ATN Podcast 395: In the Captains’ seat

Posted on November 10, 2025 by Pat Coleman

The Captains of Christopher Newport are back in the playoffs for the second time in three years and for the 12th time in their relatively short history. And they got there by knocking the Sea Gulls of Salisbury off their perch on Saturday night, in a pretty epic battle under the lights.

In one week, Eastern went from the driver’s seat in the Middle Atlantic Conference to booking a ticket to the big dance for the first time — and this is a program that three years ago, had never even been on this metaphorical bus. We bring Eastern coach Billy Crocker for another round on the Fast Five machine, after he last joined us for Podcast 333.

And who knows what seat at the table Hudson Fulcher-Melendy will be relegated to this Thanksgiving when the family gathers for the feast. Hudson is the Amherst kicker, who was 4-for-4 on field goals in Amherst’s 14-13 win, and whose sisters Dylan and Madison played women’s volleyball and soccer, respectively, for Williams, and whose mom, Lisa Melendy, has been athletic director at Williams for the past 15 years!

More coverage and interviews from Amherst-Williams on our YouTube channel

Honestly, if someone is telling you F&M and Coe have no chance to make this field if they lose … they may be working with faulty assumptions. To do that accurately, you have to project the results of all of the remaining Week 11 games, and projecting the team with the higher NPI as the winner across a hundred games is going to get you some data that doesn’t line up. F&M and Coe absolutely have a chance, and in Analytics 301, Logan Hansen will tell you who else has a chance with two losses.

Plus we hand out game balls, bring you through the crazy stats of the week, highlight the key goings-on in Region 1 through Region 6, get you games to look forward to next week. And we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photos by Kris DuFour, Amherst athletics; Hanover athletics; Photo for Christopher Newport athletics by Sydney Smith

ATN Podcast 394: All the Falcons, and Knights, and Panthers

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Pat Coleman

Two top 10 teams square off, and one team does something it hasn’t done in a quarter century. Yep, that’s a big deal. Heck, UW-River Falls hadn’t beaten UW-Whitewater that handily since the 1980s. We have talked about Kaleb Blaha fairly often on this podcast in the last few years, and that’s because he’s darn good, and was a big-game player on Saturday.

More postgame interviews from UWRF’s win vs. UWW (YouTube)

Three of the 27 automatic bids to the playoffs have already been handed out, and we give our assessment of how Wartburg, Concordia Wisconsin and Hanover will likely fare, what type of seeding they might end up with, and the like. Plus there are several head-to-head games for conference automatic bids this weekend, and we’ll talk through those as well.

Of course, you’ll never guess whether home teams or road teams won the big games in the WIAC. OK, maybe you’ll guess.

Plus, one time drove perfectly all day in Division III, and another drove perfectly long, more than 12 minutes?! Patrick and Greg hand out game balls. We take four mailbag questions, and make good use of Logan Hansen’s D-III NPI Simulator in the process. Who should you root for or against if you need an at-large bid? There are answers out there for you.

Logan Hansen talks about which teams still have a chance of getting an at-large bid and at least one of them may surprise you! We go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

Apple Podcasts: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast
iHeart Radio: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast
Spotify: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photos by Wade Gardner, d3photography.com; Hanover athletics; Photo for Concordia (Wis.) athletics by Katelyn Cardinale

ATN Podcast 393: A chat with the chair, 2025 style

Posted on October 29, 2025 by Pat Coleman

We have just three weeks left in the regular season, with Selection Sunday and the bracket announcement coming on Nov. 16. With the NCAA Division III football national committee no longer responsible for selecting teams to play in the playoffs, what does the committee chair do?

It’s a little more than just handing the trophy off to the team that wins the Stagg Bowl, like John Snell is doing in this photo, but sure, it’s a little less than it used to be. Instead, the role is different, and includes more about bracketing, more about game management, more about how to enhance the entire playoff experience than the general fan ever probably knew.

John Snell, the associate athletic directory at Baldwin Wallace University and the chair of the Division III football committee, sits down with us to answer our questions. Some of these questions are:

Will there be more replay review in this year’s playoffs?
How high in the NPI does a team have to be to avoid playing in the first round? (Just being in the top 24 doesn’t guarantee it.)
Will the committee shuffle the seeds to make sure that Mount Union and North Central are on opposite sides of the bracket?
Are we getting the right teams in the field under the NPI system?
Since Baldwin Wallace might make the playoffs, does the chair have to recuse himself from conference calls?
Why are we still bothering with regional rankings?
Is the committee doing any mock bracketing to prepare for Selection Sunday?

All of these are asked! Many of them are answered, plus you get the reaction from Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas. Find out more by listening to the podcast.

Mentioned in the show: Christopher Newport’s fraught relationship with the NCAA’s mileage calculator

We also take your mailbag questions — yes, including the one involving alien space laser beams from Mars — and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.