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ATN Podcast 329: A new conference, state of NIL in D3, and a crazy idea for the ASC

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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 10 conference, anyone?), just wait until you hear what’s next. Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas discuss what options are left for the ASC, or instead, when the conference might lose its automatic bid, assuming the four remaining football programs can remain together.

While we wait for the ASC to lose an automatic bid, we have a new conference starting this fall with the Landmark Conference. When D3football.com broke the news of this, back in February 2022, it was understood that the Landmark would have a football bid right away, and we talk with Susquehanna coach Tom Perkovich about the new conference, and having been on the wrong side of the at-large bubble a couple of seasons ago. Now that Perkovich has some control over his team’s schedule, he has some great matchups lined up and he talks about why he scheduled the teams he has.

Plus, we are joined by Karl Barkley, who runs @D3Direct, which you can find on most social media platforms. His goal is to shed light on the D-III recruiting process for incoming student-athletes, but also to talk about what D-III student-athletes can do with their Name, Image and Likeness rights. Nobody is signing deals for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but with a little hustle, D-III guys are finding ways to benefit from this NCAA legislation. He has examples and suggestions.

And we’re joined by Riley Zayas of True to the Cru. We talk about some of the great non-conference games that Texas schools are taking part in this season. Plus, Greg talks about where the Landmark Conference might land in his Division III football conference rankings, plus more.

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

Full episode:

D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast [ 59:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Links mentioned in this podcast:

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 Steve Frommell, d3photography.com, d3photography.com file, Trinity (Texas) athletics

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ATN Podcast 328: Three teams with reason to look ahead

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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 make one of our offseason podcasts.

So this month we welcome Jace Rindahl of UW-Whitewater, the new 36-year-old head coach who was playing linebacker for the Warhawks so recently that he was the 2008 D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year. The Warhawks men’s basketball team made a surprising run to the D-III Final Four. We also welcome John Carroll coach Jeff Behrman. (Mount Union’s men’s basketball team made it to the Final Four, but coach Geoff Dartt again declined an interview request, so we’ll represent the OAC with its next-best men’s basketball team.) And Paul Crowley of Christopher Newport joins us as well after the CNU men won the D-III national title and the CNU women won their national semifinal and will play for the national title on Saturday, April 1.

Rindahl has spent 16 of the past 18 years in the Whitewater football program, and he comes into his first year as head coach with a schedule that is just simply loaded, starting with John Carroll. He talks with us about what kind of head coach he’ll be, how the program feels after their surprising first-round playoff loss to Aurora, and how they intend to handle each new opponent in that gauntlet. Behrman is a John Carroll grad just returning to the institution after a quarter-century, and he talks about what the university has to sell to recruits, how much he’ll change the scheme, whether he’ll be able to bring some stability to a program that is on its third head coach in three seasons, and how much Mount Union footage he has watched so far. And Crowley talks about the great gameday atmosphere at his institution, some of last year’s early growing pains in his first year as a head coach and what kind of kids he is looking to recruit to get his program back in the conference title conversation.

Plus, Pat and Greg talk about the fact that D-III seems to keep losing programs and what that means for the SCIAC (divisions?) and the SAA (expansion?). Pat puts Greg on the spot and gets a conference ranking for the SCAC, whenever it is able to get all of its programs on the field.

For the record, from the remaining Final Four teams: Swarthmore hasn’t had a football program or coach since 2000, Rhode Island College and Transylvania do not sponsor football and Smith College does not enroll men.

Also of note: There is a bonus podcast for our Patreon subscribers with more content from each of these coaches at patreon.com/d3sports.

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

Full episode:

D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast [ 1:16:22 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Links mentioned in this podcast:

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 Doug Sasse, d3photography.com; Vance Solseth, Christopher Newport athletics; Ben Peskar, John Carroll athletics

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ATN Podcast 327: How do we fix the playoffs?

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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 expand the playoffs beyond 32 teams, into a sixth week? Where does this week come from? Or is the answer to raise the bar, so that a conference needs seven or eight teams to get a football automatic bid instead of the current ludicrous six?

We surveyed Division III football head coaches for their opinions. And we convened a roundtable of Division III experts to talk through the issues and tell us what needs to be done next. That’s why this edition of the podcast is a little longer — here’s who we hear from:

  • Michelle Morgan, athletic director, John Carroll, former co-chair of the Division III Management Council
  • Brad Bankston, commissioner, Old Dominion Athletic Conference, and former chair of the Division III Championships Committee as well as the Division III Football Championships Committee
  • Jim Catanzaro, head football coach, Lake Forest, and former chair of the Division III Football Championships Committee
  • Jerheme Urban, head football coach, Trinity (Texas)
  • Sherm Wood, head football coach, Salisbury

Plus, Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas give you their assessment, Greg puts Pat on the spot, and we attempt to answer the question of where does the American Southwest Conference go to find more football teams?

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

Full episode:

D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast [ 1:27:13 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Links mentioned in this podcast:

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 Dan Hunter, Steve Frommell, Caleb Williams, d3photography.com