Leatherneck Nation

leatherneckcountry wrote:

sealhall74 wrote:It is conceivable that the five schools south of the 41st N Parallel will all be missing the playoffs this year.



Much work to do in the weeks ahead.

Almost no one knows what this means including myself.

Geography 101 my man. Lines of constant latitude, or parallels, run east–west as circles parallel to the equator. The latitude measurement of 41 degrees north of the equator (i.e. the 41st N Parallel) cuts across the state of Illinois just to the north of Galesburg.

leatherneckcountry wrote:

sealhall74 wrote:It is conceivable that the five schools south of the 41st N Parallel will all be missing the playoffs this year.



Much work to do in the weeks ahead.

Almost no one knows what this means including myself.

I had to go look it up. Essentially he's saying that Missouri State, Western, Southern, Illinois State, and Indiana State could all miss the playoffs. I'd say that's very likely for MSU, SIU, and the ISU's at this point (IN State has an outside shot if they do well from here on out). We are still in pretty good position to make it.

We've got to win the "easier" (that's in quotes because there's really no easy games in the MVFC) games, but we've got a good shot. We've still got South Dakota (probably a toss-up, they're playing well and their coaching staff knows a lot of our players strengths and weaknesses), Illinois State (should be a win since it's here and they have not been playing well lately), Northern Iowa (previously I considered it a win, but with their newfound offense...who knows), and Southern Illinois (the worst in the conference right now...if we play anything close to how we played even against Indiana State or Northern Arizona, we should win this one pretty handily).

Out of those 4, if we win 2 games, we're 7-4 and should be in the playoff discussion, but it also depends on getting a little bit of help around the FCS from other teams. If we win 3 of those 4, we're 8-3 and we are in the playoffs. Win them all and we're 9-2 and...well...probably won't get a seed, but it would depend on what happens with the other top teams (like, if UNI beats NDSU this weekend and then we beat UNI...that might help)...but really it's kinda too far out yet to be really predicting that kind of stuff.

ST_Lawson wrote:If we win 2 games, we're 7-4 and should be in the playoff discussion....

That would put us at 4-4 in the conference. Wonder if that would go against us when it comes to picking at-large playoff teams ???

wiu712 wrote:

ST_Lawson wrote:If we win 2 games, we're 7-4 and should be in the playoff discussion....

That would put us at 4-4 in the conference. Wonder if that would go against us when it comes to picking at-large playoff teams ???

Hard to say for sure, but I know it's not an automatic disqualifier. If you look at Indiana State in 2014, for example....

It was a 12-game season, so, like many of us, they filled that out with a second FBS game. If you remove the first game of their season that year (a 28-10 loss at Indiana...usually the playoff committee doesn't count FBS losses against you, especially if it's not a complete blowout and it's against a G5 team), then their schedule would be fairly parallel to what would happen if we won 2 of our next 4 games.
You can see their full schedule for that year here: http://www.espn.com/college-football/te ... /year/2014

But essentially, they went 3-0 in OOC, including a 1-score win over a bad MAC team (27-20 over Ball State) and wins over Tennessee Tech and Liberty (both decent, full-scholarship teams). In the conference, they beat Northern Iowa, Southern IL, Missouri State, and Youngstown State (in OT). They lost to Illinois State, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, and us. They finished the season 7-5 overall technically (7-4 if we're "removing" the IU loss), and 4-4 in the conference. Also, they went 1-2 in their last 3 games, with the only win being in OT over a team that didn't make the playoffs. They did beat one playoff team, UNI, and they were ranked #19 in the SportsNetwork poll.

In the playoffs that year they beat Eastern Kentucky and then lost to Chattanooga.

Now, obviously the situations with other teams might be slightly different this year as opposed to 2014, but it's a pretty similar schedule, all things considered. If we beat Illinois State and Southern Illinois and lose a close one to USD and not get blown out by UNI (hard to tell if their QB is really that good or it if was just beginner's luck against a bad MSU team), then we're 7-4, 4-4 in the conference, with a win over an fairly bad MAC team and a 3-0 overall OOC record against full-scholarship teams. If anything, I think our OOC schedule this year is a little stronger than Indiana State's was in 2014, but I need to see how NAU and EIU finish out the season to be sure.