Retired Pacific Lutheran coach Frosty Westering, who led the Lutes to the 1999 Division III national championship, is one of two former Division III coaches being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame this weekend. And he’s still having a profound impact on those who are getting to know of him for the first time. Witness this piece on Westering from the South Bend Tribune.

It reminds us that we had first impressions as well, or at least second impressions in Mark Simon’s post-Stagg Bowl feature from six years ago.

Longtime UW-La Crosse coach Roger Harring, who led the Eagles to the 1992 and 1995 Division III national titles, is in this year’s induction class as well.

As you might have observed, over the past year D3football.com (and to a lesser extent, D3hoops.com) has suffered occasional slowdowns, times at which one site or the other would move at a crawl because of high traffic.

We attempted to alleviate that in February by moving D3hoops.com’s message board, Posting Up, onto a separate server within the same host. While that worked, it was only a temporary measure — we have more planned.

Unfortunately, our message board software itself, which we have been using since Posting Up opened in November 1998, is part of the problem. Although we love Discus because it was written by programmers associated with Hope College, we have outgrown it and it can not support a site of our size.

To this end, we’re changing message board software. We’re also combining Post Patterns with Posting Up and we’re putting the combined message board on a separate server. We believe this will make both D3hoops.com and D3football.com run more smoothly all year.

The new board will also have more modern features, the types of things you’re used to if you use forums on other sites. Your username and password will carry over to the new site and we’ll transfer the posts. To this end, we will temporarily shut down new user registration later in the week, and will shut down the entire board sometime on Saturday evening before the transfer. When all is complete we’ll put up the new link.

If you are registered for both Posting Up and Post Patterns, we are attempting to determine that now so we can combine them into one account, with one post total. We’ll attempt to use your password from Post Patterns, since this sport is more active at the moment.

Conference coaches’ polls almost always throw out at least a few puzzlers a year, usually at the bottom of the standings. For the most part, top picks are defensible, and certainly the coaches have a good idea of what to expect from teams in their conference. But sometimes things don’t add up.

Take the last-place pick in the USA South. I would be very surprised if USAC newcomer Maryville follows up on the near-unanimous eighth-place pick it was voted. This is Tony Ierulli’s third season with the Scots after taking over a program that had a 12-game losing streak. They were 2-8 in his first season and 5-4 last year. Even though the USAC looks like a conference on the rise, Maryville will be more than competitive. Even if they don’t win a single road game because of the travel distances, the road to Tennessee goes both ways, and I can see Averett, Greensboro, Ferrum and Methodist each having trouble. The Scots could also pick off a win at North Carolina Wesleyan.

Paying your dues? Maybe. But then again, the PAC slotted Thomas More fifth in the league’s first year with seven teams. That seems reasonable, although I might have put them fourth considering the coaches changes at Waynesburg and Westminster (Pa.).

I don’t see Lycoming finishing seventh in the MAC. Last year was an aberration. I really think you have to throw out the year immediately following the death of a player or an assistant coach, and we’ve seen it happen more than once. Last year was not indicative of where the Lycoming program is and I wouldn’t pick them any lower than fourth.

I also have to think Catholic will do better than last place in the ODAC, with Tom Clark able to get a full recruiting class in and the anticipated return of wide receiver Nick Bublavi. I’ll be honest — I saw them play once last year and they were truly awful. But history won’t repeat itself.

On the other hand, the NCAC, OAC and PAC had Hiram, Heidelberg and Bethany coming in last, and it’s hard to argue with any of those picks.

Then again, no poll is perfect. Even our own preseason Top 25 saw Wooster slide in at No. 25. I think the No. 4 pick they got in the NCAC preseason poll is more reasonable.