Quote: Originally posted by cthomas22255 on 4/08/2010T-Mac is sort of correct here, but somewhat misleading.

If you schedule average teams, you HAVE to beat them to get the benefit. If you schedule as tough as you possibly can (as I try to do) and lose most of the games (as I did this year) your RPI can still be low enough to make the postseason and your SOS won't be hurt too much by the crappy sims in your conference. It's just the mathematics of the RPI. I went 3-7 in non-conf and still had an RPI just over 100. Beating most of the average teams in my conference has me at 81 now. If I can manage to upset an actually good team it's gravy, if not I still have a great shot at the PIT.

If your team isn't very good, you're likely to lose anyway. So, better to lose on the road against good teams than lose to a couple bad (or average) ones and ruin any chance of a good RPI.

This was pretty much my reasoning as well. The MVC is so soft right now past the top 3 teams that we HAVE to book hard teams for any decent SOS. Besides, if I did not book a hard NC Schedule, then people would be saying I am ducking competition. There is no way to win right now. We need more owners in the MVC or I need to jump to a major conference.

Quote: Originally posted by cthomas22255 on 4/08/2010T-Mac is sort of correct here, but somewhat misleading.

If you schedule average teams, you HAVE to beat them to get the benefit. If you schedule as tough as you possibly can (as I try to do) and lose most of the games (as I did this year) your RPI can still be low enough to make the postseason and your SOS won't be hurt too much by the crappy sims in your conference. It's just the mathematics of the RPI. I went 3-7 in non-conf and still had an RPI just over 100. Beating most of the average teams in my conference has me at 81 now. If I can manage to upset an actually good team it's gravy, if not I still have a great shot at the PIT.

If your team isn't very good, you're likely to lose anyway. So, better to lose on the road against good teams than lose to a couple bad (or average) ones and ruin any chance of a good RPI.

Scheduling to lose is never a good strategy. If your team is not good enough to beat average teams then they are not good enough to make the post season anyway so you mine as well schedule all bad teams to go 10-0 and help out your prestige.

Plus, while scheduling tough might get you a decent rpi if you can pull out a few wins, it will not get you a good NT seed. Teams with tons of losses get under seeded ALL THE TIME in HD while teams that have tons of wins but not so great of a rpi get over seeded. That is how things work and at the end of the day if you make the NT you will be complaining about how you got seeded 3 spots lower then you should have while a team with 10 rpi more then you but is 27-2 got seeded where you should be.

I think I still own the record for highest RPI in D3 of any world b/c I schedule as hard as possible. I will likely make the PIT this year in D1 with 11 underclassmen over better teams who didn't schedule as hard. That will boost my prestige by more than if I'd gotten 20 wins and not made the postseason b/c I scheduled average teams.

I would point out to TMac last season's example of W. Washington who got a 2-seed after going 28-1 and being ranked #1 all season. They had the #8 RPI but lost out to higher-RPI teams with more losses. Had the SOS been higher, they'd have had a higher RPI. I made that schedule as hard as I could for that team, but the 0-win Sims in the conference knocked the SOS down.

If, as in ermackey's case, your conference has terrible teams, then your SOS has to be hard enough to balance it.

I had an RPI in the 60s and SOS in the mid 20s going into conference play in the MVC and within 6 conference games it was in the 160s. So, to say our non-con schedules are "crap" is quite a bit off.

Now, I actually enjoy scheduling tougher teams, win or lose, because I enjoy learning from the better coaches. Yes, it will hurt me a bit with RPI because I am not getting the wins, but I think the benefit of learning the game is more beneficial to me in the long run.

I have no dog in this fight, however if you think the 3 human teams in your conference going 1-9, 3-7 and 4-6 in NC is EVER going to get more than the one tourney winner into the NT or even the PIT then you do not understand the formula used by HD to rank RPI

Quote: Originally posted by zags27 on 4/08/2010I have no dog in this fight, however if you think the 3 human teams in your conference going 1-9, 3-7 and 4-6 in NC is EVER going to get more than the one tourney winner into the NT or even the PIT then you do not understand the formula used by HD to rank RPI

We scheduled hard and thought we would win more. nobody schedules to lose.

Quote: Originally Posted By zags27 on 4/08/2010I have no dog in this fight, however if you think the 3 human teams in your conference going 1-9, 3-7 and 4-6 in NC is EVER going to get more than the one tourney winner into the NT or even the PIT then you do not understand the formula used by HD to rank RP

Of course it could.