The following information outlines the basic framework for the 2010 UPA College Ultimate season, specifically as it relates to changes from past seasons. The new elements of the framework are designed to address many of the issues identified in the UPA’s strategic plan and during the college restructure planning process. While this framework does not represent the final version of the UPA’s plans for college Ultimate, it does outline some significant changes that are likely, at some level, to be a part of future long-term plans in addition to the 2010 season. Presentation of this framework at this point (Fall of 2009) will allow the UPA, event organizers, and most importantly, college teams, to start making plans for the upcoming college season.
Please note that the information below does not include all implementation details. However, it does provide important descriptions and guidance necessary for college teams and event organizers to move forward with preparations for their season. More details will be finalized and communicated through the 2010 College Series Guidelines prior to the start of the regular season.
Overview
The 2010 college season will build on the existing framework of the UPA College Series. The Series will still exist as it has always, in terms of its basic structure. All college-eligible teams will be able to register for the Series at the end of March. Sectional events will qualify teams for regional events which will qualify teams for the UPA Division I College Championships. In order to participate in the UPA College Series, players and teams must meet the requirements of the UPA College Eligibility Rules.
The primary changes to the 2010 college season include the addition of a more formalized regular season, the results of which will directly impact the allocation of bids from Sectionals to Regionals and from Regionals to the UPA Division I College Championships. The strong regular season performance of individual teams or groups of teams in a given section or region will contribute to the potential for that section or region to earn more bids to the next stage of the Series.
Additionally, a UPA Division III College Championship event will be held for teams from small colleges or universities. These teams will have the opportunity to compete in the regular season and the existing College Series and have that performance qualify them for this new* event.
*Note: A Division III Nationals for teams from small colleges had been organized independently, with support from the UPA, since 2006. After working with the founder and primary organizer, Bill Theisen, the UPA incorporated the idea for this event into its strategic plan for college Ultimate. Many thanks to Bill, Russell Nilsen, Dale Wilker, and others who helped get this idea and this event off the ground.
Regular Season
The official UPA College Regular Season will run from January 1 through March 28, 2010.
Only the results of games between rostered college teams at UPA-sanctioned events will count towards the Official UPA College Rankings. Official college games may take place at any UPA-sanctioned event including college-specific events, events where there is a college division, or at non-college events where any two rostered college teams play one another.
During the regular season, college teams at UPA-sanctioned events will be required to submit their roster of participating players to the event organizer through the UPA online rostering system. Event organizers will be responsible for submitting or verifying the results of games between rostered college teams at their events through the UPA’s online score reporting system.
Eligibility and Roster Verification
College teams participating in regular season games will be expected to do so only with players who meet, or who will meet, the UPA College Eligibility Rules for the UPA College Series. Teams’ registrar-certified rosters, submitted to the UPA in order to register for the UPA College Series, will be cross-checked against teams’ rosters from regular season events. Only game results from events where a team’s roster included only UPA-eligibility-verified* players on their registrar-certified roster will be included in the end-of-season Official UPA College Rankings.
Quarter-system schools – Teams from schools on the quarter system will be held to the same standard as all other teams competing in the Official UPA Regular Season. To clarify, in order for a team’s regular season results to count towards end of season rankings, all players on a team’s roster for an event must meet the UPA College Eligibility Rules when the team registers for the UPA College Series. As has been the case, quarter-system schools may be eligible for team registration deadline extensions when registering for the UPA College Series.
*Note: UPA-eligibility-verification includes not only verification of required academic status through the school’s registrar, but also adherence to all aspects of the UPA College Eligibility Rules, including the “5-year rule” and other requirements.
Official UPA College Rankings
Only game results from events where a team’s roster included only UPA-eligibility-verified players on their registrar-certified roster will be included in the end-of-season Official UPA College Rankings. Games played at any event by a team whose roster for that event does not meet those requirements will be removed from the official regular season results. This rule will apply to both the team with the ineligible/unverified player(s) and any of their opponents at that event.
End-of-season Official UPA Rankings will be released after the College Series team registration deadline and after the last weekend of the regular season, but before the first sectional event. In order to be included in the end-of season rankings, a team must have participated in 10 regular season games at events for which they had an eligible roster. Teams that lose results from having played against teams with an ineligible roster will still be able to credit those games (but not the results) towards that 10-game minimum.
