We’re in a pretty cool position here at D3football.com, with two people who have seen both UW-Whitewater and Wesley play in person this season. Keith McMillan has seen each once, I’ve seen Wesley once and UW-Whitewater twice. Keith gave you his thoughts in Around the Nation; here are mine.

Even without an equipment miscalculation such as at Brockport State, Wesley could still get blown out, even if they hang onto the football. Wesley is comparable on the defensive side of the ball, perhaps better than the Johnnies up front. Max Sakellaris and Brady Ramseier will have their hands full with Bryan Robinson and the rest of the Wolverines defensive line. They’ll need to keep them off of Justin Jacobs and Justin Beaver to give Derek Stanley time to get separation downfield.

Here are the keys, however: Jacobs will be, by far, the best quarterback Wesley has faced in the playoffs. You have to go back to Week 1 against DePauw’s Ross Wiethoff (Wesley won 31-26) to find one comparable. And this will also be Wesley’s first game in the postseason not played on turf.

On the other side, Wesley quarterback Chris Warrick has a great touch and his receivers will go up and catch anything they can get their hands on. Kevin Nelson, the 5-3 running back, could be successful getting lost behind the tackles. Warrick should fare better than St. John’s quarterback Alex Kofoed or UW-Eau Claire’s Jesse Krzyzanowski, the two quarterbacks I’ve seen play Whitewater this season. Whitewater’s defense gave up yards but not points against St. John’s and gave up both against Linfield. Marcus Lee will have a size advantage working against the Warhawk secondary but Larry Beavers will not.

Pat Cummings and Mark Roberts will be broadcasting this game for us, with pregame at 12:30 ET.

And the prediction: UW-Whitewater 41, Wesley 20.

Now, I have not seen either Mount Union or Rowan play this year (spent too much time flying to O’Hare and back, I guess). But I would find it hard to believe that Rowan can slow Mount Union down enough to win this game. I don’t know if the Purple Raider players will be motivated much by revenge for the last meeting, the 24-17 Rowan win on Dec. 11, 1999, that snapped Mount Union’s first long winning streak.

For highlights of that game, by the way, catch our pregame show, which starts at 11:35 a.m. ET. Gordon Mann and Doug Phillips are our broadcasters in Alliance.

A couple of teams have had success against Mount Union this year, and with differing styles, Ohio Northern by land and Capital by air. Running back Nadyr Albri ran for 149 yards in the snow at Union but just 49 yards on 17 carries at Delaware Valley. Mount Union doesn’t give up much on the ground. Lewis Howes had 245 yards receiving for Capital at Mount Union last week and Rowan will need similar performances from the taller guys, Sakeen Wright and Phil Silva, neither of whom are quite as tall as Howes.

Prediction: Mount Union 45, Rowan 18.

Enjoy the games, everyone.

Usually when we announce annual awards, there’s always a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth, some name-calling, griping, anger, you name it, about who didn’t make the team, or who was ranked ahead of whom, etc.

Because the All-Region team is a new process for us (the committee defected en masse from another All-Region sponsoring entity), this is something I’d like to address on a wider scale. Usually when we name 100 All-Americans, which we’ll do again this year on our Stagg Bowl pregame show, it’s a process of whittling down 250 or so nominees to the 100 honorees. This is a difficult process, to be sure, but there are often a handful of nominees which we can dismiss out of hand.

Not so with All-Region. We got 676 nominations all told for the 300 slots and let me tell you, voting for this award was not easy. I voted for all four regions and I don’t think there was a single region that took less than 90 minutes of poring over. So first of all, my hat’s off to the voters for making it happen.

Secondly, often times the student-athletes who readers and fans complain about simply were not nominated. Although we sent two e-mails out through the SID e-mail list (this is maintained by a Division III school and includes every Division III sports information director) and had a note on our front page for more than two weeks, not every school with worthy people nominated them. Also, we wrote very detailed directions that some schools did not follow. While we contacted as many as we could, in most cases we were left with completely blank nomination forms and no recourse.

Here’s the schools that nominated, and how many players they put forth. We didn’t put any restrictions on how many a school could put in.

