Game Day: Showdown Saturday

Little Brass Bell
This year’s Little Brass Bell game has impact beyond Naperville and Wheaton, Ill.

Keith McMillan and Pat Coleman have had their eyes on this weekend for months. Here’s where a bunch of key games will be decided, so stick with us all day.

Pat Coleman is running the site from D3sports.com network central (now with hockey!) so expect frequent updates. Check out the blog and Twitter for all of the game day info. Use the #d3fb hashtag to post directly to the chat, or use the chat window as well if you don’t have Twitter.

First NCAA regional rankings

The first (and second-to-last) NCAA regional rankings have been released.

Remember that regional rankings primarily take regional games into account. Teams are listed with their regional record first, followed by their overall record. For more information about the playoff format and how participants are determined, check out our FAQ.

Teams which have clinched automatic bids are in bold.

EAST
1 Delaware Valley 7-0 8-0
2 Hobart 6-0 6-0
3 Salisbury 6-1 7-1
4 St. John Fisher 7-1 7-1
5 Montclair State 7-1 7-1
6 Kean 7-1 7-1
7 Widener 7-1 8-1
8 Lycoming 6-1 7-1
8 Western New England 8-1 8-1
10 SUNY-Maritime 7-0 7-1

NORTH
1 Mount Union 7-0 8-0
2 Franklin 6-0 7-1
2 Wabash 7-0 8-0
4 North Central (Ill.) 6-1 7-1
5 Case Western Reserve 7-0 7-1
6 Illinois Wesleyan 7-1 7-1
7 Wheaton (Ill.) 7-1 7-1
8 Baldwin-Wallace 7-1 7-1
9 Wittenberg 5-1 7-1
10 Albion 5-1 5-3

SOUTH
1 Mary Hardin-Baylor 7-0 8-0
2 Johns Hopkins 7-0 8-0
3 Wesley 4-1 7-1
4 Trinity (Texas) 8-0 8-0
5 McMurry 5-1 6-2
6 Centre 7-0 7-0
7 Louisiana College 6-1 7-1
8 Thomas More 8-0 8-0
9 Hampden-Sydney 7-1 7-1
10 Washington and Lee 8-1 8-1

WEST
1 UW-Whitewater 6-0 8-0
2 St. Thomas 9-0 9-0
3 Linfield 6-0 7-0
4 Cal Lutheran 6-1 6-1
5 St. Olaf 7-1 7-1
6 Dubuque 7-1 8-1
6 Monmouth (Ill.) 8-1 8-1
8 Redlands 6-1 6-1
9 St. Scholastica 8-0 8-0
10 Lewis and Clark 7-0 7-0

ATN Podcast: Snow, records, clinching

Alex Tanney
Alex Tanney is the third Tanney to play football at Monmouth, but will be known as the best in the family
Monmouth athletics photo

Records fell, as did snowflakes and the chances of anyone else winning any of eight conference titles. The Centennial, PAC, MIAA, MWC, MIAC, WIAC, UMAC and SCIAC each got the ultimate clarity on Saturday: automatic bids.

We talk about those, the records set by Mike Zweifel and Alex Tanney, the interesting things the purple powers did and really, much more. Check the list of tags at the bottom of this page to see who’s discussed.

[display_podcast]

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.