Monthly Archives: June 2026

post

ATN Podcast 410: Polar Bears in Ireland, new coach in DC, preseason thoughts

Posted on by

We’re just 72 days away from the start of the Division III football season, and in that time, there’s a bunch of work to get done, including getting ready for the D3football.com preseason Top 25. We’re hungry for football to get started! And we’re getting you there with a couple of great conversations with coaches and Division III schools putting in that offseason work.

That includes at Ohio Northern, which was stung at the last second in the NPI calculation and just missed the NCAA playoffs. Then the Polar Bears were stung at the last second in their bowl game, as Wabash scored at the end of the game, plus connected on a two-point conversion to get the win.

That’s a lot of stinging, but the Polar Bears have worked away from that, including going as far as Ireland to find a summer opponent and get themselves ready for the 2026 Division III football season. ONU coach Andy Fries talks with us about that trip, the beautiful Cliffs of Moher which you see on the podcast thumbnail image, breaking in a new quarterback and so much more in our conversation in Podcast 410.

Patrick Coleman also dropped by his alma mater, Catholic U., to chat with the Cardinals’ new coach, Kory David. Of course, things look a little different around CUA these days, and the new coach is a longtime defensive coach who played and coached at Cortland, while also driving defenses at Hobart, Muhlenberg and Eastern. In addition to answering the long-debated question of Wawa vs. Sheetz, David also talks about his two young coordinators, who he hired away from Mike Sirianni at Washington & Jefferson, as well as recruiting the northeast corridor, bringing a startup mentality to a CUA program which was 3-7 last year, and much more.

Plus we answer mailbag questions about Rowan and Hardin-Simmons, and discuss the latest coaching change at Hilbert.

That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation podcast is a weekly conversation during the season, twice monthly in the offseason, about NCAA Division III football, and has been running since 2007.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. 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

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

Photos: Mike Atherton, d3photography.com; Ohio Northern Athletics; Rowan athletics; Patrick Coleman, D3sports.com

post

ATN Podcast 409: Big Red’s big run, new top River Hawk, JCU’s new QB

Posted on by

It’s been a big year for the Denison Big Red, and although that hasn’t completely trickled down to the Denison football team, we thought we’d check in with coach Jack Hatem. The North Coast Athletic Conference has definitely been in transition of late, with John Carroll joining the league in all sports, and WashU in football specifically, and Denison lost its rising junior quarterback, Tyler Green who elected to transfer.

More about that in a moment.

Hatem talks about how his team has to raise the level of its game to compete in a much stronger conference, what the quarterback situation will look like at Denison, what he’s learned from the national championship coaches at his school, why he stays in the game and why he loves recruiting when, in fact, he is pretty near retirement age. Plus, his taste in music.

There’s also been a bunch of change at Susquehanna, where new coach Chris Pincince is a Division III head football coach for the first time, and is coaching in D-III for the first time in nearly a quarter-century. It’s a good thing he and former coach Tom Perkovich are old friends, because Pincince talks about the hole they were left, with eight players having transferred out and so far, the transfer portal only having brought one person in. But a number of assistant coaches stayed to help the program have continuity, giving Pincince a leg up on the D-III learning curve, and Region 2 Defensive Player of the Year Galen Limantour is back as well, which is a huge boost for Susquehanna.

About Tyler Green — his transfer to John Carroll means Denison will still have to face him in conference the next two years, and JCU was in sore need of a quarterback for 2026. We’ll talk about that, plus answer your mailbag questions.

That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation podcast is a weekly conversation about NCAA Division III football, and has been running since 2007.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. 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

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

Photos: Denison athletics photos by Jace Delgado, Susquehanna athletics photo by Kim Howes