College Football Three Times As Nice

If you ever want to stop complaining that there isn't a playoff in the Bowl Subdivision, which of course will never happen, check out the purity of college sports in Division III. It's a 32 team playoff, meaning it actually takes five games to win a national championship. Division III teams only play a nine or ten game season as it is, so this time of year its quite a grind. And remember, these are all non-scholarship athletes who don't get breaks on academics like the BCS glitterati, and the tournament runs through the heart of finals prep. The teams moving deep into the tournament will actually play more games than Division I teams, and there aren't exactly alot of tropical locales or indoor stadiums in the Northeast and Midwest, where the majority of Division III lives. Thanks to the Hobart College Statesmen, with an enrollment around just 1,500 right down the street in my native Geneva, NY, I've always followed Division III football. I anxiously watched the selection show this morning on ESPNU, as after finishing runner up in the Liberty League, a conference with an automatic bid, Hobart would need an at-large selection after starting 1-2 but reeling off seven consecutive wins to end the season. All games are played at the home site of the higher seed, until Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl XXXV, which takes place in Salem, Virignia on December 15 (4 p.m., ESPN). The bracket and analysis:

MOUNT UNION BRACKET
1 Mount Union (10-0)
8 Ithaca (8-2)
-Mount Union has won eight of the last 11 national championships, and should be considered the easy favorite to win their third in a row. Ithaca barely sneaks in as the 3rd team out of the Empire 8 conference. Mount Union will roll, and will play every game at home until the the Stagg Bowl if they continue to win. Thus far, Mount has pitched shutouts in six consecutive games, and seven of their last eight. They've allowed a grand total of 24 points on the season, 21 of which came in the first two weeks, and none since their fourth game September 29th. It's to the point where Mount Union should probably move into Division II, as this year they would definitely be capable of winning games in that tournament. If they were to just skip the DIII tourney this year for the DII one, at least it would be alot more fun for DIII losers such as myself. They should blow through this field easily and win it all without much drama. Mount's smallest margin of victory this season? Try a 35-0 drubbing of conference rival Baldwin-Wallace October 20, before narrowly escaping tournament team Capital (8-2) by the score of 37-0 the following week. Ithaca made it to the quarterfinals in 2003, narrowly losing to RPI.

6 New Jersey (8-2)
4 RPI (8-1)
-RPI broke through a four-way tie on the final weekend with Union, Hobart and Rochester at the top of the Liberty League, securing the conference's automatic bid by beating rival Union on Satruday and besting Hobart earlier in the year. RPI made it to the semi-finals in 2003, before falling short of the Stagg Bowl at the hands of eventual champion St. Johns of Minnesota.

3 Curry (11-0)
7 Hartwick (8-2)
-Curry ran the table and secured the automatic bid in the New England Football Conference, a league that is 0-8 in the playoffs since being awarded that automatic bid. Methinks they may not have it much longer if that trend continues. They play a Hartwick team that miraculously won the Empire 8. It took them four OT's to beat a 3-7 Utica team on the last weekend to secure the bid---by a 72-70 score! After fourth place Alfred (who started 7-0 and was ranked as high as 11th in the nation but stumbled to a 7-3 finish) couldn't take care of St. John Fisher on the road, Hartwick found themselves as the automatic qualifier. Hartwick lost to Alfred this season, who was left out of the field.

5 Hobart (8-2)
2 St. John Fisher (9-1)
-Hobart was sweating a little this morning, as they took care of business at Rochester but did not get the help they needed at home from Union against RPI to win the Liberty League. Nevertheless, the Statesmen are in safely as an at-large with a short road-trip back to Rochester again this week to battle the Cardinals. St. John Fisher, who missed out on the Empire 8 title by losing only to Hartwick, is a great team and a semi-finalist from last year, but beatable for a surging Hobart squad on a seven game win streak. And Hobart plays with sense of urgency, knowing for the last seven games in a row a third loss would've meant being left out of the posteason. As Union and Rochester watch from home, Hobart knows a win here against Fisher could potentially mean a second round home game, as they hold a higher seed than Hartwick, who remember, is playing the conference champion of league 0 for their last 8 in the playoffs. Do I hear Mount Union and Hobart on a collision course? Could my Statesmen be in a position to pull one of the all time greatest upsets in Division III history on December 1? The answers are maybe, and hell no. Likewise, if Curry actually beats Hartwick, they will root for Hobart to avoid playing at Fisher.

