Please forgive the clickbait title. For the impatient, that team is WPI, and it’s FAR from a done deal.

In Division 3 football, the sad truth is that New England teams are not generally regarded as the highest level of play. Teams in those conferences rarely make deep playoff runs, rarely break into the top 25, and this year, d3football.com ranks the best conference among them at 16th out of 28*.

In recent years, one notable exception to this trend has been Springfield. In 2022 they broke a 5-year streak where no New England team made it past the first round of the playoff. But, it was against a New England opponent. The real streak would break in 2024, again thanks to Springfield. That year, they advanced several rounds before losing to North Central, the eventual national champion.

Now, in 2026, they are currently on track to win the NEWMAC for the 6th year in a row. They’ve gone undefeated in conference for that entire time, and as of today the streak is alive this year as well. Springfield does have a non-conference loss, but it was against Wisconsin-Platteville, who is currently ranked #2 in the country in the latest top 25 poll. Springfield’s 14 points against them are the second-most out of UWP’s 7 opponents so far this year, and the first of only two times an opponent has put up double digits.

D3 has a 40-team playoff. 29 conference champions get a slot, as do 11 at-large selections. Typically, New England teams do not earn at-large spots due to not being good enough. This year, however, two things have changed.

The first thing to have changed is that the NCAA now picks the at-large teams using a mathematical formula rather than using a panel. This formula, called NPI, is publicly known, and can therefore be tracked during the season. D3 basketball made the switch to NPI for tournament selection a few years ago, and now football has followed suit. This means, among other things, that if a New England team is good this year, their possible at-large selection will not be affected by the conventional understanding of what New England teams are typically like.

The second thing to have changed is that this year, a New England team might be good enough to get an at-large nod. That team is Merchant Marine, who is second in the NEWMAC behind, of course, Springfield. More importantly for this discussion, they are 23rd in NPI, which means by the skin of their teeth, they are poised to get a bid.

Coming into last week, the Mariners were undefeated. They had run the table in conference in dominant fashion, winning by an average margin of 31.75 points. Their non-conference schedule featured a 41-24 win over a strong Montclair State, whose only other loss this year is to undefeated, #10 Christopher Newport. d3football.com called Merchant Marine’s MSU victory the “signature win” for the entire NEWMAC.

This set the stage for a matchup with big playoff implications, when Merchant Marine hosted Springfield this past Saturday. Springfield won, 30-12.

So what about the bowl game?

There are not many bowl games in Division 3. By Wikipedia’s count, there are only 14 (not counting the Stagg Bowl, which is the playoff’s championship game). This makes sense, considering the large playoff field and relatively few teams per conference compared to what we see in Division 1. One of those bowl games is the Fusion Bowl.

For the 2016 season, 4 of the New England conferences got together to establish the New England Bowl series. The best two teams from those conferences that did not make the playoffs would play each other. The following year, it was expanded to two games, so the next best team in all four conferences would get to play. But in 2024, the series ended, because the ECFC dissolved and the CCC reorganized into the CNE. Starting in 2024, the Fusion Bowl took its place. It is a single game between the next-best teams in the CNE and the NEWMAC (sorry MASCAC).

This leaves the NEWMAC’s 3rd-place team, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in a very strange spot. Springfield seems to be a likely conference winner (they would clinch the automatic bid with a win at Coast Guard on Saturday). If Merchant Marine gets the at-large bid, which they are currently on track to do, and WPI holds onto their 3rd-place spot, then WPI will play in the Fusion Bowl.

The problem is, this coming weekend, WPI plays Merchant Marine. If WPI wins, then Merchant Marine’s odds of an at-large tournament bid drop dramatically. In that case, the Mariners would be the best NEWMAC team out of the tournament, and presumably, they would play in the Fusion Bowl instead of the Engineers.

Of course, with three weeks left in the season, anything can still happen. 4th-place MIT could make a run and take over the 3rd spot. Merchant Marine could drop both of their remaining games and fall out of contention entirely—after WPI, they play arch rival Coast Guard for the Secretaries Cup, and anything can happen in a rivalry game. And WPI’s opponents after MM (Salve Regina and MIT) are both decent teams that could win.

There is even a world where WPI beats the Mariners, both teams win out after that, and WPI still gets the Fusion Bowl invite. Both teams would be 6-1 in conference, and the Engineers would have the head-to-head win, even though the Mariners may have the edge in terms of overall record, opponent strength, the NCAA’s official tournament-selecting NPI, quality wins, and the ever-important eye test. The official announcement of the Fusion Bowl only states “The Fusion Bowl will feature the first available team from each league, pending NCAA automatic qualifiers and at-large selections,” with no further detail about tiebreakers.