The college ranking formula will be similar to the existing UPA College Rankings algorithm and the RRI ranking index. They will be calculated and posted starting in early February and every week following through the end of the College Championships. Details about and a description of the rankings formula will be made available prior to start of the regular season.
Series Registration
Registration for the UPA College Series will take place in much the same way it has taken place in the past. The Team Registration Deadline will be Friday, March 26, 2010. By that date, any team wishing to compete in the UPA College Series must have met minimum registration requirements. These will be very similar to previous years’ requirements and will be laid out more specifically in the 2010 College Series Guidelines prior to the 2010 season.
As in previous years, teams will be allowed to add players to their College Series roster after the Team Registration Deadline, up to the Finalized Roster Deadline. However, any player not included on a team’s registrar-certified roster, submitted prior to the Team Registration Deadline, will not be considered valid for the eligibility cross-check with regular season event rosters. This means that even if an eligible player is legitimately added to a team’s roster after this deadline, if that player was on the roster for any regular season events, the team’s games and results from those events will not be included in the Official UPA College Rankings. However, such players and teams will still be eligible to participate in the College Series.
Early Registration - Teams are encouraged to register as early as possible during the regular season. This will allow the UPA to check player eligibility and provide teams with the assurance that their regular season games will count towards the rankings. This will also spread out the roster/player verification workload and enable the UPA to handle the Series registration and bid allocation process more efficiently.
Series Qualification Process
By participating in official UPA College Series Regular Season games, meeting the 10-game minimum requirements, and thereby being included in the end-of-season UPA College Rankings, a team can help earn its section bids to Regionals and its region bids to the UPA College Championships.
Bids from Sectionals to Regionals – Any team that meets the UPA College Eligiblity Rules and meets the Team Registration Deadline may participate in their sectional event. There is no limit on the number of participating teams. There will be 16 bids available to each regional tournament. Bids will be allocated to the sections in that region as outlined below. There is no cap on the number of bids that a section can receive to Regionals.
- Automatic bids – Each section will receive one automatic bid to Regionals. Application of this rule will be the same as in previous UPA College Series.
- Size bids – After automatic bids, remaining bids up to 12 will be based on ratio of participating teams between sections. Application of this rule will be the same as in previous UPA College Series, except for the new limit on the number of size-based bids.
- Strength bids – The remaining 4 bids will be based on the ranking of teams in each section in the end-of-season official UPA College Rankings, as outlined below.
- Sectional strength – The first 2 strength bids will be awarded to the strongest two sections in a region, in order, based on the average ranking of the top X* teams in each section. The average ranking will be calculated by dividing by X, so a section with fewer than X ranked teams will still be eligible to earn one of these bids, but will be at a disadvantage compared to sections that have at least X teams. A section may only earn 1 sectional strength bid to Regionals. If one or both sectional strength bids cannot be awarded because a region’s sections do not meet the participation requirements, the remaining bids will be allocated based on the size process.
*Note: The exact number of teams that will be considered for average strength bids from sectionals to Regionals will be determined after further evaluation and prior to the start of the regular season. The goal will be to set a realistic benchmark that also achieves the goal of this type of bid, which is to reward both team development and participation. This number may be different for the Open and Women’s divisions. - Team strength – The last 2 strength bids will be awarded to sections with the “next” highest ranked team, where “next” describes one more bid than the section has already been awarded up to that point. For example, a section with 4 bids and a section with 2 bids will compare their 5th and 3rd ranked teams, respectively, for a team strength bid. A section may earn more than one team strength bid. If one or both team strength bids cannot be awarded because teams in a region’s sections do not meet the participation requirements, the un-awarded bids will be allocated based on the section strength process.
Bids from Regionals to College Championships
Up to 16 qualifying teams may compete at each division’s regional tournament.
There will be 20 bids available to each division (Open and Women’s) of the UPA College Championships. Bids will be allocated to each region as outlined below. A region may not be awarded more than 4 bids to the UPA College Championships.
- Automatic bids – Each region will receive 2 automatic bids to the UPA College Championships.
- Strength bids - The remaining 4 bids will be based on the ranking of teams in each section in the end-of-season official UPA College Rankings, as outlined below.
- Regional strength – The first 2 strength bids will be awarded to the strongest two region, in order, based on the average ranking of the top 8 teams in each region. The average ranking will be calculated by dividing by 8, so a region with fewer than 8 ranked teams will still be eligible to earn one of these bids, but will be at a disadvantage compared to regions that have at least 8 teams. A region may only earn 1 regional strength bid to the College Championships.
