Woo, baby, the regular season is getting down to the end and there are two giant games on tap this weekend.

We’ll have a blogger live at Alliance for the game between No. 4 Capital and No. 1 Mount Union. More on this game in Around the Great Lakes. I’m just hoping it’s a competitive game. We’ve seen so many so-called big games involving Mount Union turn into big freakin’ blowouts.

Keith McMillan and I will be in Belton, Texas, to call the game between No. 6 Mary Hardin-Baylor and No. 2 UW-Whitewater. Why are we going to Texas instead of Ohio? (Many of you have … well, let’s use the polite term and say asked.) It’s pretty simple — first of all, it’s a Division I-A style game, featuring two highly ranked teams from different conferences, one making a long trip. This time of year, non-conference games are rare and big-name games are even more rare. Second of all, note what I said about Mount Union and blowouts. Third, projected high of 76 tomorrow. 🙂

We booked this trip before Justin Beaver’s injury, but it becomes even more interesting now. UMHB has allowed fewer than 20 rushing yards per game this season and Whitewater’s vaunted offensive line will have its hands full.

Keith and I have started compiling our list of what teams we’ve seen and what stadiums we’ve been to. We’ve seen all four teams play and between the two of us we’ve been to all of the stadiums except the one UMHB plays in.

Keith is supposed to be writing more about this game today. I leave for the airport soon but we’ll figure out a way to get it online. He’s possibly the only person who’s seen both of the teams play, covering the UMHB/Christopher Newport game in Week 2 and the UWW/UW-La Crosse game two weeks ago.

Elsewhere in Division III, a colleague of ours just reported in from St. Louis that he’s staying in the same hotel as the Carnegie Mellon football team. He chatted up players, mentioned he knows the D3football.com guys, and reports they asked him to tell us to put them in the poll!

Carnegie Mellon is 7-0. Here’s the Tartans’ opponents:

No. 30 Carnegie Mellon (7-0):
Sep 02 AWAY Hiram (0-7) W 6-27
Sep 09 AWAY Grove City (1-6) W 0-28
Sep 16 HOME Westminster (Pa.) (2-5) W 33-6
Sep 23 HOME Franklin and Marshall (2-5) W 34-14
Sep 30 HOME Colorado College (3-4) W 50-24
Oct 14 AWAY Case Western Reserve (3-4) W 10-20
Oct 21 HOME Chicago (2-4) W 27-0

Nobody here with a winning record. They play at Wash U (5-3) Saturday afternoon. If they win that game they might be taken seriously. Otherwise, do the math: their opponents are 13-35.

The annual Johnnie/Tommie game takes place this weekend, as does the Rte. 13 rivalry between Wesley and Salisbury. Surprising Sul Ross looks for validity against Hardin-Simmons. Springfield heads to the grass to take on Ithaca. Long trips for Springfield in back-to-back weeks.

Another option team not many people talk about is Coast Guard. Granted, a season-opening loss to Merchant Marine, the best team on the schedule, doesn’t do much for national recognition, but I had the honor of being asked to call their Homecoming game for their Internet broadcast last weekend and had a good time. Steve Arguelles, who is tied for the national lead in interceptions with eight (matching King’s Craig Haywood), is a legitimate safety as a freshman. Presumably teams will try to avoid him as his career continues. But Christian George, the quarterback, is the key to the team. He left the game early with what appeared to be an ankle injury and if he can’t go this week, Coast Guard is in big trouble at Maine Maritime. Backup Niles Pierson basically wasn’t allowed to do anything in his time under center.

Also looking for legitimacy is Alfred, which hosts No. 17 Hobart. Alfred might be a great team but its schedule is so backloaded that we have no real clue. They lost by a touchdown at Springfield early in the season and close with No. 17 Hobart, No. 20 Ithaca and No. 19 St. John Fisher. Yikes!

Other games are on the radar as well — check out Defiance/Mt. St. Joseph.

Today is also the annual Dome Day in Minneapolis, where the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (not a D-III member league but with nine of its 10 schools in Division III) holds its championship. We have photographers at the Metrodome now to shoot all five games. It started at 8 a.m. CT. We’ll hear more from them later, if they can see straight after all’s said and done.

It’s that time of year when fans start to wonder about their team’s chances at the playoffs and where they might land if they do make it. Considering that we just finished Week 8 of 11, it’s appropriate and totally legitimate to start asking those questions now.

This is also about the time of year when my inbox starts filling up with specific questions about specific teams. So here’s what I’m going to do. Instead of just giving my response, I’ll open it up to other D3football.com staff and readers, especially those with intricate knowledge of the Division III handbook and such. That way, if you’re reaching for a glimmer of hope, you’ll have more chances at hearing an answer you like, although I have to warn you … even with 32 playoff spots, 202 of you get none, and that group usually includes some deserving teams.

If talk of Pools A, B and C confuses you, I suggest you start at our FAQ Page and the accompanying playoff primer:

After that, we’ll start answering individual questions. Although I can’t get to it right this second, here’s the one I’ll start with:

Hey,
First off, I love your column and the whole website. You guys do a great job and it is the only place I go to get my small school football info! Keep up the great work!

Ok, on to the important stuff.
Now I am a little confused about what it takes to get into the playoffs with the new spots. What are the chances of Depauw getting an at-large spot. I know the loss to Millsaps really hurt, and that we won’t have any huge wins. But, right now we are 35 in the Quality Win Index, and if we win out, I would like to think we have a shot at the top 25 in that category. Do you think winning out would be enough to make the playoffs? What if Millsaps wins the SCAC and Trinity then presumably gets an at-large, is there a chance of two SCAC at-larges? Any thoughts you have would be much appreciated, and I hope you get to come to campus for a game sometime this year!

Keep up the good work!
Drew Donovan

I’ll do my best to group all these questions and answers here. For those of you that find this interesting and see similar talk on Post Patterns or elsewhere on the blog, feel free to direct people here.

At some point soon, we’ll do official projections. We also publish the Quality of Wins index that the committee uses to judge strength of schedule when selecting teams.