Adrian 5; Albion 8; Albright 2; Allegheny 4; Alma 4; Amherst 6; Anderson 3; Augsburg 5; Augustana 6; Aurora 5; Averett 4; Baldwin-Wallace 4; Bates 2; Beloit 3; Bethany 2; Bethel 5; Bluffton 1; Bowdoin 4; Bridgewater (Va.) 6; Bridgewater State 13; Brockport State 5; Buena Vista 1; Buffalo State 2; Capital 7; Carnegie Mellon 2; Carroll 9; Carthage 3; Case Western Reserve 9; Catholic 2; Central 3; Centre 4; Chapman 2; Chicago 4; Christopher Newport 4; Coast Guard 3; Coe 7; Colby 5; Concordia (Wis.) 2; Concordia-Moorhead 5; Cornell 3; Cortland State 8; Curry 4; Defiance 5; Delaware Valley 15; Denison 4; DePauw 7; Dickinson 3; Dubuque 4; East Texas Baptist 2; Elmhurst 4; Endicott 2; FDU-Florham 2; Ferrum 5; Fitchburg State 3; Franklin 2; Frostburg State 1; Gettysburg 4; Greensboro 1; Greenville 4; Grinnell 1; Grove City 2; Guilford 5; Hamline 1; Hampden-Sydney 6; Hanover 2; Hardin-Simmons 8; Hartwick 3; Hobart 4; Hope 2; Howard Payne 3; Huntingdon 6; Husson 1; Illinois College 2; Illinois Wesleyan 4; Ithaca 5; John Carroll 2; Kalamazoo 3; Kean 3; Kenyon 3; King’s 2; Kings Point 4; Lake Forest 2; Lakeland 4; Lebanon Valley 2; Linfield 8; Loras 1; Louisiana College 2; Luther 3; Lycoming 2.

Macalester 1; MacMurray 3; Maine Maritime 2; Manchester 1; Marietta 4; Mary Hardin-Baylor 7; Maryville (Tenn.) 2; Mass-Dartmouth 5; McDaniel 2; McMurry 1; Menlo 1; Methodist 8; Millikin 4; Mississippi College 3; Monmouth 4; Montclair State 5; Moravian 5; Mount Ida 1; Mount Union 6; Mt. St. Joseph 8; Muhlenberg 2; Muskingum 2; North Central 10; Occidental 5; Ohio Northern 7; Ohio Wesleyan 3; Olivet 4; Otterbein 2; Pacific Lutheran 5; Plymouth State 3; Pomona-Pitzer 2; Randolph-Macon 3; Redlands 3; Rhodes 1; Rockford 4; Rose-Hulman 2; Rowan 7; RPI 12; Shenandoah 1; Simpson 4; Springfield 1; St. John Fisher 9; St. John’s 8; St. Norbert 1; St. Olaf 2; St. Thomas 2; Sul Ross State 2; Susquehanna 2; Texas Lutheran 6; Thiel 7; Thomas More 5; Trinity (Conn.) 6; Trinity (Texas) 4; Tufts 2; Union 8; Ursinus 2; Utica 1; UW-Eau Claire 5; UW-La Crosse 5; UW-Oshkosh 7; UW-River Falls 2; UW-Stevens Point 1; UW-Stout 4; UW-Whitewater 6; Wabash 4; Wartburg 2; Washington and Jefferson 6; Washington and Lee 5; Washington U. 3; Waynesburg 6; Wesley 3; Western Connecticut 5; Western New England 1; Westfield State 1; Westminster (Mo.) 2; Westminster (Pa.) 3; Wheaton 2; Whitworth 6; Widener 3; Wilkes 2; Willamette 6; William Paterson 3; Williams 2; Wittenberg 5; Wooster 2; Worcester State 1

I don’t think it would be fair to list the names of the nominees. But this should give you some idea. The 175 schools out of 225 or so eligible (full Division III member schools only) is a large number, far more than we ever got for the All-America team, for obvious reasons.

Thanks to those who nominated. Those nominees will be considered for All-American as well, and you can hear that announcement sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET a week from Saturday.