But no, the East does not have a monopoly on expensive schools or strong academics. Naw, just a strangehold of being unable to put a team in Salem.

Regarding tuition, I am not familiar with the financing options available at private schools. My son is a senior in HS and from the private schools that have contacted us, they gave us the impression that there were significant grants available to really reduce our out of pocket costs. Now, maybe that was just a sales pitch. I’m not sure.

I have seen the financial “stacked deck” argument quite a bit. Being a supporter of a state school (UW-Whitewater), I never realized that when we faced a private school, we were playing against a bunch of rich kids who could afford tuitions that many of our athletes could not afford. I have never looked at things that way before. Maybe I am naive. If the state schools are affording an education to kids who could not otherwise afford it, it is very hard to feel badly about that. Many of these kids have overcome other “stacked decks” just to get on the field. Giving these kids an opportunity to line up against athletes fortunate enough to be able to afford private schools is a small part of what makes our country great!

Just an observation: It seems like we all forgot to tell Mount Union the deck is stacked against them. My guess is that Mount and their fans could care a less about this whole discussion. They are too focused on trying to win yet another Stagg Bowl Championship.

It’s all about the regional rankings. The NCAA has four regional rankings determined by regional committees. In the last rankings that were made public (http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/2008/11/12/regional-rankings-final-release/) there were four teams ranked ahead of UW-W, including the team that beat them, UW-Stevens Point. The Regional Rankings tend to put more emphasis on records and won/lost results than on perceived strength or who is the “better team.” All four of those teams won, so I assume that they remained ahead of the Warhawks when the final regional rankings were determined (not released to the public). Since none of those teams (or the Warhawks) were put into a different regional bracket, they are all seeded ahead of UW-W.

Contrary to D-I FBS (emphasis on the BS), the media/coaches polls do not matter when determining post-season spots. The people that vote in the D3Football.com Top 25 poll are not necessarily the people that have input into the Regional Rankings.

Agree or disagree with the Regional Rankings, that’s the way the D-III playoffs work. It may not be the best system, but it’s a heck of a lot better than that BCS crud that they keep talking about on ESPN.

I stand corrected. UWW is the WIAC Co-champion.

R24aider:

I was referring to my fictional scenario of playing a football game between teams actually selected from the student body of each school. Obviously, with a pool of students 4x greater to choose from, UW-Whitewater would have a huge advantage in that scenario. (unlike in reality, where the players are recruited and not just chosen from a student body).

Sooo, my point was that UW-Whitewater would indeed be working from a stacked deck in that scenario. My sentence you quoted was a tribute to Kehres, meaning that even with the stacked deck, maybe Mount would win if he coached their team.