USA Ultimate

Introduction

**UPDATE -- As noted in this news item, the final boundaries and conference assignments are now available.  Go to the College Season page for more information**

This document outlines in more detail many of the changes for the 2011 USA Ultimate College Series, including detailed boundary maps and team breakdowns.  The official season guidelines will be posted early this fall.  We'll be soliciting feedback on these changes via a survey (that will remain open through 11:59pm MT Mon 9/20/10).  Discussion on these changes is available on this discussion thread.

• College Series Changes
• Boundary Redraw
• Conference Makeup

2011 USA Ultimate College Series Changes

USA Ultimate College Regular Season

• Purpose:
  • The purpose of the USA Ultimate College Regular Season is to give games between college-eligible teams a concrete purpose, by tying performance in those games over the course of the season to the process for allocating bids to conferences (sections) and regions during the USA Ultimate College Series.
• Changes:
  • The regular season will be extended by one week, January 1st through April 3rd.

USA Ultimate College Series

• Purpose:
  • The purpose of the USA Ultimate College Series is to crown a champion in each division, showcase the sport, provide opportunities for advancement at a variety of levels of play, and provide additional meaning to the regular season by rewarding regular season performance. All teams must have a path to win the championship at the top level each season.
• Changes
  • The timing of the Series will be formally shifted later, with the College Championship always held on the last weekend in May, and will be slightly condensed, with only two weekends allocated for Conference Championships, in order to provide more time for the regular season and better weather for both the regular season and the series. 
  • The specific dates for 2011 are:
    • DI College Championships – Memorial Day Weekend, 2011
    • DIII College Championships – May 21-22, 2011
    • Regionals – April 30-May 1 or May 7-8
    • Conference Championships – April 16-17 or April 23-24 (Easter)
    • Roster Deadline – 5pm MT Friday March 25th

Registration and Eligibility Verification

• Purpose:
  • To ensure that all games that count in official competition, both regular season and during the series, are played with players and teams that meet the USA Ultimate College Eligibility Rules.  All players participating in regular season events must be academically cleared on the registrar certified roster.
• Changes:
  • Instead of there being a separate Team Registration Deadline and Finalized Roster Deadline, teams must have their finalized roster by the 5pm MT Friday March 25th Roster Deadline. 

Regional Boundary Redraw

• Purpose:
  • To promote growth in the division and reduce travel times for all teams by adding regions.  Densely populated regions would be broken up so that there are more available bids to Regionals.  Historically large geographic regions would be broken up to reduce travel times. 
• Changes:
  • Redraw the regional boundaries to have a total of 10 college regions.
  • Each region’s boundaries would fall along state lines in the U.S. and state, territory or province lines in Canada and Mexico.

Conference Makeup

• Purpose:
  • To have more uniformly sized sections across the country that allow for more logistically manageable events and greater parity between teams competing.  The system is intended to be flexible enough to accommodate the different needs of regions in different parts of the country. 
• Changes:
  • Instead of Sectionals, which had only a geographic scope, teams will be placed into Conferences based upon factors such as school size, status as a 1st team or a 2nd/3rd/etc team from a school.
  • Conferences will take on one of three types,
    • DI Conference (typically limited to 1st teams from schools from schools with >=7500 enrollment)
    • DIII Conference (limited to schools with <7500 enrollment),
    • Developmental Conference (limited to 2nd/3rd/etc teams from schools). 
  • In Regions without DIII Conferences, the DIII teams in that region will be placed into the appropriate DI Conference.  Those conferences will be treated like DI Conferences.
  • In Regions without Developmental Conferences, the Developmental teams in that region will be placed into the appropriate DI or DIII (if available) Conferences, depending on the size of the school that are from.
  • If a team’s conference assignment is geographically prohibitive for participation, they may apply to USA Ultimate for a geographic hardship consideration (i.e. to be placed in a different Conference) by Nov 30, 2010.
  • DIII Conference schools that have qualified for DI Nationals in any of the prior 4 years will be placed into a DI Conference by default as thus, in regions where there are DIII Conference, will not be eligible for the DIII post-season.  Those schools may apply by Nov 30, 2010 to stay in a DIII Conference if that is their preference.  In the case where a DIII school has their 1st team in a DI Conference, the 2nd team from a school may apply (by Nov 30th, 2010) to be placed into a DIII Conference instead of a Developmental Conference.
  • Each Conference should be between 4 and 14 teams.
    • As new teams form, they will be added to existing Conferences based upon their criteria.  When a Conference has more than 14 or fewer than 4 teams participate in a given year, it may be split or reorganized the following year to keep all the conferences in the 4-14 team range.
    • If fewer than 4 teams in a Conference register for the series in a given year, those teams may be migrated to another Conference for that year's series at the discretion of USA Ultimate.