In the end, most likely none of this will matter.
Merchant Marine is the heavy favorite over WPI, by either 14.5 (Massey) or 18.5 (VSS). The immortal wisdom of the internet also reminds us that Nothing Ever Happens. It just strikes me as incredibly strange that there is a world in which a team might be incentivized to lose in order to play in a postseason game.

Thanks for indulging this hypothetical scenario, if you read this far, and regardless of what happens on Saturday, I hope New England teams make deep runs in the playoffs this year.

*the NESCAC was not ranked because they do not play non-conference or postseason games. However, starting this year, the NESCAC winner will play in the tournament for the first time.

Going back to 1916 Oregon football has never finished a season ending in 6 more than 1 game over .500.

1916: 5-4

1926: 2-4-1

1936: 2-6-1

1946: 4-5

1956: 4-4-2

1966: 3-7

1976: 5-6

1986: 5-6

1996: 6-5

2006: 7-6

2016: 4-8

2026: 4-3 (so far)

So should we have expected a down year for Oregon? Should we all bet the Oregon under win total in 2036?

Wins are sorted by opponent ranks in the Massey Composite. Teams are sorted by AP rank. Full Massey Composite top 50 included in comments.

FCS teams are not included in tables.

https://masseyratings.com/ranks

# of Wins vs Top 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 Teams

Wins Sorted by Highest to Lowest Opponent Ranks (per Massey Composite)

Here are the results for the 2026 Week 9 /r/CFB Poll:

Dropped: #15 Iowa, #17 USC, #21 James Madison

Next Ten: UTSA 361, New Mexico 359, James Madison 337, Iowa 318, Nebraska 238, USC 184, Oregon State 165, Cincinnati 163, Minnesota 105, Oregon 92

POLL SITE: https://poll.redditcfb.com/

• Poll Summary Image
• Detailed Results
• Results w/Provisional Voters
• THE PEOPLE'S POLL
• Voter List
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About The Poll | FAQ | Contribute | Voter Hall of Fame

Every March, college basketball fans get to argue about Quad 1 wins. College football gets "quality wins" (or losses) which as far as I can tell means whatever the committee wants it to mean.

Quad W/L has been a beloved metric by CBB fans since it was introduced back in 2018. So, I wanted to adapt the same concept for CFB.

What's a quad?

Every game gets sorted into Quad 1 through 4 based on how good the opponent is and where you played them. It sorts each of your games into a difficulty tier list.

Methodology & Rationale

• Opponent strength is determined using ESPN's overall efficiency rantings. Efficiency is the dominant metric used in CBB's NET ratings. Efficiency is a fantastic descriptive metric that has three primary advantages over other metrics
  1. There are no preseason priors in efficiency. It is determined only on how teams have played this season.
     • 2) It is not a predictive value. Efficiency on its' own says nothing about how well a team would theoretically matchup against another team. It only describes how well a team has played this year (opponent adjusted, of course).
     • 3) Efficiency is not a resume ranking system. It doesn't explicitly matter who you beat and who you lost to. There is no argument about whose record or schedule is better. Again, it is only a measure of how well you have played.
• The cutoffs for each quad are adapted from CBB's definitions. However, instead of simply scaling them to the size of FBS, I determined ranges that would put the proportional # of games played in each quad in line with CBB's historical scheduling, comparing the past 5 years worth of scheduling data in each sport. I then made a small adjustment to account for the relative difficulty of playing on the road in each sport, then and rounded to nice whole numbers. This is a more accurate reflection of the schedule construction of CFB.
• QUAD WINS ARE NOT A RANKING SYSTEM. On their own, they are simply a tool fans can look at to compare how teams performed in each difficulty tier of game. It can be used as part of a discussion on "quality wins and losses". It is also based in math instead of using an arbitrary cutoff like "vs Top 25 teams". It provides much more granularity.
• Note: Efficiencies continue updating each week. Therefore, a game that was formerly Quad 1 could become Quad 2 later in the season if a team plays poorly, for example. Additionally, all FCS games are considered Quad 4 opportunities.

Definition of each quad as determined by your opponent's efficiency ranking

This week's AP Top 25 (games through Oct 25):

Check out my NFL series if you haven’t yet

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

ALRIGHT!

TIME TO TALLY!

