Monthly Archives: November 2006

Game day from Springfield, et al

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Partly cloudy, mid-to-high 40s here at Springfield, no wind as we are about 15 minutes away from kickoff between No. 2 seeded Springfield and No. 7 seeded Curry. I’ll be down on the field shooting for most of the game and won’t be checking in much but wanted to get the ball rolling for those of you at other games and those sitting at home.

Parking lot is packed with tailgaters — in fact, an hour before game time, there was nowhere to park. Excellent football weather, especially for mid-November in New England.

It’s the first meeting of these schools. Should be a quick game — you may have heard that Springfield runs the triple option, plus Curry runs for 227 yards a game so expect the clock to roll.

Looking ahead to Week 12

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This is it, this is where the playoffs happen.

Last year, on a drive up to Thiel for the Johns Hopkins/Thiel game, Keith McMillan and I wrote down predicted scores for each of the first-round games, compared them and posted them on the blog.

Well, actually, I wrote my scores down. When I was done, I asked Keith for his scores. He was driving, after all.

Long trip.

But anyway, it turned into something we carried through the rest of the playoffs. Interesting to see the varying takes on the game.

Here we are. I invited Keith to e-mail his before he looks at these. We made our picks as independently of each other as possible.

North
Pat: Mount Union 52, Hope 7; Wheaton 42, Mt. St. Joseph 6; North Central 24, Concordia (Wis.) 21, Capital 50, Wittenberg 14
Keith: Mount Union 49, Hope 7; Wheaton 34, Mt. St. Joseph 21; Concordia (Wis.) 24, North Central 21 (OT); Capital 55, Wittenberg 14
Toss-ups: North Central/Concordia (Wis.)

East
Pat: Wilkes 31, Washington & Lee 3; Rowan 34, Hobart 10; St. John Fisher 31, Union 20; Springfield 48, Curry 24
Keith: Wilkes 20, Washington & Lee 0; Rowan 17, Hobart 13; St. John Fisher 42, Union 38; Curry 31, Springfield 28 (OT)
Toss-ups: Curry/Springfield

South
Pat: Wesley 48, Dickinson 12; Millsaps 35, Carnegie Mellon 34; Christopher Newport 28, Washington and Jefferson 27; Mary Hardin-Baylor 31, Hardin-Simmons 28
Keith: Wesley 42, Dickinson 21; Millsaps 35, Carnegie Mellon 28; Christopher Newport 28, Washington and Jefferson 17; Mary Hardin-Baylor 27, Hardin-Simmons 21 (OT)
Toss-ups: None, other than the margin in Delaware.

West
Pat: UW-Whitewater 62, St. Norbert 3; UW-La Crosse 24, Bethel 21; Whitworth 21, Occidental 19; St. John’s 20, Central 19 (OT)
Keith: UW-Whitewater 52, St. Norbert 14; UW-LaCrosse 35, Bethel 28; Whitworth 23,
Occidental 17; Central 23, St. John’s 21
Toss-ups: Central/St. John’s

I’ll be at Springfield, the guy taking pictures in the D3football.com hat. Keith will be calling color on one of our D3football.com broadcasts for NCAASports.com at Carnegie Mellon.

Farewell, 2006 seniors

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Senior Day was held at many places around the country this past week, and more in previous weeks. The Class of 2006 (yes, we know, most will graduate in ’07, but this is their final football season) experienced a fun time to be in Division III football.

This class saw the playoff expansion from 28 to 32 teams, giving more than twice as many conference runners-up a chance to participate. This class never knew the days in which the NCAA selections came via fax or telephone; rather, they always were able to watch on ESPNews.

We offer up two different takes on Senior Day 2006, and leave this post open for comments congratulating your own favorite senior.

The first piece comes from a columnist for The Sun in Baltimore. His son is a senior on the Johns Hopkins football team. There are likely many stories like this across D-III, so this one is definitely worth a read.

At Christopher Newport, Senior Day was treated a little differently. It was cancelled. But you didn’t hear any complains from the senior class, according to a piece in the Newport News Daily Press.

Congrats to all the seniors who have played their last games, and those participating in the playoffs. Don’t go away after graduation — be a Division III football fan for life.