Around the Nation podcast: Stories of the first round

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The Wartburg defense came out fired up and locked down Illinois Wesleyan.
IWU athletics photo by Marc Featherley

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There were some great games in the first round. Some of them were supposed to be great games between evenly matched teams, and in most cases, we got them.

And then there was what Wartburg did on Saturday. Just wow, folks. Keith McMillan and Pat Coleman try to figure out what happened and what we all missed about a Knights team that crushed Illinois Wesleyan on the road in their opening-round game.

Plus, Pat actually talks to Keith about defense, rather than vice versa, Continue reading →

Triple Take: Predicting the winners — and the scores

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The Framingham-Ithaca game is one of our first-round toss-up picks.
Framingham State athletics photo

For 32 teams across the country, the regular season has built up to this weekend and, if their hopes play out, more weekends to come. They now have the chance to prove their worth on the national stage.

D3football.com’s coverage will be going strong over the next few weeks, and that began with our 32-team capsules, one of the cornerstones of our postseason reporting. They offer insight on how to tell if a team is playing well or poorly, along with how far into the bracket we think each team can make it. We also took a long-view look at who might surprise and disappoint by the time the first three rounds are in the books.

The week’s features culminate with Triple Take, which we do a little differently for the postseason. From now until the second weekend in December, Pat Coleman, Keith McMillan and Ryan Tipps will not only pick the winners of games in Triple Take, but we’ll also project the scores. It’s a transparent test of our perceptions week in and week out. (And we each make our picks independently.) Continue reading →

What the committee chair said

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When a former WIAC head coach became the chair of the Division III football committee, it’s understandable why strength of schedule was more important this year.
Photo by Larry Radloff, d3photography.com

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With the selection show cut down to less than eight minutes of actual content, there’s no analysis, no breakdown, just a reading of teams and a few nuggets of info. So it’s up to the rest of us to try to generate that, get the committee chair on the phone, try to get some questions answered, etc. Duey Naatz, the athletic director and former head football coach at UW-Stout, gave more than a half-hour of his time to our friends at In the HuddLLe, the weekly show covering the Liberty League and East Region football. Frank Rossi and James Baker are the interviewers on the clip below.

Definitely worth a listen, as there are several insights to be had regarding the emphasis on strength of schedule, how deep you might go within a region for at-large bids and much more. This conversation is also available as part of the Around the Nation podcast, Continue reading →