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ATN Podcast 385: Whatever you do, don’t overreact

Finally, games! A huge week of Division III football, with a couple of thrilling upsets, and more than 200 Division III teams taking the field, means there’s a lot to talk about.

So, we in the media were admonished not to overreact, huh? All we have to do is look at our social media feeds if we want to see overreactions run wild, but we’ll play Michael Wilbon’s game. We decided to take four big storylines from this week’s games and decide what the appropriate level of reaction is, and what might constitute an overreaction. So, we take on:

  • The starting debut of Mount Union quarterback Mikey Maloney
  • The plight of the freshman starting quarterback in general
  • The as-of-right-now still unresolved end of the Case-Rowan game
  • The WIAC getting off to a 7-0 start

Plus, we talk with Belhaven quarterback Brock Morris, who lost his dad over the offseason. His dad was also a college quarterback and … well, we’ll let Brock tell the rest in our Fast Five segment, a five-minute interview in our regular season podcasts because it’s hard to carve out more time than that. I mean, have you seen how long this episode is?

Patrick and Greg had content on-site from Belhaven-Millsaps, Catholic-McDaniel, Susquehanna-Union and Lake Forest-Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. They also hand out game balls, highlight the interesting stats from Week 1, and go around each region to spotlight even more games from Week 1 and start to look ahead to Week 2.

There’s this and more in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Mailbag topics include: Should North Central be on upset watch next week vs. UW-Oshkosh? Are we already regretting some of our answers to the 20 Questions that we posed just a week and a half ago? And what’s the best stadium food we’ve experienced?

And there was so much bonus content this week. Links below:

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 Utica athletics; Wade Gardner, d3photography.com; Franklin athletics photo by Ian Shaw

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ATN Podcast 384: Looking ahead

Games kick off two days from now, so there’s no time like the present for a Week 1 preview! Patrick and Greg take you through Division III football’s opening week, going region by region with a region Game of the Week and more games to watch in each region, Region 1 through Region 6.

Plus, we bring back J.P. Williams, the NCAA’s liaison for the Division III football championship, aka the person at the NCAA who runs point on the football season, playoffs, and the committee. This part of the conversation is about some more hot-button issues around the Division III football playoffs, such as, seriously, artificial noisemakers. That’s an issue being discussed. So is trying to stagger the start times of the quarterfinals so that they overlap a little less. Great, now how about the first three rounds? Anyone? And are wearables or radios in helmets coming to the Division III playoffs this season?

And listen, you might not be happy with the possibilities for the Stagg Bowl, the Division III football championship game. It’s hardly set in stone yet, but consider this your first warning that it might be … interesting. Listen for more.

Plus, the season is here, and if you’ve listened to our podcast over the past several years, you might remember that big occasions sometimes call for big productions. There is one of those in this podcast, as We’ve Got Our Eyes on 2025.

Patrick and Greg have this and more in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Mailbag topics include: Which games in Week 1 could most upset the apple cart and change expectations for the Division III football season? And, what three games this week need to have a rivalry trophy and a title? And check the bottom of the podcast page for the names of teams mentioned in the episode — it’s a big number!

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.
Photos by D3sports.com; Aurora athletics; Grove City athletics

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ATN Podcast 365: Hope is not lost

This past week, a number of teams had their shot. They had the opponent they wanted to play on the field in front of them. They generally even had that game at home, in front of their home fans.

But in Week 8 of the 2024 Division III football season, it didn’t really break as these teams hoped. Not for Ursinus, not for Coe, not for Case Western Reserve, not for Washington U. Not even for St. Olaf, if you want to dig down that far.

In the past, that would generally be it. A chance at reaching the Division III playoffs was going to be a stretch. But not anymore, not with 12 at-large teams, a 40-team bracket, and an NCAA Power Index rating system that just might save some of these teams.

Who has hope? Patrick and Greg break it down with analysis, rather than overreaction.

Marietta made the Top 25 this week for the first time in program history, and Pioneers coach Andy Waddle sits down with us for Fast Five. This is a program that has come a long way, but still has its two biggest games of the regular season yet to come, and both are on the road.

Plus, Patrick and Greg hand out game balls. Patrick pulls out a highlight clip from 21 years ago, and yes, a number of clips from this past weekend. Plus we go through more highlights from Region 1 through Region 6, we answer a couple of reader questions in the mailbag, and not only does Greg wax poetic in On the Spot, we Axe poetic as well. Plus, it’s our 365th podcast — we now have a podcast for every day of the year. So that’s a thing.

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.
Jason Kapusta, Westminster (Pa.) athletics; Wheaton athletics photo by Michael Hudson photography; Marietta athletics photo by Rebecca Wheeler Photography