Remember folks

If it’s Georgia colors, like straight up the Georgia logo with no changes, it just counts for Georgia,

If it’s Grambling Colors, same thing applies but for Grambling

If it’s one of Georgia’s Bulldog logos, that’s purely Georgia

If the colors don’t match either Grambling or Georgia, and it is the G, it’s both 

Clemson: 131(+4)

FSU: 110(+6)

Georgia: 89(+4)

Georgia Tech: 72(+3)

Gonzaga: 67(+8)

USC: 66(+5)

Mizzou: 58(+2)

Michigan: 53(+1)

Grambling: 48 (+3)

Fordham: 44

Wisconsin: 43

Michigan State: 39

SMU: 36(+5)

Arizona State: 35

K-State: 35(+1)

Colorado State: 34

Rhode Island: 32

Washington: 32(+1)

Purdue: 32(+1)

Oregon: 30(+2)

LSU: 26

Louisville: 26(+2)

Ohio State: 25(+3)

SJSU: 23

Miami: 23

Kent State: 23(+1)

Florida: 21

Western Michigan: 20

Alabama: 19

Boston College: 19

Miami[OH]: 19(+2)

Arizona: 19(+1)

Nebraska: 19(+3)

Tennessee: 18

Notre Dame: 18(+1)

Ole Miss: 16

UConn: 16

Kentucky: 16

Rutgers: 16(+1)

UCF: 14

Syracuse: 14

Cincinnati: 14(+3)

Texas Tech : 13

Wyoming: 13

Houston: 13(+1)

Furman: 12

Illinois State: 12(+2)

Utah Valley: 11

Ohio: 11

Southern Miss : 11(+1)

Rice: 10

East Carolina: 10

UNC: 10

Toledo: 10

Duke: 9

Morehead State: 9

Cal Poly: 9(+1)

Utah: 9(+1)

North Dakota: 8

Hawaii: 8(+1)

FIU: 7

Towson: 7

Iowa: 7

Texas: 7(+2)

West Virginia: 7(+1)

Stanford: 6

Tulane: 6

Vanderbilt: 6

Presbyterian: 6

Temple: 6(+2)

Stetson : 5

SDSU: 5

LMU: 5

Mississippi State: 5

TSU: 5

Fairfield: 5

NC State: 5

Marshall: 5

UWM: 5

Army: 5

Delaware: 5

UNLV: 5

Auburn: 5(+1)

Bucknell: 5(+2)

Oklahoma State: 5(+1)

Penn State: 4

Baylor : 4

UTEP: 4

Boise State: 4

Arkansas: 4

Georgia Southern: 4

Mercyhurst: 4

NDSU: 4

Binghamton: 4

Western Illinois: 4

Minnesota: 4

BYU: 4

Yale: 4(+1)

Oregon State: 4(+1)

North Alabama: 3

Stony Brook: 3

Cal St. Northridge: 3

New Mexico: 3

Georgetown: 3

Villanova: 3

Gardner-Webb: 3

Virginia: 3

Illinois: 3

St. John’s: 3

Penn: 3

CSUF: 3

DePaul: 3

Wake Forest: 3(+1)

Trinity West (CA): 3(+1)

Colorado: 3(+1)

Pacific: 3(+1)

Creighton: 3(+1)

Georgia State: 2

USF: 2

Troy: 2

Cal: 2

South Dakota St: 2

Washington State: 2

Navy: 2

Sacramento State: 2

Texas State: 2

Duquesne: 2

Memphis: 2

Eastern Illinois: 2

UAB: 2

St. Joseph: 2

Montana: 2

Alabama State : 2

East Washington: 2

Fresno State 2

UTSA: 2

Butler: 2

Northwestern: 2

Missouri State: 2

Virginia Tech : 2

Indiana: 2

Iowa State: 2

USD: 2

UNH: 2(+1)

Long Beach State: 2(+1)

Howard: 2(+1)

Ball State: 2(+1)

And all the teams that have one deserve a little bit of a special name for the chaos…

THE MOSHPIT:

South Carolina, CCSU, Morgan State, Idaho State, Cornell, NCA&T, App State, Tulsa, Air Force, Samford, Louisiana-Lafayette, Chattanooga, Utah State, South Dakota, TCU, Brown, Pepperdine, Arkansas State, Montana State, IU Indy, Davidson, Mount Royal (CA), Central Arkansas, EKU, SIU, St Francis, SEMO, Youngstown, MTSU, Drake, UC Davis, Bethune Cookman, La Salle, Union College, Eastern Michigan, Coastal Carolina, Dartmouth, Northern Colorado, Texas A&M, Kansas

Alright folks, You know the deal, let me know if I missed anything, of if I improperly judged any schools on this list!