Regional Phasing

• Purpose:
  • To offer tiered competition in areas of the country that can support multiple divisions or levels of teams.  The system is intended to be scalable based upon the make-up and growth of each Region.
• Changes:
  • The conference make-up of Regions will vary based upon the breakdown of team types and geography.  Some Regions will have only DI Conferences, some may have 1 or more DIII Conferences, and some may have 1 or more Developmental Conferences.  The various combinations of this growth represent the different phases a region could be in their growth, and the phases have modified competition structures (e.g. qualifying events and bid allocations) based upon their make-up. 
  • DI Conferences - All Regions have 1 or more DI Conference with one autobid to DI Regionals and the ability to earn strength bids to DI Regionals.
  • DIII Conference Phasing – {0, 1, >1}
    • 0 DIII Conferences – the official end of season rankings will determine the DIII Nationals qualifiers from the pool of DIII-eligible teams in the Region.
    • 1 DIII Conference – the DIII Conference Championship will serve as the DIII Nationals qualifier
    • >1 DIII Conferences – a DIII Regional event will be held as the DIII Nationals qualifier.
  • Developmental Conference Phasing – {0-1, >1}
    • 0-1 Developmental Conferences – No autobids to DI Regionals, although the Conferences may earn strength bids.
    • >1 Developmental Conferences – No autobids to DI Regionals, although the Conferences may earn strength bids.  Developmental Regionals will be held.

College Championships (Division I) Bids

• Purpose:
  • The DI College Championships would have geographic representation as well as strength wildcards that would be awarded to regions based on the regular season-based rankings algorithm.
• Changes:
  • Would be the same size as in 2009 and 2010 (i.e. 20 teams per division). 
  • 1 team per region (10 total) would earn a bid by winning DI Regionals.
  • 10 additional strength wildcards using the same basic allocation system (5 Region Strength, and 5 Team Strength) as implemented in 2010.
    • No region may receive more than 3 wildcards (i.e 4 bids to Nationals).

College Championships (Division III) Bids

• Purpose:
  • The DIII College Championships would provide an opportunity for teams from small schools (combined graduate and undergraduate enrollment is <7500 students) to compete against each other for a national title.  The Championships would have geographic representation as well as size wildcards and strength wildcards based on the regular season-based rankings algorithm.
• Changes:
  • 1 team per Region would earn a bid to the event. 
  • The remaining bids would be strength bids (3 Region Strength, 3 Team Strength).
  • No region may receive more than 3 wildcards (i.e 4 bids to Nationals).

Regional Event Size Scaling

• Purpose:
  • 16 team Regionals when there are few teams in a region decrease the meaning of the Conference Tournaments.  With the addition of new Regional events at the DI, DIII and Developmental levels more opportunities to play are being provided than in the prior structure.  With the addition of these additition opportunities, scaling the size of the events to be appropriate will also help alleviate field space concerns.  Scaling the size of Regional events also provides an incentive for participation and growth, especially in smaller Regions.

• Changes:
  • The size of Regional events (DI, DIII, Developmental) will be proportional to the number of teams that meet the Team Registration Deadline. 
    • 8 team Regionals = <24 teams
    • 12 team Regionals = 24-31 teams
    • 16 team Regionals = 32 or more teams
  • For DI Regionals, all the series-registered teams in the Region (DI, DIII, Developmental) will count for determining the event size.
  • For DIII Regionals, all the series-registered teams from small schools (<7500 enrollment) in a Region will count for determining the event size.
  • For Developmental Regionals, all the series-registered 2nd/3rd/etc teams from schools in the region will count for determining the event size.

Regionals (Division I) Bids

• Purpose:
  • With the sizes of Conferences relatively more standard, allocation to Regionals can be based upon strength from the regular season.
• Changes:
  • Each DI and DIII Conference gets an automatic bid for the winner to attend DI Regionals, plus the number of strength bids that Conference earned from the regular season.
    • The DIII Conference Championship teams that winners will have to choose if they would like to attend DI Regionals or DIII Regionals. (DIII Conferences will not receive double bids as a result of this process)

Regionals (Division III) Bids

• Purpose:
  • To create a separate qualifying structure for the DIII College Championships when the number of DIII teams in a region can support it.
• Changes:
  • Each DIII Conference gets one automatic bid to DIII Regionals
  • The remaining bids would be allocated based on strength from regular season.

Regionals (Developmental) Bids

• Purpose:
  • To create additional playing opportunities when the number of Developmental teams in a region can support it.
• Changes:
  • Each Developmental Conference gets one automatic bid to Developmental Regionals
  • The remaining bids would be allocated based on strength from regular season.

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Boundary Redraw

Conference Makeup

NOTE: the dots in the images below represent teams using data from 2008-2010.

The size of the dot is proportional to the size of the school, and the colors denote

the final ranking of the team (blue > red > yellow > white > grey).  The naming of

the Conferences and Regions are still TBD.

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