Author Archives: FDF

Game day: Round of 16

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We’re a little more than an hour from kickoff on the three Eastern Time Zone games Saturday, in Alliance, Ohio; Crawfordsville, Ind.; and Cortland, N.Y.

D3football.com will be coming to you live from the home of the Red Dragons with audio at noon, and will cap the day with a broadcast of UW-Whitewater at Willamette at 3 p.m. The defending national champions and the West No. 1 seed have the “airwaves” to themselves in a broadcast that’s not online elsewhere, and doesn’t feature live stats or video (that we know of).

If one of the four Central Time Zone games is what you’re after, we’ll be around to chat and provide updates about those too.

Links to video (from Millsaps and Monmouth), live stats (from Mount Union, Wabash, Mary Hardin-Baylor and North Central) and audio from all eight games are on our scoreboard page.

The floor is open. Have at it.

Triple Take: Second-round predictions

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In Week 13, the round of 16 is often where we separate the proverbial men from the boys; where we find out who’s OK with taking one playoff win back to campus and who has a real shot at getting to Salem.

Of course, these are not exactly dog matchups with obvious favorites and likely losers. Some powerful teams very capable of advancing are going to bow out on Saturday because they’re matched up against similarly powerful teams. Makes the job of predicting final scores pretty difficult.

But then again, even “experts” don’t expect to call every game correctly, and what fun would the playoffs be if we could? The surprises are as interesting to us as they are to you, and the ones we can’t call (but try to anyway) are what makes us appreciate the sort-it-out-on-the-field system we have.

Though it isn’t hard to keep track, as Ryan Tipps went 12-4 last week with correct picks on three of the four No. 7 seeds that advanced, while Pat Coleman went 11-5 and Keith McMillan 10-6, these picks are really for your gratification, not ours. We’re setting the expectation, but teams do the unexpected every week, and frankly, we expect that too.

If you want to taunt us next week for a score we fail to accurately predict, knock yourself out. Hindsight, of course, is 20-20. If you really want to impress, use the comments section below to guess the scores of this week’s games yourselves.

Our expectations, compiled without consulting each other, from the westernmost bracket east:

No. 5 UW-WHITEWATER at No. 1 WILLAMETTE
Keith: Whitewater, 28-21
Ryan: Whitewater, 27-24
Pat: Willamette, 38-34

No. 7 WARTBURG at No. 3 MONMOUTH
Keith: Wartburg, 23-21
Ryan: Wartburg, 21-14
Pat: Wartburg, 28-25

No. 5 WASHINGTON & JEFFERSON at No. 1 MILLSAPS
Keith: Millsaps, 41-31
Ryan: Millsaps, 38-21
Pat: Millsaps, 45-24

No. 7 WESLEY at No. 2 MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR
Keith: Wesley, 21-20
Ryan: Wesley, 34-24
Pat: UMHB, 35-31

No. 5 FRANKLIN at No. 1 NORTH CENTRAL
Keith: North Central, 35-34
Ryan: North Central, 45-38
Pat: North Central, 51-45

No. 7 WHEATON at No. 6 WABASH
Keith: Wheaton, 17-13
Ryan: Wheaton, 31-27
Pat: Wheaton, 28-24

No. 4 HOBART at No. 1 MOUNT UNION
Keith: Mount Union, 54-23
Ryan: Mount Union, 52-10
Pat: Mount Union, 42-10

No. 7 CURRY at No. 3 CORTLAND STATE
Keith: Cortland State, 24-14
Ryan: Cortland State, 31-17
Pat: Curry, 31-27

As with last week, if anyone wants to put together a composite expectation or chart the unanimous vs. split picks, feel free.

Triple Take: First Round Predictions

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Week 12 is here, and if you’re anything like me, the annual let’s-all-start-at-noon 16-game smackdown is your favorite Saturday of the season. There are ECAC bowls and makeup games too, but in all honesty, the Walnut and Bronze is what we play (or watch) for, and one of the 32 teams in the field will be in Salem on Dec. 20 hoisting it.

