The Region 2 rankings apparently got shuffled around a few times in November, and when Utica came out as the top at-large team in those rankings, the Pioneers also got into the field. Utica athletics photo

In a year where a number of teams took risks and scheduled top-notch opponents, the NCAA Division III football committee rewarded them. Two-loss teams got at-large bids. A one-loss team got a top seed. The committee chose the following five at-large teams: UW-La Crosse, Wheaton, Bethel, Hardin-Simmons and ... Utica.

• Printable bracket file
• Final regular-season Top 25
• First-round schedule
• Final regional rankings
• Final 2022 strength of schedule

Wheaton and Bethel each got in with two Division III losses. St. John's, which lost to Bethel earlier in the season but beat them at home in the MIAC title game in Week 11, got a top seed based on the Johnnies' incredible strength of schedule, which included a win against UW-Whitewater, the likely No. 2 seed in that same bracket.

On our Twitter Space on Saturday night, we discussed the volatility of strength of schedule, where a team with a solid number could play a winless team in Week 11 and lose something close to 50 points.

That happened to Johns Hopkins.

Wait, no, it actually happened to Susquehanna. The River Hawks played Juniata on Saturday and saw their SOS nosedive.

This is especially the case in 10-team conferences, such as the Centennial.

That apparently led the Region 2 committee to re-rank its teams, and suddenly no longer was Johns Hopkins ahead of Utica. And as we say all along, you can't get into the field unless you are the top at-large team in the region.

Utica was.

Utica got in. And in the last year of the 10-team Centennial Conference, one more time a Centennial second place team does not get into the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Pioneers have to be thanking their lucky stars that the officiating crew swallowed their collective whistle on the final play of that last-second win againt Morrisville State.

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