Category Archives: General

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ATN Podcast 331: Let’s get this party started

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The 2023 Division III football season is upon us, kicking off on Thursday night, Aug. 31.

Birmingham-Southern is one of those teams kicking off on Thursday, and the fact that B-SC is here at all is something to celebrate. The school nearly closed this past summer and still faces sever funding issues, but is here for another year, under new coach Anthony Colucci. He talks with us about taking over the program, losing an all-star running back in Jon Lewis to transfer, and getting ready for the opening game.

We also have five, count them five games between Top 25 teams in Week 1, and Pat and Greg go through all of them for the storylines and the intrigue they’ll bring to the season. Then we’ll go region by region and touch on another large swath of Saturday games, plus Pat and Greg will put each other on the spot, and give their over-unders for one particularly ground-heavy Saturday game. It’s sure to get you all turbo charged for the 2023 season.

Plus, now that we’ve done this for a second year, it’s officially a tradition. The Week 1 preview podcast includes a song — in a quarter century of covering Division III football, Pat may not have been everywhere, but he’s been almost everywhere, man. With all apologies to Johnny Cash. Lyrics at the bottom of this page.

The D3football.com podcast is a weekly in-season podcast by Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas, which was started in 2007.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

Full episode:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. 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

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos. Music for “Turbo” track is 1998 by DJmentos.
Photos: Birmingham-Southern athletics; Wartburg’s Hunter Clasen by Caleb Williams, d3photography.com

I’ve Been (Almost) Everywhere

I was dragging my suitcase through a busy airport terminal
When I came up to the counter and the ticket agent said hello
Is Roanoke your final destination, Mr. Coleman, Sir?
And I said, “well yes it is, Atlanta’s where I transfer.”
I’ve been chasing D-III football for a quarter century
And 500 miles or not there’s still some places left to see.

I’ve been everywhere, man
Almost everywhere, man
Can Delta get me there, man
I’ll go by ground or air, man
Of miles I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere

I’ve been to Eau Claire, Chicago, Redlands, Gettysburg
Madison, Meadville, Glassboro, Galesburg,
Canton, Winchester, Ashland, Hampden-Sydney
Naperville, Roseville, Troy and Schenectady
Waverly, Decorah, Elmhurst, McMinnville
Baltimore, Angola, Monon Bell in Crawfordsville

I’ve been everywhere, man
Almost everywhere, man
Flew Independence Air, man
Gone by ground or air, man
Of miles I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere

I’ve been to Lisle, Carlisle, every place called Collegeville
Pittsburgh, Pittsford, Pennsylvania’s Greenville
Washington in PA, Washington in DC
River Forest, River Falls, Mount Vernon and Mount Berry
Upper Montclair and Westminster Maryland
Williamstown, Allentown, old and new in Belton

I’ve been everywhere, man
Almost everywhere, man
Birmingham’s still there, man
Gone by ground or air, man
Of miles I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere

I’ve been to Whitewater, Wheaton, Milwaukee and Menomonie
Alliance, Moorhead, Next new place is Beverly
Springfield, Springfield, Abilene counts twice,
Ripon and Sheboygan, Northfield lookin double nice
San Antonio; St. Paul and St. Peter
St. Bonifacius, St. Louis and De Pere

I’ve been everywhere, man
Almost everywhere, man
Both schools in Wilkes-Barre, man
Gone by ground or air, man
Of miles I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere 

I’ve been to Salem, Shenandoah, Canton and Annapolis
Oshkosh, Williamsport, Kenosha and Columbus
New London, New Ulm, Claremont’s Sixth Street
Kings Point, Lancaster, Stevenson and Salisbury
Chester, Conway, Cortland, Holland, Worcester, almost over
Said goodbye to Hancock, Frostburg, Eagle Rock, and Dover

I’ve been everywhere, man
Almost everywhere, man
Twenty more places that you couldn’t fit in there, man
Gone by ground or air, man
Of miles I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere

Almost everywhere

 

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ATN Podcast 330: What you need to know before Week 1

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Teams are in training camps, and if you’re new to Division III football, or awaking from a long slumber, this is a good time to get caught up.

