Greetings from Oregon

Posted on by

Keith and I have been on the ground for a few hours, anyway, in Oregon, and since it’s 4 a.m. ET I can safely say we’re pretty beat. Former Linfield defensive lineman Ryan Carlson and his wife have opened their spare rooms to us, thankfully, and I’m fairly sure we need to sleep in in the morning so we can be fresh for the game.

Fairly certain we’re both looking forward to seeing what McMinnville and Linfield’s game day atmosphere is all about, as well as the game between Linfield and Hardin-Simmons.

We’ll have a new gameday blog post tomorrow (hint to Gordon or John — hopefully one of you can get us started) and get you tracking the other games.

Aside from our game Saturday, here’s a few quick thoughts on some other games going on:

Salisbury at No. 20 Christopher Newport: Remember that Salisbury has always been able to run the ball. Now they can throw a little bit, too. This could be a big breakout game for the Sea Gulls. Christopher Newport has to bounce back after getting pounded by Mary Hardin-Baylor last week.

No. 21 Rowan at Wilkes: Two winless teams meet in a rematch of last year’s second-round playoff game. Wilkes could go 0-3 against the NJAC if it can’t win this one, while Rowan has had a week off to get its offense together.

Rhodes at Birmingham-Southern: The Panthers play their first varsity game since 1939 in hosting their new SCAC rival. Last week’s game against the Mississippi College JV was a good warmup, but this one counts.

Wittenberg at Olivet: The Comets are 0-3 against Wittenberg lifetime and haven’t scored either.

I would have to be awake to throw out more nuggets. Talk amongst yourselves. 🙂

Welcome, Wolverines!

Posted on by
Michigan Drops To Division III In Polls Following Second Loss

The Onion

Michigan Drops To Division III In Polls Following Second Loss

The Onion chose to make light of the “Victors” and their early struggles by plopping the Wolverines into the Division III football poll.

Of course, we couldn’t help but notice that The Onion chose our poll, sliding Michigan in between our No. 6 and No. 7 teams. I’ll try to bypass the obvious “we’d like to play Mount Union against these guys” joke … but it appears we couldn’t.

For the uninitiated, The Onion is a satire publication. And it’s a D3sports.com favorite.

New England football shuffle

Posted on by

The first piece of the long-expected shuffle of football teams in New England has come, though it wasn’t the wide-reaching change that has been talked about.

In the end, the North Atlantic Conference’s addition of football doesn’t disrupt too many homes. Norwich, which is an affiliate member of the Empire 8 as part of the dispersal that folded the Freedom Football Conference, is the only team switching homes to make this happen. Maine Maritime, which is a NAC member in other sports and could play football in the NAC at any time, is currently sticking with the NEFC. Gallaudet, Becker, Husson, Mount Ida and SUNY-Maritime have no other football home.

But it’s not going to affect, at least at the moment, the possibility that keeps looming over the NEFC — the chance that some of its teams may split off and play with their home conferences.

The 16 NEFC teams come from the following all-sports conferences: MASCAC, six (Bridgewater State, Fitchburg State, Framingham State, Massachusetts Maritime, Westfield State, Worcester State); CCC, five (Curry, Endicott, Nichols, Salve Regina, Western New England); NEWMAC, two (Coast Guard, MIT); Little East, two (Mass-Dartmouth, Plymouth State); NAC, one (Maine Maritime).

The MASCAC or CCC could far more easily pick up one or two affiliate members and be eligible for an automatic bid in two years. The NAC has no real route to an automatic bid right now, as configured.

And none of this addresses the rest of Division III, where a new league (average Kickoff ranking of the six NAC teams: 204 of 238) or a split of the NEFC would eventually add an automatic bid, and take an at-large bid away from someone else.

Then again, by the time we get there … there may be bigger fish to fry, in terms of the potential split of Division III into two divisions.