Playoff roster won’t change

Because of concerns regarding the increasing cost of travel, the NCAA Division III championships committee pushed back a recommendation to increase the playoff roster size from 52 to 56 players.

“The rationale for adding another baseball player to the roster, and four more players to the football roster, is valid,” Redlands athletic director Jeff Martinez, the chairman of the committee, said in a story in the NCAA News. “The games have changed — in baseball, the need is relief pitching; and football is a vertical game with more receivers, more personnel packages.

“But, you have to weigh, is it more important to put more people on every sideline, or to be able to afford an additional charter flight or two when air-travel conditions make doing so unavoidable? We cannot control the air situation, and we have every indication that it’s going to get more challenging before it gets less challenging.”

It will have to wait until the next budget cycle, in 2010-11.

Football West of the Rockies

Seems like we have a new generation of West Coast fans who don’t understand the geography of Division III. I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails like this in the past 48 hours.

seems like your “Top 25” seems to be “East” and midwest heavy. Their is
football west of the Rockies!

Indeed, there is.

There are nine Division III football teams in California.
There are three Division III football teams in Oregon.
There are three Division III football teams in Washington.

That’s it: 15 out of 239, 6.2%. Add in Colorado College if you like to get to 16.

I’d note that 8% of our Top 25 teams are West of the Rockies.

For a more visual representation of Division III football, see below. You’ll have to zoom out to see the entire country, as our space here is limited.


View Larger Map

ATN Podcast: Who’s looking good?

There are plenty of teams we can point to in the early going this season who are playing poorly. Three of them got upset on Saturday. So while we talk about what happened in the West Region this weekend, there are also some teams who are looking good, even better than expected, through this past week’s games.

Keith McMillan and Pat Coleman take a look at those storylines and more in this week’s Around the Nation podcast.

Click the play button below to listen. The player requires Flash.