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

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.

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.

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. You can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/?feed=podcast

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

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ATN Podcast 378: The Texas two-swap

After keeping fans waiting for more than a year, the American Southwest Conference finally had something to say about its membership situation, and it did so with a bang, swiping two teams from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference to shore up its membership and bring it back to six for the fall of 2026.

Who does that affect? It affects the SCAC folks, who were on the way to getting an automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs, and we’ll hear more about the reaction of the conference when we sit down with conference commissioner Dwayne Hanberry on this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast.

Plus …

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

Plus, the two schools that are going back to the ASC are doing so, apparently $4 million richer apiece. But for Schreiner, this represents a big leap up in competition for a program which hasn’t even played a game yet! Schreiner isn’t set to play a varsity game until 2026, but the Mountaineers’ timeline just got altered a bit. We talk with Schreiner’s head coach — Keith Allen, the second coach in this young program’s history — about how that changes things for him, one month into his tenure.

And more change in Division III this upcoming season includes, of course, the fact that there won’t be nearly as many fifth-year players. That’s the case all over now that the extra year of eligibility because of the COVID pandemic has largely worked its way through the system. At Coe, they’ll feel the loss of two seniors classes at once, and coach Tyler Staker tells us how they’ll adjust and what’s expected of the student-athletes who need to step up in 2025.

A lot of news happened in the past month aside from the ASC/SCAC as well, and we’ll talk through it all, including the upcoming NESCAC presidents’ meeting, the new Cortland coach, our soon-to-become Division III schools in Azusa Pacific and St. Francis (Pa.), and which one of those said it will dominate Division III. Plus, with two brand-new football programs coming online in the Conference of New England in the fall, where would the CONE likely rank? Stat of the Week in March? Conference rankings in March? Patrick and Greg cover it all in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

The D3football.com podcast is a podcast that is weekly during the season and monthly in the offseason, by Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas. The podcast was started in 2007. 

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

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. You can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/?feed=podcast

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

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
McMurry, Schreiner athletics photos

 

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ATN Podcast 369: Easing into the playoffs

This slimmed-down version of the first round actually worked out pretty well. Five of the eight games went down to the final couple of minutes, and the three blowouts were against the No. 38, No. 39 and No. 40 seeds in the tournament. So now that that’s out of the way, we can move on to the Round of 32. But first, we’ll recap those eight games, you’ll hear from some of the key playmakers on Saturday, including both winners of our game balls, just like it should be.

Is John Carroll upset at having to play Mount Union? Not that we can tell. Is Mary Hardin-Baylor upset about playing Hardin-Simmons? Not exactly — UMHB is just happy to be playing a D-III team, as Cru coach Larry Harmon said after the game.

How did the ESPN+ experiment work out after one game? Should there be more bowl games? We’ll tackle those questions and get an insider’s advice on how to punch up your broadcasts. And we’ll talk about who this Round of 40 really benefited.

Plus, we chat with John Carroll coach Jeff Behrman for Fast Five (Nifty Nine), about the injury to quarterback Nick Semptimphelter and his quick recovery, Behrman’s approach to practice, his quarterback and top receiver’s quick rapport, and facing Mount Union again

The D3football.com podcast is a weekly in-season podcast by Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas, which was started in 2007. New episodes are published weekly during the season.

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

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. You can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/?feed=podcast

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

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
John Carroll athletics photo by Doug Beigie