Division I-AA Playoffs - first round recap

The Division I-AA playoffs have finished their first round, and so far there has been only one upset, Eastern Washington destroying McNeese State. This is according to a power rating analysis of the Division I-AA teams. If you go by the seedings, there were two upsets; the aforementioned game, and also when 3rd seeded Montana lost to Wofford. Using the polls as your guide, their was a third, minor upset, when Delaware beat Delaware State.

The top seed in the 16-team playoff is Northern Iowa (11-0 going in), and they narrowly escaped against  New Hampshire, 38-35. This was played in the Uni-dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa, as the top seeds plays at home. The home field might have been the difference here. So what happened? As it turns out, New Hampshire, only 7-4 before the tournament, is much better than their record. Northern Iowa simply got a bad draw. Three of their four losses were to other playoff teams, and they had a win against a fourth, Delaware, as well as a win over Division I-A Marshall.

Here's a list of the 16 teams that started the tournament, and their power ratings (pre-first round):

#   rnk Team                         rec   rating
1   57. Northern Iowa               11-0   46.02 
2   71. Massachusetts                9-2   40.40 
3   72. Appalachian St               9-2   40.39 
4   74. Southern Illinois           10-1   39.92 
5   77. Richmond                     9-2   39.30 
6   79. McNeese St                  11-0   38.86 
7   86. James Madison                8-3   36.87 
8   88. Delaware                     8-3   36.61 
9   99. Wofford                      8-3   34.42 
10 110. New Hampshire                7-4   32.36 
11 133. Montana                     11-0   29.19 
12 142. Eastern Washington           8-3   27.57 
13 165. Eastern Kentucky             9-2   23.45 
14 201. Fordham                      8-3   16.88 
15 208. Eastern Illinois             8-3   16.17 
16 214. Delaware St                 10-1   15.60 

Delaware (8-3) played the worst team in the draw, Delaware State (10-1) and beat them 44-7, in the first ever meeting (weird, huh?) between the two schools. The teams played because there is a regional aspect to the playoffs, and only 4 teams are seeded. Delaware will play at UNI on Saturday.

4th seed Southern Illinois beat Eastern Illinois as expected, 30-11, and Massachusetts took out Fordham 49-35; that takes care of the upper bracket.

The lower bracket had a few surprises. McNeese State, playing at home, fell to Eastern Washington 44-15. Though McNeese was #6 in the field according to the power rating, they were essentially even with teams #2 through #5, and they were undefeated, while Eastern Washington was 12th best in the playoff. Definitely an upset, especially the magnitude of the victory.

Eastern Washington will face another tough team in Appalachian State, famous upset winner over Michigan to open the season, who survived a scare from James Madison. Both are among the top-rated teams in the playoff, so this was a key game, and went down to the wire, 28-27.

Though undefeated, Montana was a truly weak 3rd seed, and should have been a very slight underdog to Wofford even with home field advantage. This turned out to be true as the final was 23-22 on a wild finish, a Wofford touchdown with 30 seconds to go, and a missed Montana field goal at the finish.

Richmond is the last team in the final eight after beating Eastern Kentucky 31-14. This leaves, in the final eight, teams that rate 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 12 among the full 16. These comparative rankings may change with the updated power rating. The full 662-team power rating can be found in the sidebar.