1. Any time no 1 seed makes the Ultimus in a playoff bracket set up the way the ISFL's is, you have to look at them hard, because the likelihood that they either choked or were fraudulent to begin with is extremely high. In this case, the correct answer was both depending on which team you were talking about.
Through the Regular Season, there weren't any really standout teams, no all time great or terrible ones, but there was a clear answer for the Best Team. The Honolulu Hahalua were the only team with a +100 point differential or more, at +119, and only 3 other teams even managed more than +40 on the season, none of which the Hahalua even would have to face in even a hypothetical Ultimus run; the Baltimore Hawks lost in the Wild Card, as did the Arizona Outlaws, and the best team by point differential other than the Hahalua didn't even get to make the playoffs in the Silverbacks. So, against an opposition with less than 1/10th of the positive point differential, the Hahalua managed to completely screw up. Their Defense, 3rd best all season, gave up nearly double the points they usually did and allowed the 3rd best offense in the league to completely overmatch them. There wasn't even a massive turnover margin one way or the other to tax the defense, the Copperheads just walked over them all day.
The other number 1 seed were frauds that I don't think were particularly shocking to people to see them miss out on the Ultimus. The Colorado Yeti and I have a bit of a history; finding certain award ballots of theirs insulting, their players getting awards I found suspect at the time and still do to this day, and just the sheer fact that certain players made the Hall despite being arguably worse than non Hall of Famers from the same era in one case and just not being all that good in another. So it's with some bemusement that the Yeti wind up in my crosshairs yet again as I talk about a team that beat mine by 55 points at the end of the season and yet I still don't think was even above average. Really, though, it's not hard to spot why.
I'd like to know if there's a single team in ISFL history with a larger win than the 69-14 game the Yeti had in Week 16 who still ended the season with a negative point differential. I'd also like to know if that team finished 1st in the conference like these Yeti. It's certainly possible, there were some bad and lopsided conferences and teams in the early days, but still; 55 point win, and a negative 8 point differential, minus half a point per game. It's very possible that we just witnessed the single worst 1 seed in the history of the ISFL; not by record, the 10-6 mark beats out the legendary 9-7 Pileup of the S24 ASFC which saw the Sabercats come out on top with that record, but possibly by point differential; the legendary -0.8 Sabercats squad that won the Ultimus was a 3rd seed the year afterwards, the Sabercats of the 1st seed pileup were over +2. And of course, that Sabercat team went on to win it all instead of getting knocked out in their first playoff game with a double digit loss.
Nobody is going to call these S45 Yeti chokers, or at least they really shouldn't. Choking implies a surprising, unexpected and counter to form result, not a mediocre team squatting on the one seed despite not playing like a team that should.
Although, the Sailfish were also a fraudulent team which would have missed the playoffs in a good simulation on a 3 way head to head tiebreaker that had them with a 1-3 record to the Fire Salamanders 2-2 and the Hawks' 3-1.
Through the Regular Season, there weren't any really standout teams, no all time great or terrible ones, but there was a clear answer for the Best Team. The Honolulu Hahalua were the only team with a +100 point differential or more, at +119, and only 3 other teams even managed more than +40 on the season, none of which the Hahalua even would have to face in even a hypothetical Ultimus run; the Baltimore Hawks lost in the Wild Card, as did the Arizona Outlaws, and the best team by point differential other than the Hahalua didn't even get to make the playoffs in the Silverbacks. So, against an opposition with less than 1/10th of the positive point differential, the Hahalua managed to completely screw up. Their Defense, 3rd best all season, gave up nearly double the points they usually did and allowed the 3rd best offense in the league to completely overmatch them. There wasn't even a massive turnover margin one way or the other to tax the defense, the Copperheads just walked over them all day.
The other number 1 seed were frauds that I don't think were particularly shocking to people to see them miss out on the Ultimus. The Colorado Yeti and I have a bit of a history; finding certain award ballots of theirs insulting, their players getting awards I found suspect at the time and still do to this day, and just the sheer fact that certain players made the Hall despite being arguably worse than non Hall of Famers from the same era in one case and just not being all that good in another. So it's with some bemusement that the Yeti wind up in my crosshairs yet again as I talk about a team that beat mine by 55 points at the end of the season and yet I still don't think was even above average. Really, though, it's not hard to spot why.
I'd like to know if there's a single team in ISFL history with a larger win than the 69-14 game the Yeti had in Week 16 who still ended the season with a negative point differential. I'd also like to know if that team finished 1st in the conference like these Yeti. It's certainly possible, there were some bad and lopsided conferences and teams in the early days, but still; 55 point win, and a negative 8 point differential, minus half a point per game. It's very possible that we just witnessed the single worst 1 seed in the history of the ISFL; not by record, the 10-6 mark beats out the legendary 9-7 Pileup of the S24 ASFC which saw the Sabercats come out on top with that record, but possibly by point differential; the legendary -0.8 Sabercats squad that won the Ultimus was a 3rd seed the year afterwards, the Sabercats of the 1st seed pileup were over +2. And of course, that Sabercat team went on to win it all instead of getting knocked out in their first playoff game with a double digit loss.
Nobody is going to call these S45 Yeti chokers, or at least they really shouldn't. Choking implies a surprising, unexpected and counter to form result, not a mediocre team squatting on the one seed despite not playing like a team that should.
Although, the Sailfish were also a fraudulent team which would have missed the playoffs in a good simulation on a 3 way head to head tiebreaker that had them with a 1-3 record to the Fire Salamanders 2-2 and the Hawks' 3-1.