Tuesday, November 19, 2013
by Cody Bush, PFL Media Relations

ST. LOUIS – The Pioneer Football League has determined Butler University has won the league’s final ranking tiebreaker and will receive the league’s automatic qualifying bid in the upcoming NCAA Division I Football Championship, the league office announced Tuesday.

“First I want to congratulate both Butler and Marist on their championships,” said PFL commissioner Patty Viverito. “It speaks to the high quality of play in the league this season that we had to use all of our tiebreakers to determine our automatic qualifier. We look forward to Butler carrying the PFL flag into the Division I Football Championship for the first appearance by a league member.”

Butler finished the 2013 PFL campaign tied with Marist College for the league’s championship with 7-1 PFL records. The league proceeded through its tiebreaker formula with the tie unbroken until the final rankings tiebreaker, which required use of each of the seven rankings/ratings used in the College Sporting News’ Gridiron Power Index as well as the NCAA’s Simple Rating System (SRS), if released publicly prior to selection weekend.

Butler finished ahead of Marist in five of the seven rating systems and therefore the SRS, which was not publicly available at the time of this release, is not a determining factor. 

The complete 24-team field for the 2013 Division I Football Championship will be announced at 11:30 a.m. EST, Sunday on ESPNU.

- PFL –

Statement in response to questions about the recent revision in the PFL tiebreaker policy:

“Ideally a tie among two worthy teams would be broken by on-field results, either head-to-head competition or, in a next best scenario, differing results against common opponents.  In the case of the tie between Butler and Marist, this was not possible.  The league instead needed to rely on one or more rating systems or a coin flip.  Debate of the options resulted in the PFL athletics directors voting unanimously to use a combination of eight published rating systems collectively rather than any single rating system, including the NCAA SRS which was unavailable for scrutiny during the season and will not be shared publicly until after the championship bracket is released on Sunday, Nov. 24.”