This first round of playoff games were all completed successfully today. However, as of 11:19 PM CST, less than half of the scores have been reported. Please report your scores to viethj@gmail.com or text (608)776-3006. This page will be updated as scores continue to be reported.

Division 1 Playoff Games

WD White – 12
Steelers – 40

Maquoketa – 0
Bellevue – 20

Colts – 6
Patriots – 31

Division 1 Consolation Games

Galena Pirates – 18
Bears – 12

Broncos – 7
Rams – 33

WD Black
Eagles

Badgers – 7 (tie)
Cascade – 7

Division 2 Playoff Games

WD Red – 18
Steelers – 35

Rams – 28
Broncos – 27

WD Black – 0
Cascade – 7

Maquoketa – 0
WD White – 28

Division 2 Consolation Games

Eagles – 7
Bellevue – 7

Bears – 6
Patriots – 38

Badgers - 0
Colts – 40

In response to two complaints regarding playoff bracket decisions, the DIFL Board of Directors has decided the league will not make any changes to the playoff brackets this season. The existing playoff brackets will be followed just as they were originally published.

Please know that all input has been greatly appreciated, as always. The DIFL Board of Directors will use this input, including complaints, to better develop playoff administration and other aspects of the DIFL going forward in the spirit of continuous improvement.

The only only criteria used to determine which teams are included in the 2015 playoff brackets were winning percentage (team record) and RPI. Head-to-head criteria was not used to determine playoff berths. Head-to-head criteria was only used to address one case in which a playoff team had beaten another playoff team with a higher seed/rank. And we have received no complaints from the two teams affected by that adjustment.

RPI, the metric used as a secondary criteria in determining 2015 DIFL playoff berths, is an exceedingly fair metric. It is objective, and it eliminates human bias, and that is why it was selected as playoff criteria several weeks ago. RPI also reflects the strength of the entire DIFL league because the formula branches out to each team’s opponents and all of their opponents’ opponents in a way that no other criteria can. By using RPI, the DIFL Board of Directors was able to determine playoff berths without any human decision making. That means the process was objective and fair.

The DIFL Board of Directors would like to thank all participants for your support, including players, coaches, officials, parents, and fans. Remember, the goals of the DIFL are educational football, practicing sportsmanship, safety for all participants, and FUN!!!

The final 2015 playoff brackets have been finalized and are available online. The brackets include seed (rank), team match-ups for both playoff games and consolation games, game dates and times, and game locations. Use the links below to download the bracket documents.

• 2015 Playoff Brackets – D1
• 2015 Playoff Brackets – D2

Seed Criteria

Three criteria were used to determine each team’s seed, which is the number next to each team name on the brackets, and which determines the team match-ups.

1. Team’s winning percentage
2. Team’s RPI
3. Team’s head-to-head results with other teams having same winning percentage

First the teams are sorted based on winning percentage. Then, within each group having the same winning percentage, there is a secondary sort based on RPI.

Head-to-head factor is only taken into account if two teams have the same winning percentage and the team with the higher RPI lost during the regular season to the team with the lower RPI. When this happens, an adjustment is made so that the team who won the head-to-head match-up is ranked higher. This only happened in one case this year. Prior to taking into account head-to-head play, WD Red (D2) had a 7 seed and Maquoketa Cardinals (D2) had an 8 seed, but since Maquoketa Cardinals (D2) beat WD Red (D2) during the regular season, the seeds were adjusted so that WD Red (D2) had an 8 seed and Maquoketa Cardinals (D2) had a 7 seed.

What is RPI?

RPI, or Rating Percentage Index, is a popular metric used to rank teams based on strength of schedule and strength of opponents’ schedules. It is sometimes preferred as a tie-breaker compared to other metrics like points scored, points allowed, and difference between points scored and allowed, because those other metrics result in undesirable play during the regular season (running up the score). Also, in a small league with a small number of games played and in which teams do not get an opportunity to play every other team at least once, points-based metrics do not adequately reflect teams’ strength of schedule, strength of opponents’ schedules, etc. This is where RPI shines. In the case of DIFL playoffs, it is only used as a secondary sort to break ties when multiple teams have the same winning percentage. Head-to-head results can override RPI in cases when two teams have the same winning percentage and one team has a higher RPI even though that team lost to the other team with a lower RPI.

How is RPI calculated?

RPI = (0.25 x WP) + (0.50 x OWP) + (0.25 x OOWP)

…where…

WP = Winning Percentage
OWP = Opponents’ Winning Percentage (average the WPs of all the team’s opponents)
OOWP = Opponents’ Opponents’ Winning Percentage (average the OWPs of all the team’s opponents)

Obviously this is a complicated calculation considering that each team played six opponents, and each of those opponents played six opponents. This website is supposed to automatically calculate RPI, and it appeared to be doing so throughout the season. But once the regular season was completed, and RPI actually became relevant, the DIFL board realized that the website was not calculating RPI correctly—not even close. In fact, in some cases, the incorrect RPI values were creating results that were the opposite of what should have been the results. This malfunction was confirmed by TeamPages technical support staff. Since TeamPages does not know how long it will take them to fix their automatic RPI calculator, we “turned it off” and replaced it with our own manual calculations.

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

Send email to dubifl@mediacombb.net and, if you are challenging the seeds determined by the DIFL board of directors, be sure to include your calculations.

Texas Roadhouse will be sponsoring 3 fundraising nights on October 5, 12, & 19, from 4-10 PM to benefit the Dubuque Independent Football League. Enjoy a meal at Texas Roadhouse during those times, and Texas Roadhouse will donate 10% of your payment to the DIFL. You must present one of the invitations below when ordering. Notice there is a different invitation for each night. Just download the appropriate invitation, print it out, and take it with you to Texas Roadhouse. Or load this web page on your mobile device and show it to your server at Texas Roadhouse.

• Download invitation for October 5
• Download invitation for October 12
• Download invitation for October 19

There is a bug in the way that RPI is automatically calculated by the TeamPages website. (RPI is used to determine playoff bracket seeds.) Therefore we cannot publish the final playoff brackets at this time. The TeamPages technical support staff is troubleshooting. As soon as we have reliable RPI data, we will publish the final playoff brackets. We’re hoping this is resolved within 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact the league. Click “contact us” at the top of the website for contact information.