Because if you’re coming to Division III for the first time, as a Division I FBS fan, just know that this is not the same. D-III is expert level, with 28 automatic bids (yes, now there are 28!) and just a handful of at-large bids to go around. Making the Top 25 or an All-America team is almost twice as hard as Division I FBS because D-III is so large.

It’s really large.

So, welcome back! We get you caught up on the biggest news of the offseason, answer fan questions about the preseason Top 25, and more, such as:

  • How is the free COVID year still affecting d3football?
  • SCIAC teams have been scheduling conference opponents for non-conference games for a few years now, and NWC teams are beginning to do the same starting this year. Are we approaching the days when the island conferences out here play zero games against other conferences?
  • What’s a team in the top 25 that you think is the most likely to have a down year this season?
  • DePauw continues to strongly build their program. Predicted to win NCAC for third straight year but keep hitting juggernauts in the playoffs. What’s the likelihood they make it past the first round this year?

We tackle all that and more. Listen in, and welcome back!

Mentioned in the podcast: Rivals so close they share a campus, by Greg Thomas

The D3football.com podcast is a weekly in-season podcast by Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas, which was started in 2007.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

Full episode:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Links mentioned in this podcast:

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. 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

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
DePauw’s Brevon Gude by Linda Striggo, DePauw athletics; Delaware Valley’s Nick Chapman by Delaware Valley athletics; Bethel’s Joey Kidder by Caleb Williams, d3photography.com

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ATN Podcast 328: Three teams with reason to look ahead

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The Division III basketball season is wrapping up and Pat Coleman is diving back into D3football and podcast production, but that doesn’t mean basketball is far from his mind. As it turns out, when you combine the two Division III basketball Final Fours, eight teams, across seven schools, only three of them sponsor football, and that’s exactly the right number of interviews it takes to make one of our offseason podcasts.

So this month we welcome Jace Rindahl of UW-Whitewater, the new 36-year-old head coach who was playing linebacker for the Warhawks so recently that he was the 2008 D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year. The Warhawks men’s basketball team made a surprising run to the D-III Final Four. We also welcome John Carroll coach Jeff Behrman. (Mount Union’s men’s basketball team made it to the Final Four, but coach Geoff Dartt again declined an interview request, so we’ll represent the OAC with its next-best men’s basketball team.) And Paul Crowley of Christopher Newport joins us as well after the CNU men won the D-III national title and the CNU women won their national semifinal and will play for the national title on Saturday, April 1.

Rindahl has spent 16 of the past 18 years in the Whitewater football program, and he comes into his first year as head coach with a schedule that is just simply loaded, starting with John Carroll. He talks with us about what kind of head coach he’ll be, how the program feels after their surprising first-round playoff loss to Aurora, and how they intend to handle each new opponent in that gauntlet. Behrman is a John Carroll grad just returning to the institution after a quarter-century, and he talks about what the university has to sell to recruits, how much he’ll change the scheme, whether he’ll be able to bring some stability to a program that is on its third head coach in three seasons, and how much Mount Union footage he has watched so far. And Crowley talks about the great gameday atmosphere at his institution, some of last year’s early growing pains in his first year as a head coach and what kind of kids he is looking to recruit to get his program back in the conference title conversation.

Plus, Pat and Greg talk about the fact that D-III seems to keep losing programs and what that means for the SCIAC (divisions?) and the SAA (expansion?). Pat puts Greg on the spot and gets a conference ranking for the SCAC, whenever it is able to get all of its programs on the field.

For the record, from the remaining Final Four teams: Swarthmore hasn’t had a football program or coach since 2000, Rhode Island College and Transylvania do not sponsor football and Smith College does not enroll men.

Also of note: There is a bonus podcast for our Patreon subscribers with more content from each of these coaches at patreon.com/d3sports.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

Full episode:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Links mentioned in this podcast:

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. 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

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photos by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com; Vance Solseth, Christopher Newport athletics; Ben Peskar, John Carroll athletics