- Team strength – The last 2 strength bids will be awarded to regions with the “next” highest ranked team, where “next” describes one more bid than the region has already been awarded up to that point. For example, a region with 2 bids and a region with 3 bids will compare their 3rd and 4th ranked teams, respectively, for a team strength bid. A region may earn more than one team strength bid. However, a region may not be awarded more than 4 bids total to the College Championships.
Division III
In 2010, the Division III structure will include a single national championship event. Qualification for this event will take place through results and rankings based on the regular college season and the first stage (Sectionals) of the UPA College Series.
School size – In order to be eligible for Division III, a team must be from a school that has a total enrollment of less than 7500 students (undergraduate and graduate combined).
Official UPA Division III College Rankings – Division III rankings will be contained within the overall UPA College Rankings. In other words, teams from Division III schools will be included in the primary rankings just like all other teams and will be held to the same standards, with the following differences:
- Results from Sectionals will be included in the Official Division III College Rankings. This will provide more information for determining team strength and allow more teams the opportunity to meet the 10-game minimum requirement.
- Post-Sectionals Division III rankings will be used to determine bids to Division III Nationals.
UPA College Division III Nationals – This two-day event will be held on a weekend (TBD) following the last weekend of Regionals. The location and host organization will be determined through an event bid process (TBD).
There will be 16 bids available to each division (Open and Women’s) of the Division III Nationals. Bids will be allocated as outlined below. There is no cap on the number of teams from a single region that may be awarded bids to the event. Teams will not be permitted to compete in both the Division I UPA College Championships and Division III Nationals.
- Geographic bids – Eight geographic bids will be awarded. These will go to the highest ranked Division III team in each region, based on Official Division III College Rankings following Sectionals. Geographic bids that are declined will be awarded to the next highest ranked Division III team within that region. If there are no teams in a region that meet the minimum requirements to be included in the rankings, their geographic bid will be added to the strength bid process.
- Size bids – Four size bids will be awarded. The 4 regions with the largest number of Division III teams in the Official Division III College Rankings will qualify their “next” highest ranked team, where “next” describes one more bid than the region has already been awarded up to that point. Each region may only receive one size-based bid. Size bids that are declined will be awarded to the next highest ranked Division III team within that region. If there are fewer than 4 regions with any qualifying teams in the Division III rankings, the remaining bids will be added to the strength bid process.
- Strength bids – Four strength bids will be awarded. Once the geographic bids and size bids have been awarded to teams in the appropriate regions, the highest ranked Division III qualifying team in the rankings that has not yet been awarded a bid will receive the next bid to Division III Nationals. Bids will continue to be awarded in this manner, regardless of region, until all bids have been awarded.
College Division III Coordinator – The UPA will create this new volunteer position with the following general responsibilities: follow Division III teams’ progress throughout the regular season and College Series; oversee Division IIII rankings, qualification, and bid process for Division III Nationals; attend Division III Nationals and serve as the UPA’s Competition Director for that event.
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What does this mean for you?Teams - Event Schedule - Your regular season schedule is up to you. You can play a lot of official games, just a few, or none at all. If your team is interested in competing against other college-eligible teams for a place in the official UPA rankings and a chance to help your section and region earn bids to the next stage of the Series, then your options for January-March are:
- Try to attend UPA-sanctioned events. UPA-sanctioned events are listed on the UPA event calendar (http://www.upa.org/tournaments). Contact tournament organizers about their bid process.
- Encourage events you regularly attend or would like to attend to apply for UPA sanctioning,
- Get your team to host a new event, apply for sanctioning, and invite whoever you want to attend. Applying for sanctioning is easy and essentially free. UPA staff and information on the UPA website (http://www.upa.org/outreach/sanctioning/index.shtml) will help guide you through the sanctioning process and can also provide assistance with the basics of event planning
- Rosters and Eligibility - If you are attending UPA-sanctioned events, you will be required to register your team and all participating players for the event through the UPA online rostering system. This means that players will need to submit waivers, have a UPA account and ID number, and join the UPA as full members or pay one-time event fees (available for pre-Series events). Team organizers will be responsible for making sure all participating players have followed these steps and are listed on the teams’ roster for these events. Team rosters for the event will be shared with the other participating teams in order to encourage accuracy.
