We knew to expect a ton of snow for every game between Collegeville and Holland. We knew to expect Susquehanna would have more than a fighting chance at Christopher Newport. We knew to expect a likely rematch of former OAC rivals.

What we didn’t know to expect was five road teams winning in the round of 32! Last year, which was the first year the playoff bracket had 40 teams, there was just one road win in the second round. Normal seems to be somewhere in between the two, but way closer to one than five.

We should have known that Wheaton had a good chance at Wartburg. The Hansen Ratings even told us so before the game. But the win, nonetheless, was surprising, and we welcome Wheaton coach Jesse Scott to the podcast to talk about it. He discusses what quarterback Mark Forcucci looks like when he is at his best — helpful info for someone who has only seen him play North Central, a game in which he was battling to get back from injury. He talks about his coaching and leadership philosophy, and which philosophy prof at Wheaton should be credited, or perhaps not, with helping mold that.

Patrick and Greg also go through each of the first round games. There is postgame audio from around a dozen of the 16 advancing teams, and we are grateful to the schools who got these postgame news conferences online or were willing to share them with us so we could bring this audio to you.

We also hand out game balls, bring you through the stats of the week and we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Postgame news conferences:

• Trinity (Texas) postgame news conference
• Berry postgame news conference
• John Carroll postgame news conference
• North Central postgame news conference
• Johns Hopkins postgame news conference
• Susquehanna postgame news conference
• Bethel postgame news conference
• St. John’s postgame news conference
• UW-La Crosse postgame news conference

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Wheaton athletics photo by Micharl Hudson Photography