D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast

It’s not often the outcome of a single game can turn perceptions in Division III on their head, especially a game in September. But last Friday night, Endicott not only defeated No. 5 Hardin-Simmons, the Gulls defeated the Cowboys soundly. And Pat was there to witness, interview and report. Did Hardin-Simmons losing their starting quarterback and their All-Region linebacker make a difference...

This week didn’t feature five games between Top 25 teams, but as we’ve known for years in Division III football, that doesn’t make it any less thrilling. Out of 116 games, you’re going to see a little bit of everything, such as a game where three touchdowns were scored in the final 60 seconds. A walk-off field goal for a Top 25 upset. A 0-3 team ranked in the Top 25 (first...

It was a fun night for Trinity (Texas) fans in San Antonio, and the same for fans of Eastern on a rainy night in Philadelphia. Oberlin got a losing streak out of the way, King’s looks good at 2-0, Susquehanna got a win off of the Brockport bullpen, and UW-Whitewater followed a Week 1 statement with a Week 2 statement. Yes, Trinity got over the hump of beating Mary Hardin-Baylor for the first...

It really does seem as though the 2023 Division III football season is going to be just like the 2022 version. But with even more games between ranked teams, more nailbiting, more magic. Johnnie Magic up in Collegeville? Perhaps, if you’re a fan. If you’re Trinity (Texas) coach Jerheme Urban, you may come from a different mindset. He gives his perspective on the sequence events at the...

The 2023 Division III football season is upon us, kicking off on Thursday night, Aug. 31. Birmingham-Southern is one of those teams kicking off on Thursday, and the fact that B-SC is here at all is something to celebrate. The school nearly closed this past summer and still faces sever funding issues, but is here for another year, under new coach Anthony Colucci. He talks with us about taking over...

Teams are in training camps, and if you’re new to Division III football, or awaking from a long slumber, this is a good time to get caught up. Because if you’re coming to Division III for the first time, as a Division I FBS fan, just know that this is not the same. D-III is expert level, with 28 automatic bids (yes, now there are 28!) and just a handful of at-large bids to go around. M...

Nobody at the American Southwest Conference is talking on the record — heck, there basically is nobody at the American Southwest Conference since they showed their commissioner the door, and two more schools left their all-sports membership not all that long ago. This is desperate times calling for desperate measures for the ASC, and if you thought our last idea was a crazy one (Super Region...

The Division III basketball season is wrapping up and Pat Coleman is diving back into D3football and podcast production, but that doesn’t mean basketball is far from his mind. As it turns out, when you combine the two Division III basketball Final Fours, eight teams, across seven schools, only three of them sponsor football, and that’s exactly the right number of interviews it takes to...

We’ve been talking about it for a year now: This upcoming 2023 football season will have just four at-large bids. It’s getting harder and harder to make the NCAA Division III football playoffs as an at-large team, there’s no denying it. Before it gets even worse, this is the time that Division III administrators need to recognize the issues and act on them. Is the answer to expan...

And just like that, the 2022 season, arguably the greatest season in NCAA Division III football history, is in the books. But before the podcast goes into offseason mode and becomes a monthly show, we do what we always do at the end of the season — discuss, debate if necessary, and determine the D3football.com final awards: D3football.com Offensive Player of the Year, D3football.com Defensiv...

The Stagg Bowl comes around holiday time and really is the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the time when you can’t duck questions any longer, and we talk with both head coaches and offensive and defensive players on both teams in this Stagg Bowl preview podcast. On the air with us: Mount Union head coach Geoff Dartt, wide receiver Wayne Ruby and linebacker Mason McMillen; plus No...

It’s No. 1 vs. No. 2, just as everyone expected, as North Central and Mount Union advance to play in Stagg Bowl XLIX in Annapolis. While this is a rematch of teams that played in the second round in 2019, then in the semifinals the next season (2021), this particular rematch turns the tables. 2022 Division III football playoff bracket It’s unusual not just in that it’s the first...

