 LiDarral Bailey ran for 110 yards and threw for 123 for Mary Hardin-Baylor. UMHB athletics photo |
There were a bunch of teams with big wins, the ones we like to call signature wins. The ones that used to be talked about openly as being necessary for playoff consideration, back when we used to have 16-team brackets and not-so-strictly followed playoff criteria.
That’s not the case anymore, but those wins are still key in terms of national exposure, respect and rankings. Pat and Keith talk about some of the key wins this weekend in this week’s Around the Nation podcast.
Also, there are plenty of unbeaten teams remaining, including teams that aren’t ranked. Why aren’t they ranked? Keith and Pat run through the list, plus some of the other surprise teams. That and more in this week’s podcast. See the list of tags at the bottom of this post to see who else is discussed.
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
Plus, here’s the first look at this week’s D3reports, as well as Division III football highlight reels. These will also appear on the front page on Monday afternoon.
Also, this week’s photo galleries:
McMurry may be the 2nd best team in the ASC – the winner of Louisiana College and McMurry will return to Belton in the first round of the playoffs. I believe it will be the War Hawks from Abilene. They have the best defense, and a lot of offense. Would be nice if the ASC gets 2 teams in the play-offs, an not have to play in the first round. Bring the Trinity Tigers to Belton.
I don’t have much to add to the podcast except to say I was at most of the game between Bethel and St. Olaf (being one of the numerous alumni on campus for Homecoming) and was surprised at how “flat” the Bethel sideline seemed. The Oles were fired up but the home team was lethargic. It almost seemed as if there were no leaders on the team – whether a captain or not. The other thing that I took away from the game (as an armchair quarterback/sitting in the stands coach) was that all Bethel needed to do and couldn’t, was put together a long ground possession to keep the Ole offense off the field. It was pretty obvious that the Bethel DBs and corners were toast as a match-up with the St. Olaf receivers. Their best defense was their offense chewing up the clock. Easy to see – harder to execute.
Art — doesn’t bode well for Bethel against St. Thomas. I recall in last year’s playoff meeting UST wideout Fritz Waldvogel went out early.
Podcast was great and really defined each team/conference as they were prior to winning or losing. Keep up the great work Keith and Pat.