Quality wins / losses...

[PBP]

I am not completely familiar with the process but I'm curious and perhaps someone can find this out.

To me what matters most regarding the Big Sky postseason picture isn't necessarily seven wins or six wins against D-1 opponents (either FBS or FCS) but QUALITY wins and quality losses.

In the men's NCAA tournament for example those areas carry weight with the selection committee. Does it carry any weight in football???

When trying to potentially decide if ISU should get a berth...or Cal Poly...or say Montana does that play a factor?

I'd be curious how this nebulous term applies to each of the six Big Sky teams that in theory have a shot. (Calling Brad Bugger... )

For ISU (and this could be an issue) they have in my mind one quality win (Cal Poly, ranked #21 at the time) and two quality losses (to Eastern who was ranked #3 I think at the time by three points) and Montana State (who was ranked what #15 Saturday by five points) how does that compare to the other teams in the Big Sky?

Off the top of my head I think Montana doesn't have any quality wins although they have a chance to get one if they beat Montana State....NAU (again I think) has two because they beat Eastern and Cal Poly (but they also have two bad losses to No. Colorado and No. Dakota)

Anyway if anybody wants to check it out and post for the six teams I'd be curious how that stacks up.

PBP

 

[Skippy]

I'd just be guessing like everybody else, Mark, but I know the NCAA does use what it calls the SRS -- Simple Rating System -- as a guide, just like the NCAA basketball committee uses RPI as a guide. The system gives points for a win, deducts points for a loss, adds fractions of points for wins on the road, deducts fractions for wins over non-DI teams, adds fractions for wins over FBS teams, etc. Again, it's just a guide that the committee can use. But I'm sure every committee member has their own personal criteria they will bring to the table, and what qualifies as a "good win" or a "bad loss" for one member may not necessarily be the same for another.

I will tell you this -- when I went to vote yesterday on the top 25, there were easily 40 teams that I could have felt good about voting in the top 25. It is not going to be an easy task for the committee members to sift the quality "leftovers" after the 11 auto berths are filled. I think ISU's case would have been much stronger if Cal Poly hadn't tanked over the weekend to Cal Davis. And I don't think a win over Weber is a given -- especially if guys like Finney and Mangum can't go this weekend. But I'm certainly not counting the Bengals out entirely. So many weird things can happen on any given football Saturday.