HLS Sim Madness: Selection Sunday

As we mentioned the other day, we here at HLS are looking to try to do what we can to fill the void arising from the cancellations of both March Madness and spring football. It’s time for us to reveal the field of 68 virtual teams that will battle it out for pretend gridiron glory.

Before we do that, let’s make sure to explain the (limited) logic used to fill the bracket.

Seeding

Those that have read and followed us for years, know that we are very much into the #sportsmath. So why not put it to the ultimate (virtual) test?

I took the final SP+ rankings from 2019 to provide a ranking of all FBS teams. If you have any issues with how said rankings were performed, send all complaints to Bill Connelly. He loves them.

As you go down that list, you will see some teams below .500 ranked within the top 64. With that in mind, I pulled all those teams out of automatic qualifying and put them in the First Four. That left two First Four slots open, and those were given to the only two conference runner-ups, Hawaii and Central Michigan, that weren’t in the top-64.

Is this completely fair? Probably not. Does it limit the work I had to do to produce this silliness? Absolutely.

Bracket

The picture of the full bracket is below and you can use this link for the Google Sheet it will live in, which is also embedded below.

I toyed with the idea of a true bracket competition, but the ability to do that properly is a bit of a pain. Feel free to print and fill them out for bragging rights. We will have a form of a pick ’em competition that will also incorporate Twitch. Full details will be released on Monday.

Schedule

I highly advise following the official HLS Twitter for up-to-date scheduling info. Keep in mind, I have to manually start and set up all these games on my XBox and we have a ton to go through. I still have work and kids to attend to, so while I will try to keep things moving, please be patient if they don’t!

That being said, here’s the tentative schedule, created to help replicate the work distractions the lack of March Madness has deprived you of.

First Four

Tuesday, March 24 – First kickoff @ 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT

Starts with 16-seed play-in, ends with 12-seed play-in.

Round of 64

Wednesday, March 25 – Rose Bowl Division, first kick @ 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT

Thursday, March 26 – Orange Bowl Division, first kick @ 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT

Friday, March 27 – Cotton Bowl Division, first kick @ 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT

Saturday, March 28 – Fiesta Bowl Division, first kick @ 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT

Round of 32

Monday, March 30 – Rose & Orange Bowl Divisions, first kick @ 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT

Tuesday, March 31 – Cotton & Fiesta Bowl Divisions, first kick @ 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT

Sweet Sixteen

Wednesday, April 1 – Rose & Orange Bowl Divisions, first kick @ 4pm CDT / 5pm EDT

Thursday, April 2 – Cotton & Fiesta Bowl Divisions, first kick @ 4pm CDT / 5pm EDT

Elite Eight

Friday, April 3 – First kick @ 4pm CDT / 5pm EDT

Final Four

Saturday, April 4 – First kick @ 9pm CDT / 10pm EDT

Championship

Sunday, April 5 – Kickoff @ 9pm CDT / 10pm EDT

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Ryan Ritter

Editor-in-Chief
Texan by birth, Irish by choice.

First-generation Domer and a former student manager, HLS podcast host, HLS Sim creator, Extra Life streamer, and technical problem haver. You can find more non-Notre Dame related writing on his Patreon.