You might not need an expert to tell you that the No. 1 team in the D3football.com Top 25 is expected to win it all. But expected outcomes in the first-round matchups are less certain, especially if your vision is clouded by the love of a particular team or the lack of knowledge of much outside your home conference.

It is with that in mind that Pat Coleman, Ryan Tipps and I give you our playoff score predictions. These are not “lines,” and this is not a contest between the three of us. It’s an experiment in expectation vs. outcome.

Simply put, the three of us separately guesstimate what Saturday’s 16 final scores will be. In some cases, our expectations will be remarkably similar. In others, they’ll differ. Everything the three of us think will happen won’t, but at least you’ll know a stunning result when you see it.

MOUNT UNION (East) BRACKET
No. 8 Randolph-Macon at No. 1 Mount Union
Keith: Mount Union, 44-7
Ryan: Mount Union, 63-7
Pat: Mount Union, 63-6

No. 5 Lycoming at No. 4 Hobart
Keith: Lycoming, 13-12
Ryan: Lycoming, 24-14
Pat: Hobart, 14-10

No. 6 Plymouth State at No. 3 Cortland State
Keith: Cortland State, 24-13
Ryan: Cortland State, 31-17
Pat: Cortland State, 32-14

No. 7 Curry at No. 2 Ithaca
Keith: Ithaca, 42-21
Ryan: Ithaca, 42-13
Pat: Ithaca, 48-7

NORTH CENTRAL (North) BRACKET
No. 8 Thomas More at No. 1 North Central
Keith: North Central, 33-10
Ryan: North Central, 31-21
Pat: North Central, 45-14

No. 5 Franklin at No. 4 Otterbein
Keith: Otterbein, 30-27
Ryan: Otterbein, 37-14
Pat: Otterbein, 35-20

No. 6 Wabash at No. 3 Case Western Reserve
Keith: Case Western Reserve, 15-12
Ryan: Wabash, 34-28
Pat: Wabash, 35-28

No. 7 Wheaton at No. 2 Trine
Keith:Wheaton, 27-24
Ryan: Wheaton, 24-23
Pat: Wheaton, 38-21

WILLAMETTE (West) BRACKET
No. 2 Occidental at No. 1 Willamette
Keith: Willamette, 34-23
Ryan: Willamette, 31-17
Pat: Willamette, 41-27

No. 6 St. John’s at No. 5 UW-Whitewater
Keith: UW-Whitewater, 28-14
Ryan: UW-Whitewater, 17-13
Pat: UW-Whitewater, 24-14

No. 7 Wartburg at No. 4 UW-Stevens Point
Keith: UW-Stevens Point, 14-13
Ryan: Wartburg, 21-14
Pat: UW-Stevens Point, 17-3

No. 8 Aurora at No. 3 Monmouth
Keith: Monmouth, 38-20
Ryan: Monmouth, 42-31
Pat: Monmouth, 30-13

MILLSAPS (South) BRACKET
No. 8 LaGrange at No. 1 Millsaps
Keith: Millsaps, 49-17
Ryan: Millsaps, 45-10
Pat: Millsaps, 63-3

No. 6 Christopher Newport at No. 5 Washington & Jefferson
Keith: W&J, 28-21
Ryan: W&J, 34-31
Pat: W&J, 24-21

No. 7 Wesley at No. 4 Muhlenberg
Keith: Wesley, 21-20
Ryan: Wesley, 31-20
Pat: Wesley, 31-23

No. 3 Hardin-Simmons at No. 2 Mary Hardin-Baylor
Keith: Hardin-Simmons, 20-18
Ryan: Hardin-Simmons, 27-24
Pat: Hardin-Simmons, 38-35

Anyone who wants to average the scores to come up with a composite “expectation,” go right ahead.