Game Day: Will we have turkeys?

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The second week of the playoffs is always a different animal … or an odd bird, perhaps.

I just talked to Kevin Niehus, one of our broadcasters at the Johns Hopkins-Thomas More game and he said Johns Hopkins looked pretty good getting off the bus. And that’s what we’re left with here in the second week of the playoffs — the teams that might not look good in that instance have been eliminated.

This is also an odd week because of Thanksgiving. The holiday changes everyone’s travel plans, it keeps students away from the game because they’re at home or otherwise away from campus, and the games just have a different feel. The stadium might be a little more empty. The day might be a little colder. But the games are even more important.

That’s what we’re looking at today.

All aboard.

Triple Take, Round 2: A close eye on the road

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In seven instances last weekend, the road team (and by inference, the lower-seeded team) upended their opponents, with the victories coming by an average of 13 points each. Six of those teams will be on the road again, while St. Thomas this time gets a home opportunity. How many upsets are in store this time around?

Although every year we say these picks aren’t a competition between the three of us but rather a gauge of what we expect to happen, Pat Coleman clearly had the best foresight for Round 1. He nailed the winners of all the games in the West, and came out ahead of Keith McMillan and far ahead of me in the overall number right.

Still, we go at it again, on a week when the ASC and MAC remain the only conferences with two teams still in the dance.

–Ryan Tipps

Ryan’s take: Mount Union 52, Montclair State 10
Keith’s take: Mount Union 42, Montclair State 17
Pat’s take: Mount Union 48, Montclair State 3

Ryan’s take: Delaware Valley 38, Albright 17
Keith’s take: Delaware Valley 35, Albright 21
Pat’s take: Delaware Valley 24, Albright 18

Ryan’s take: Wesley 42, Mississippi College 21
Keith’s take: Wesley 38, Mississippi College 28
Pat’s take: Wesley 34, Mississippi College 31

Ryan’s take: Johns Hopkins 20, Thomas More 14
Keith’s take: Thomas More 21, Johns Hopkins 13
Pat’s take: Thomas More 27, Johns Hopkins 9

Ryan’s take: UW-Whitewater 38, Illinois Wesleyan 14
Keith’s take: UW-Whitewater 49, Illinois Wesleyan 21
Pat’s take: UW-Whitewater 38, Illinois Wesleyan 13

Ryan’s take: Wittenberg 34, Trine 30
Keith’s take: Wittenberg 17, Trine 14
Pat’s take: Trine 21, Wittenberg 17

Ryan’s take: St. Thomas 20, Coe 17
Keith’s take: St. Thomas 24, Coe 13
Pat’s take: St. Thomas 20, Coe 7

Ryan’s take: Linfield 30, Mary Hardin-Baylor 24
Keith’s take: Linfield 31, Mary Hardin-Baylor 28
Pat’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 37, Linfield 35

ATN Podcast: Wrapping round 1

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If it seemed like all the good games were clustered in one time zone on Saturday, well, yeah, you’re right. The 1 p.m. ET games featured some great finishes, with onside kicks coming minutes apart and a double overtime game coming down to the wire. Hear the end of the Illinois Wesleyan-Wabash game (thanks to Wabash’s broadcast), as well as the Coe player who returned two turnovers for touchdowns and get a report from the Thomas More-DePauw game.

Plus, Keith McMillan and Pat Coleman report on the games they covered and break down the rest of the brackets. What did Case Western Reserve and Monmouth have in common? Who had the biggest letdown of the first round? Where is the success concentrated in the playoffs? And looking further down the road, is there a team that can prevent a fifth Mount Union/UW-Whitewater matchup? There’s that and more in this week’s Around the Nation Podcast.

Click the play button below to listen.

You can load the podcast page in iTunes or can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/?feed=podcast

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