If you follow NAIA football and look at our NAIA rankings, you might notice something a bit odd.
# Team rec Overall Strength Success 1. Morningside 10-0 62.62 [ 1] 50.04 [ 1] 12.57 [ 2] 2. Montana Tech 7-3 50.37 [ 2] 43.86 [ 2] 6.50 [ 9] 3. Coll of Idaho 8-2 49.47 [ 3] 40.13 [ 4] 9.34 [ 4] 4. Carroll MT 8-2 48.85 [ 4] 39.72 [ 5] 9.12 [ 5] 5. Northwestern IA 9-1 47.40 [ 5] 42.13 [ 3] 5.26 [ 15] 6. Bethel TN 11-0 43.09 [ 6] 27.43 [ 10] 15.65 [ 1] 7. Grand View 11-0 42.07 [ 7] 31.00 [ 9] 11.06 [ 3] 8. Montana-Western 7-4 42.03 [ 8] 36.53 [ 6] 5.49 [ 14] 9. Rocky Mountain 6-4 38.36 [ 9] 34.53 [ 7] 3.83 [ 19] 10. Southern Oregon 3-7 32.48 [ 10] 31.97 [ 8] 0.51 [ 41]
The Frontier conference has six of the top ten teams. A) How is this possible? and B) Are they really that dominant? C) Is Carroll going to shock everyone in the Playoffs?
The answer is A) due to lack of play outside the conference, and B) No, not really and C) We'll see
The Frontier conference members have played each other almost exclusively; they have only two games outside the conference total, and that's not enough to make a fair comparison. Here are the two games:
Montana Western 35, Dickinson State 14
Whitworth 33, Eastern Oregon 7
The second game, Whitworth's win over Eastern Oregon, doesn't register in our NAIA ratings because Whitworth is a Division III team. Thus the only "grounding" the NAIA ratings have for ranking the Frontier teams is Montana Western's 21-point win over Dickinson State. And it turns out Dickinson State is pretty darn good, finishing 8-2 on the season. They even made the 16-team playoff, something that only Carroll MT did among the Frontier teams (none of the four at-large teams were from the Frontier).
When you only have one game "connecting" an entire conference to the rest of the field, you can see how that one game—in this case, a very positive game for the Frontier—can have a huge effect. In this case it means the Frontier teams are overrated, even to the point where 2-9 Eastern Oregon ends up #28 in the nation.
So how good is the Frontier? We really have no idea, based on this year's results. But common sense tells us that a conference doesn't suddenly have six of the nation's top ten teams. In other words, using past experience, not this year's numbers, which can't tell us much of anything.
It's probably better to look at the Success rankings, which don't use point spread. In that case only three Frontier teams make the top ten, but even then, five of the conference's eight teams end up in the Top 25, whereas in the coaches' poll only three teams make it: the teams we have in the overall top five: #2 Montana Tech (at #24), #3 College of Idaho (#18), and #4 Carroll MT (#16).
If we look at our All-Division power rating we at least factor in the 2nd non-conference game (played vs. the Div-III team) and see how that affects things. Here is the top ten with their ranking among for NAIA games only, and among all 768 teams:
# Team rec NAIA Str AD Str Rank Diff 1. Morningside 10-0 1 180 2 2. Montana Tech 7-3 2 333 8 -6 3. Coll of Idaho 8-2 4 366 10 -6 4. Carroll MT 8-2 5 369 11 -6 5. Northwestern IA 9-1 3 223 4 6. Bethel TN 11-0 10 279 5 7. Grand View 11-0 9 163 1 8. Montana-Western 7-4 6 388 13 -7 9. Rocky Mountain 6-4 7 418 14 -7 10. Southern Oregon 3-7 8 438 16 -8 11. Marian IN 8-1 11 331 7 12. Indiana Wesleyan 9-1 13 350 9 13. Keiser 7-3 12 384 12 14. Lindsey Wilson 9-1 16 326 6 17. Benedictine KS 10-1 17 216 3 18. Dickinson St 8-2 19 441 17 23. Southwestern KS 9-1 30 520 18 25. Avila 10-1 35 545 20 26. Reinhardt 8-1 26 432 15 29. Arizona Christian 8-2 33 538 19 33. St Xavier 9-2 39 557 21
Note that all the Frontier teams drop as expected from their NAIA Strength ranking. Montana Tech drops from #2 to #8, College of Idaho falls from #4 to #10, and playoff-bound Carroll drops from #5 to #11. Montana-Western, Rocky Mountain, and Southern Oregon fall 7, 7, and 8 spots respectively. This very even downgrading—each team falls 6, 7, or 8 spots—reflects the effect of adding one bad game to the mix for the conference. It's an across-the-board downgrade.
Morningside actually falls to #2 in Strength when all games are included, with Grand View (only #9 in NAIA Strength) at #1. Interestingly, Carroll plays Grand View in the first round, so we will see very early the true strength of the Frontier conference. We don't know how good the Frontier is because we still have only two non-conference matchups in the mix. We can probably say that the All-Division Strength rankings are twice as accurate, but twice as accurate as what? Something not very reliable to start with.
Note also that Dickinson State, who made the Playoff, is only 17th best of the 21 teams here, lower than six of the Frontier teams. In all, the "Frontier Six" still outrank five Playoff teams.
If we go by the NAIA-only Strength ratings, Carroll should beat Grand View even on the road. But according to the All-Division Strength rankings, Grand View is the best NAIA team in the country and should win the national title!
Since there is only one comparison between the entire Frontier conference and the rest of the field in the NAIA-only rankings, adding a 2nd game could dramatically shake up the rankings. If Carroll loses it might dunk all six teams out of the top ten, depending on how badly they lose. If Carroll wins, it will pretty much keep the status quo.
If Carroll's playoff path follows the NAIA-only ratings, they will win at Grand View by about 7 points, then re-seeding would pit them against #1 Morningside, a game they will lose by about 12 points on the road.
If Carroll's playoff path follows the All-Division ratings, they will lose to Grand View by around 30 points!
That result would definitely crash the Frontier bubble in our NAIA rankings big time. I think the truth is somewhere in between those results—the Frontier is a good league with a lot of parity at the top, and probably deserves three top 25 teams at least. The fact that Montana-Western, the 4th best team in the conference, dominated playoff-bound Dickinson State says something.
But it also shows you can't just use one result on which to base a foundation. Carroll Montana's playoff experience will reveal some truths about the Frontier. If they beat Grand View then observers probably have to admit the conference deserved a 2nd team in the playoff. If they lose big, then obviously our NAIA-only ratings were flawed, due to the dependence on one single game.
But if they keep it close in a loss, the Frontier conference should get some respect, since Grand View is probably a top 2 team in the NAIA. It will still cause a much-needed downward valuation of the conference teams in our ratings.
And if Carroll somehow goes on to beat Morningside? Then we would have to say we somehow had the conference fairly rated after all, in spite of the dependence on one fluke result.
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