Q: When will you have schedules?
A: This is about the time we start trolling for them, after the Division III final four is complete. A lot of readers seem to be under the impression that all schedules come out at the same time, but this is not the case. Schools release them when they are darn good and ready, and that means we could see them anywhere from December to July.
In fact, two dozen schedules are already up. Check out Adrian, Alma, Benedictine, Bridgewater, Brockport State, Case Western Reserve, Chicago, Concordia (Ill.), Concordia (Wis.), DePauw, Eureka, Grove City, Hampden-Sydney, Huntingdon, Ithaca, Lakeland, McDaniel, Simpson, St. John’s, Thiel, Trinity (Texas), Washington U., Wesley, Westminster (Pa.), Whitworth and Widener.
Are you a NESCAC fan? Be prepared for a long wait. Even though the NESCAC never has any open dates and seven of the eight games are the same each and every year, the NESCAC schools are traditionally the slowest to release their schedules. If we wanted, we could post the entire schedule now, except we need the game times. It’s too much of a pain in the rear to post game dates first and game times later.
Are you an OAC fan? These schedules are also usually among the last to come in. Some schools seem to wait until the last minute to determine kickoff times for their home games, holding up the entire process. In terms of non-conference games, Mount Union plays at Averett, Marietta plays at Emory and Henry, Capital hosts Wittenberg, Ohio Northern plays at Millikin, Wilmington plays at Mt. St. Joseph, Heidelberg plays at Oberlin and John Carroll plays at Wooster. The others weren’t posted as of this writing.