but not to HSU and Huntingdon would have to fly to either.)

In this projection, La Verne is a team that sits alone and has to fly somewhere. Which means, they could fly anywhere. In this case, they could fly to Mount Union, or to UW-Oshkosh. Lakeland is more than 500 miles and can't bus to Mount Union, which is why we have to have the either/or caveat.

We chose to use that flexibility to fly the H/H winner into the St. Thomas bracket, which otherwise would be full of WIAC and MIAC teams. Some are itching to see St. John's and St. Thomas again. If so, you can do that in Salem, perhaps.

There is the minimum one first-round flight and there are just two second-round flights in this bracket. Eventually flights become difficult to avoid. 

Oh, and I didn't set out with the intention of putting Whitewater and Mount Union on opposite sides of the bracket, but when I looked up, it worked out that way. So perhaps the streak could remain alive.