Selection Sunday

[eaglesfootball]

Maybe the story behind it being the NAU's coach's last season. They also put San Diego on a bus to NAU, so I think money could have played into the equation.

if so, that is garbage. Also, San Diego getting in is garbage. Does anyone seriously think San Diego is a better team than NAU?

we'll find out

sorry meant EWU not NAU

 

[LDopaPDX]

We didn't take care of business against SUU and Weber. Win just one of those games and we would have been a shoe in.

Exactly. On a brighter note we get a jump start on recruiting.

The thing that must be learned here is that number of wins is hugely important, more so than strength of schedule. Had we replaced an NDSU loss with a win over St. Francis, we'd be in. There's no reason to put a bunch of tough out of conference games on the schedule. The BCS game is important to finances, so that is requisite. Playing the top teams from other power conferences is a risk with very little reward. I'd hope our future schedules reflect that.

I think we're being punished for the performances of other Big Sky teams. We were the only Big Sky team to win playoff games last year. The performances of Cal Poly, Weber, and North Dakota made our whole conference look like garbage. The sad part is that we did our bit, but we're the team being punished.

 

[clawman1]

Maybe the story behind it being the NAU's coach's last season. They also put San Diego on a bus to NAU, so I think money could have played into the equation.

if so, that is garbage. Also, San Diego getting in is garbage. Does anyone seriously think San Diego is a better team than NAU?

we'll find out

sorry meant EWU not NAU

San Diego can take a bus to Flagstaff, Same trip to Eastern would have been an air charter. Big $$ difference.

 

[HookedonGriz]

Maybe the story behind it being the NAU's coach's last season. They also put San Diego on a bus to NAU, so I think money could have played into the equation.

if so, that is garbage. Also, San Diego getting in is garbage. Does anyone seriously think San Diego is a better team than NAU?

San Diego won their conference and the Pioneer gets an automatic qualifier. They have made it many years in a row.

You guys should have been in over NAU for sure. The bigger head scratchers for me are teams like Nicholls St and UNH. Puke buckets.

 

[luckyintheorder]

Conspiracy Theory:

So, ESPN and Frisco and NCAA want NDSU and JMU in final. If they had placed Eastern in NAU's slot, let's assume we beat San Diego. Next we'd face NDSU... again. They aren't the powerhouse team this year they've been and given our ability and depth, the odds of the Eags going into Fargo and winning are FAR better than NAU's. Not saying we would be a lock more like 30-35% and the "committee" (read ESPN) couldn't chance it. Yes ESPN is a nefarious bastion of propaganda and misinformation and the NCAA is a close second.

My response, Wofford goes into Fargo and wallops them 7-3, then goes into Frisco and puts JMU down like the dogs they are 6-3 in two of the most painful games to watch ever. Serves everyone right. :lol:

 

[kalm]

Maybe the story behind it being the NAU's coach's last season. They also put San Diego on a bus to NAU, so I think money could have played into the equation.

if so, that is garbage. Also, San Diego getting in is garbage. Does anyone seriously think San Diego is a better team than NAU?

we'll find out

sorry meant EWU not NAU

San Diego can take a bus to Flagstaff, Same trip to Eastern would have been an air charter. Big $$ difference.

Not according to the NCAA handbook. 400 miles is the threshold. I'm not sure where the U of SD is but the googles say San Diego is 487 miles from Flagstaff.

Over 400 miles and they can fly you anywhere.

 

[kalm]

We didn't take care of business against SUU and Weber. Win just one of those games and we would have been a shoe in.

Exactly. On a brighter note we get a jump start on recruiting.

The thing that must be learned here is that number of wins is hugely important, more so than strength of schedule. Had we replaced an NDSU loss with a win over St. Francis, we'd be in. There's no reason to put a bunch of tough out of conference games on the schedule. The BCS game is important to finances, so that is requisite. Playing the top teams from other power conferences is a risk with very little reward. I'd hope our future schedules reflect that.

I think we're being punished for the performances of other Big Sky teams. We were the only Big Sky team to win playoff games last year. The performances of Cal Poly, Weber, and North Dakota made our whole conference look like garbage. The sad part is that we did our bit, but we're the team being punished.

Which is supposed to have zero to do with selections. They put NCAT in last year and the MEAC hasn't won a playoff game in something like 19 tries.

When was the last time a SLC #3 won a playoff game?

How do you explain NAU?

 

[MLEagle]

I think the lack of a true “quality win” came back to bite us. We lost to every ranked team we played, we struggled with nearly every other team on our schedule as well. I think NAU got a lot of credit for beating a then #11 Illinois State at home in the beginning of the year. I think this really shows when you look at this tweet. We weren’t even close to getting in.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ncaa_fcs/status/932282990146793474[/tweet]

The lack of a quality win cost us for sure with Montana and Sac St being our best. And furthermore, we got whooped by the quality opponents we played with an 8 point loss being our closes. If we would have kept these games close we would be in.

Honestly, we just didn’t earn the playoffs this year.

 

[air045]

We didn't take care of business against SUU and Weber. Win just one of those games and we would have been a shoe in.

Exactly. On a brighter note we get a jump start on recruiting.

The thing that must be learned here is that number of wins is hugely important, more so than strength of schedule. Had we replaced an NDSU loss with a win over St. Francis, we'd be in. There's no reason to put a bunch of tough out of conference games on the schedule. The BCS game is important to finances, so that is requisite. Playing the top teams from other power conferences is a risk with very little reward. I'd hope our future schedules reflect that.

I think we're being punished for the performances of other Big Sky teams. We were the only Big Sky team to win playoff games last year. The performances of Cal Poly, Weber, and North Dakota made our whole conference look like garbage. The sad part is that we did our bit, but we're the team being punished.

I completely disagree. Punished? No, we got what we earned. This year was supposed to be a rebuilding year, yet it was more. It was a brand of football I'm not used to seeing at ewu. Turnovers, penalties, poor leverage, and just bad football at times made it tough to watch. We need to regroup as a program as we simply cannot play this brand of football moving forward. Coach Best and the coaching staff has a full off season and I'm confident he'll get it done.

 

[EWU98]

NAU beat Illinois at home..quality win.

6-5 ISUr may be slightly better than UM but not by much. Now look at conference uncommon opponents. NAU played 1-10 Poly and 3-7 UNC while we played 9-2 Weber and 4-7 UND. The Cookus ordeal could be an argument but the UM was starting an H-back at WB in that game. We are also ahead in overall SOS. Their ISUr shouldn't be enough to tip that scale.

I agree but at the time they were ranked #11. I get it though.