Reader Question - Playoff Seed

Q - A lot of questions have been coming in regarding why the Golden Rams were seeded fourth when the playoff field was announced earlier this evening.

A - The first thing to clear up is week to week "movement" in the rankings. Several have asked how West Chester could drop a notch in the rankings even though they defeated Indiana on Saturday. The short answer is that relative movement within the rankings are not considered. Each week, the information is evaluated with a fresh eye with no regard to the previous week's ranking.

Now as to why West Chester ended with the fourth seed despite having a better record than Virginia St. The answer is that Virginia St has a much better strength of schedule than West Chester. For the purposes of simplicity, let's evaluate each team's opponent's records in lieu of strength of schedule which also considers a team's opponent's opponent's record. The Trojans opponents are a combined 58-54 while West Chester's are only 53-68. But here's the confusing part. Slippery Rock's opponents are a combined 60-59, not much worse than Virginia St's and significantly better than West Chester's. So the real question may be why was Virginia St seeded ahead of West Chester, but Slippery Rock seeded behind them? There seems to be an element of inconsistency in how the strength of schedule was applied.

As to LIU Post qualifying instead of American International, this is significant only to those two teams. Many may sight the head-to-head outcome and the score of Saturday's Northeast-10 championship game, but game scores are not considered (and likely not even known) and keep in mind that American International defeated LIU Post earlier in the season, so the head-to-head result is even. The two teams have similar schedule strengths as well. There likely is some rational reason why LIU Post was chosen instead of American International (perhaps rewarding the team that played eleven Division II games over the team that only played ten?), but the net result is the same - a Northeast-10 school is in the playoffs as the sixth seed and was likely placed there due to earned access.

For West Chester, it still means a home game this Saturday. There are a couple of downsides, however. First Slippery Rock, a fifth seed, poses a more difficult challenge than LIU Post, a sixth seed and a team that lost to East Stroudsburg. And if one were to look a couple of weeks in the future, the only way that West Chester can play at Farrell Stadium again is if LIU Post wins in both Ettrick, Va on Saturday as well as in Bloomsburg next week. So for now, it's time for the Golden Rams to focus on the PSAC champions Rock.

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