No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 12 are the four teams left in contention for a trip to Annapolis, Maryland, for Stagg Bowl XLIX. Mary Hardin-Baylor took down Bethel with a fourth-quarter surge, while Mount Union eased past Delaware Valley, North Central trounced Ithaca and Wartburg did the same to Aurora. The key story at Wartburg? Just the mere fact that Nile McLaughlin was in the lineup at quarterba...

The entertainment in the 2022 Division III playoff bracket continued into the second round, and then reverberated throughout social media on Sunday afternoon and evening. That’s when the Division III football world came to realize that Delaware Valley was given the nod to host the playoff game against Mount Union, then came to us  for answers. And maybe didn’t understand the answers, o...

We asked out loud how the Division III football playoff bracket could possibly live up to the 11-week regular season. Are you not entertained? Sure, every first round has its share of blowouts, and this one had four shutouts. But it also had … dare we say, the biggest first-round upset since the Division III football playoffs expanded to five rounds? 2022 Division III football playoff bracke...

The 2022 Division III playoff bracket is out, and we ask our usual questions: What did the committee get right here? What did they get wrong? Who got the toughest road to the Stagg Bowl? What are the best first round games, and what are the interesting things in this bracket that people might have missed? 2022 Division III football playoff bracket But of course, we can’t have any of that con...

Sure, that might not be the sexiest title for a podcast episode, but it’s important. We got a good 45 minutes with the Division III football national committee chair, subjected him to our questions, and your questions. The ones submitted by readers are the ones in the graphic on this page, but we also asked what the point is of an alphabetical ranking, and does it seem right that 90.5% of th...

Another week of thrilling games leaves us able to practically smell the NCAA Division III football playoffs. But while nearly half of the 27 automatic bids to the 32-team playoff field have already been claimed, the at-large playoff picture seems clear as mud. Aside from UW-La Crosse, which should be as much of a shoo-in as there can be for an at-large bid if they win next week, it’s hard to...

This post was re-uploaded on Nov. 3 after a site crash. It was originally posted Oct. 31. Susquehanna stops the two-point conversion for the final time with 49 seconds remaining and the River Hawks defeat Johns Hopkins to really take control of the Centennial Conference standings for the first time. We talk about that game and coach Tom Perkovich stops by for a Fast Five minutes as we talk about t...

Some things we can’t seem to avoid talking about every week this season: The Cortaca Jug game in Yankee Stadium The University of Wisconsin-Platteville This week, Platteville made headlines again, and for the second week in a row, extremely positive headlines as the Pioneers shook up the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference with a 17-14 win against then-No. 3 UW-Whitewater. What in...

We talk about all six regions, multiple times, in each D3football.com Around the Nation podcast, For example, this week, who’s lookin’ alive in Region 5? Ripon is lookin’ quite alive as the Redhawks remain unbeaten here in what coach Ron Ernst has announced is his final season. The team is tied for first in the Midwest Conference after knocking off Lake Forest on Saturday, and Er...

Spoiled. We are just spoiled this season by the great games in Division III football. There’s not much more we can say. The span on Saturday afternoon in which all three games pictured here: Birmingham-Southern at Trinity (Texas), UW-Oshkosh at UW-River Falls and Wartburg at Central each came down to its finish is something that should be remembered long into the cold and chill of the offsea...

Well, folks, Keith McMillan has had enough, and after 30 or so podcasts on the sidelines, with Greg Thomas co-hosting, he’s back and ready to throw down. Ready to throw down about the Top 25 poll, that is. Keith couldn’t understand why anyone would be voting for Mount Union No. 1 considering all the high-quality opponents other teams have played in 2022. So, once we dispense with the b...

Unexpected realizations that if Bethel had had its No. 1 quarterback healthy and won in Week 2 at UW-Platteville, perhaps we’d be in a position where someone might have given Bethel … a No. 1 vote? Stranger things have happened. Or, well, things that are similarly strange have happened already. We had two big games to key on from Saturday, and one was a barnburner. The other … we...

In a week where some of us didn’t really expect any upsets, instead we got a couple of big ones, where Loras got two shots at a last-second field goal to beat Central, and Case throttled Washington & Jefferson’s offense. Plus, two of this week’s No. 1 votes went to unlikely places. Why did Hardin-Simmons get a No. 1 vote, and why does it not really actually matter? We talk wi...