CENTRAL BRACKET
1 Central (10-0)
8 Olivet (6-4)

5 Redlands (8-1)
4 St. John's MN. (9-1)
-Again, Mount Union is probably going to blow through this bracket with ease, but St. John's is a bonafide sleeper. The 2003 National Champions, they destroyed a heavily favored Mount Union team 24-6 in that year's Stagg Bowl, so they relish the underdog role. Don't think they couldn't take down Central on the road in a potential second round match.

3 St. Norbert (10-0)
6 UW-Eau Claire (8-2)

7 Concordia (7-3)
2 Bethel (9-1)

WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON BRACKET
1 Washington and Jefferson (10-0)
8 North Carolina Wesleyan (8-2)

6 Trinity TX (9-1)
4 Mary Hardin-Baylor (9-1)
-Remember the crazy 15 lateral play to end the game that's all over YouTube? Yep, here they are, the Trinity Tigers. They beat Millsaps with that miracle on October 27, which was actually the difference in Trinity securing the automatic bid out of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. Millsaps finished with the same 6-1 league record as Trinity, so the 15 lateral play actually decided a championship. How big was it? Well, at 8-2 overall Millsaps is missing from this field, so it's pretty easy to assume that had Trinity not scored a touchdown there, they don't go to the postseason. Mary Hardin-Baylor is the last team to defeat Mount Union in the playoffs, solving the Purple Raiders in the 2004 semi-finals before losing to Linfield in the Stagg Bowl. Despite the similar records, take MHB in this one.

3 Muhlenberg (10-0)
5 Salisbury (9-1)

7 Hampden-Sydney (8-2)
2 Wesley (9-1)

UW-WHITEWATER BRACKET
1 UW-Whitewater (9-1)
7 Capital (8-2)
-UW-Whitewater definitely has a chip on their shoulder. Coming off their third consecutive 7-0 season in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Whitewater has participated in the last two Stagg Bowls, only to lose both to Mount Union. It was a mere 35-28 defeat in '05, and 35-16 a season ago. On both occasions, UWW entered the championship a perfect 14-0. This season their lone loss came to Division II St. Cloud State. Seeded at the top of a region they should win with little resistance, don't think Whitewater isn't already thinking about a potential third Stagg Bowl rematch with Mount. The biggest challenge will not be overlooking teams to ensure that happens. In this tournament, UWW is probably the only team that has a chance to beat Mount Union, so it's what I'm rooting for. Like the Purple Raiders, they will play every game at home until they reach Salem should they keep winning, as the second overall seed in the playoff.

5 North Central (8-2)
4 Franklin (9-1)

3 Wabash (9-1)
6 Mt. St. Joseph (9-1)

8 Widener (8-2)
2 Case Western (10-0)

A few more notes:
-You may notice a few of the seeds are a little wacky. In Division III, you can only travel so far during the opening of the tournament, which is why in some cases a 6 plays a 4 or an 8 plays a 2 and so on. The bracket is seeded according to region as best as possible, but a different kind of wrinkle exists this year, with Mount Union heading up the would be "east" bracket. But since Mount won't have to leave Ohio until the Stagg Bowl, it matters little that they will be matched up against teams outside of the midwest, as the distance is still close enough for the rest of the teams to stay intact with the above requirement.

-Even more on Mount Union: They've won their last 33 games, last losing to Ohio Athletic Conference rival Ohio Northern October 22, 2005, and 38 of their last 39 since the semi-final loss to Mary Hardin-Baylor in 2004. Since 1999, Mount is 118-4, and 80-1 in the OAC.

-The Division II tournament has 24 teams, but I've never been to a Division II game and don't claim to know anything about it. What I do know, is that Grand Valley State (Michigan) is the Mount Union of DII, as they are 95-5 in their last 100 contests. The Lakers have won four of the last five National Championships, and have participated in five of the last six championship games. So, I'd go with GVSU in that one. GVSU's former coach, Brian Kelly, left to rebuild Division I-A Central Michigan in the MAC, which culminated in a conference title and Motor City Bowl win over Middle Tennessee last season. Kelly jumped again in 2006 for the even greener pastures of Cincinnati, where he has suddenly made the Bearcats releveant in football again, currently vying for a Big East title. DII gives athletic scholarships, so boo that, I'll take the truest overachievers in DIII any day.