It is very important, for your team and other teams you play, that you only participate with players who you know will be eligible for the UPA College Series. This means you may have to do some earlier checking with players who want to join your team for events and think about when you do your recruiting, make cuts, etc. Remember, players must not only be verified as academically eligible through the registrar-certification process, but they must meet all of the UPA College Eligibility Rules (http://www.upa.org/college/elg_rules.shtml), including those related to previous participation in UPA (or other national governing body)-sanctioned events. The best way to do this is to go ahead and follow the Series registration process as early as you can in the regular season. Information about this process will be available on the UPA website (http://www.upa.org/college) before the start of the regular season.
Once your roster has been submitted and players have been verified by the UPA, you can feel confident that your regular season results will count, provided players’ eligibility status does not change. The UPA will do re-verification checks with school registrars in order to confirm that the status of players on rosters that were submitted early does not change prior to or during the College Series. - Series Registration - You can register your team for the Series at any point from January 1 through the March 26 Team Registration Deadline (5PM Mountain), provided your school registrar is able to check the academic status of your players against the UPA College Eligibility Rules. Rostering/Series Registration instructions will be available on the UPA website (http://www.upa.org/college) before the start of the regular season.
It will be important to include any player who participated with your team at any UPA-sanctioned regular season event on your Series roster, so that their eligibility can be verified and your team’s results included in the official rankings.
You will be able to add players to your roster for the College Series after the Team Registration Deadline, up through the Friday one week before your sectional tournament. However, regular season roster-eligibility cross-checks will take place immediately following the Team Registration Deadline, so only players submitted for your roster before then will be used to validate regular season rosters and results. - B/C/D teams - There is no restriction on the number of teams from a single school that can compete in the regular season or in the College Series. Players may even be switched between rosters during the regular season, provided all of the players who participate at regular season events are included on a registrar-certified roster from that school for the Series. Otherwise, results from any event where an unverified player participates will be excluded from the rankings.
Split squads (X/Y teams) are discouraged. However, if they do compete in UPA sanctioned regular season events, the results of all of these games will be included in the official results of the “parent” team, with any games between the two discounted. - Division III teams - There is no difference in the regular season for DIII teams, although there will be a subset of the rankings algorithm dedicated to listing the DIII team standings which will remain open until after the results from Sectionals have been posted. The Final Standings at that point will be used to determine bid allocation to Division III Nationals. As soon as all the sectional tournaments have been completed, the qualifying DIII teams will be contacted, and declined bids will be passed down the line as outlined in the series guidelines until the field for the event is set.
Event OrganizersDo you host or want to host a college-specific event, an event with a college division, or even an event that has college teams regularly attend? With the new structure outlined above, teams are going to be looking for UPA-sanctioned events in which to participate. To be part of the process, here are some general steps to take:
- Apply to have your event sanctioned by the UPA. Applying for sanctioning is easy and essentially free. UPA staff and information on the UPA website (http://www.upa.org/outreach/sanctioning/index.shtml) will help guide you through the sanctioning process and can also provide assistance with the basics of event planning.
- UPA-sanctioned events will be listed on the UPA event calendar (http://www.upa.org/tournaments), where college teams will be looking to see which events are going to be part of the 2010 college regular season. Be sure to schedule your event between Jan. 1 and Mar. 28, 2010.
- Run your bid process and your event however you want, provided it meets the minimum requirements of the sanctioning program, including:
- basic tournament amenitities
- standard UPA event registration requirements (rostering/membership/waivers)
- online rostering for college teams
- online score reporting for intercollegiate games
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Ongoing TasksA few tasks still remain to be completed before the 2010 college season can take place. Among others, the following unresolved issues have been identified and will be addressed and communicated via the series guidelines prior to the start of the regular season:
- Sectionals->Regionals benchmark - After further research and review, the minimum game requirement for use in the Sectional to Regional strength bid allocation process will be determined for each division.
- Ranking algorithm - A team of experts is being assembled to work on the details of the algorithm, which is integral to this structure. The existing UPA College Rankings and RRI will be used as starting points for this work.
- Division III:
- Coordinator - A job description and application process will be posted soon for prospective candidates.
- Event site - Bid outline with event requirements will be posted soon for potential event hosts.
- Team identification/application process - A process whereby Division III teams will be officially determined for the season will be outlined.
- Qualification process/timing details - Timing and process for awarding bids to DIII Nationals, relative to ongoing College Series, will be determined.
- Other issues will be addressed in the College Series Guidelines, which will be announced prior to the 2010 season.
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