The upper midwest should be the focus this weekend, with Top 15 teams squaring off in both Wisconsin and Minnesota. But neither game is necessarily going to wrap up the WIAC and MIAC races. No. 5 St. John’s takes its 6-0 mark to No. 13 Concordia-Moorhead, where both teams could use a little practice hanging onto the ball. St. John’s has turned the ball over 20 times in six games, while Concordia-Moorhead fumbled it 10 times last week alone, losing eight of them. They’re also the top two scoring defenses in the league, allowing 10.8 and 14.0 points per game.

In Wisconsin, No. 10 UW-La Crosse hosts No. 7 UW-Whitewater. This is a rare game for the WIAC in Week 7, two teams that have combined for one loss, and are unbeaten against Division III teams.

Those games are obvious big games, as is the other Top 25 matchup, with No. 22 Carthage at No. 16 North Central. Here’s some others:

Friday Night Audios: Of course, even though we always call this Looking ahead to Saturday, we can’t ignore Friday’s games this time around. Ferrum (6-0) puts its unbeaten record on the line against Methodist (4-1) tonight at Franklin County HS, a home game for Ferrum. And Johns Hopkins (5-0, 2-0 Centennial) hosts Gettysburg (2-3, 1-0) tonight as well. Both games are scheduled to be broadcast online, check our Scoreboard page for links.

Can’t look ahead: No. 3 Hardin-Simmons hosts No. 11 Mary Hardin-Baylor a week from Saturday, but can’t be caught napping on East Texas Baptist this week. Similarly for Ohio Northern against Otterbein in advance of next week’s game at Mount Union.

Playing favorites: Bowdoin is a surprising 3-0 and now hosts Hamilton, a game it would be expected to win even in a normal season. How will the Polar Bears handle success?

This never happens: Kenyon hosts Allegheny this week, and the Lords are actually ahead in the NCAC standings at 2-0 to the Gators 1-1.

Explain this one: When cardiac kids Albright and Delaware Valley play each other, how will it end? Will it end? If it’s boring, does the loser have to go with Susquehanna to the Liberty League? (And yes, this is apparently more than just Post Patterns rumor.)

Didn’t you used to be good? Springfield travels to Plymouth State. These teams have combined for three wins this season, one against first-year program Becker. When this year’s seniors were beign recruited, Plymouth State was in the process of going 7-3. Springfield averaged almost nine wins over the past three seasons.

Words are yummy: Back in our preseason Kickoff special, I predicted that Southern Oregon would be the team that loses to Linfield by the fewest number of points. Hey Raiders, gotta keep it under 15 points. Best of luck with that. Weren’t you supposed to be better than 0-5? Yikes.

But regardless of what happens tonight (I’m heading to Johns Hopkins), my day has already been made. Picked up the local paper and saw D3football.com cited on the front page of the sports section in a story on Frostburg State defensive lineman Kevin Culbert. Of course, it was the Oct. 4 edition, but that’s what was sitting in the lobby of my daughter’s school.