Phew, I’m beat.

Long day yesterday and staring down a long day today, but definitely worth it. Saw four good teams yesterday and a great game under the lights — Keith McMillan and I were talking and anytime you can see two games in a day, it’s worth it.

Keith will write a lot more about our weekend, so I won’t go too much into depth here. Good turnout with 4,338 fans at UW-Whitewater and 3,500 (this might be even a touch low) at North Central.

Congrats to Hiram for getting off the schneid. Earlham held to two points for the second week in a row with quarterback Justin Rummell. The Quakers had first-and-goal from the 2 with under a minute left and threw four incomplete passes. Amazingly, Earlham was inside the 5-yard line three times during the game and turned the ball over on downs each time, getting its only points on what might have been an intentional safety with 1:18 left in the ballgame.

Utica beat Springfield, meaning nobody who is supposed to be good can brag about beating the Pride this season.

Why does Averett get 40 off Ferrum but only nine against Wesley, a team believed to be of similar quality.

Baldwin-Wallace’s streak of .500 or better seasons is in serious trouble. The Yellow Jackets are 2-2 and have losable games remaining at Otterbein, Capital and Mount Union and at home against Marietta and John Carroll.

Interested in:
Huntingdon. Another solid win. Big test coming with Trinity (Texas).
Rochester. Win at St. Lawrence (never an easy trip travelwise) keeps them in the Liberty League picture a while longer.
St. Olaf. Playing pretty well. Worthy of keeping an eye on.

Worried about:
St. John’s. You can get away with turnovers against Hamline but with games coming up against Bethel, Concordia-Moorhead and St. Olaf, it has to change.
Lycoming. Losing by five touchdowns to FDU-Florham? This program is in trouble.
Thiel. No, seriously. They had at least a shot at hearing their name on Selection Sunday last year before losing at Buffalo State in the season finale. Can’t afford a letdown against Grove City.

No new crazy e-mails this weekend, but a request for Lake Forest’s Pool C chances that came a couple weeks ago looked pretty silly then, three weeks into the season, and looks even sillier after back-to-back losses.

And the bizarre moment of the weekend was running into players from the Centre men’s soccer team at the gas station on Saturday night. Good luck against Aurora today, guys.

Looking ahead to Saturday? You bet. This should be a good one — not only for the games Keith McMillan and I are attending but the other games on the schedule as well.

Keith and I fly out today to Chicago and will see UW-Eau Claire at UW-Whitewater in the afternoon, Wheaton at North Central at night. All four of these teams are already on my ballot (not in the order the rest of the voters have, however), so I’m looking forward to seeing in person where they might stack up.

But even without those games it should be a good day of football.

Game that won’t live up to previous years: Bridgewater at Hampden-Sydney. This game should still be pretty good, it’s just that the last time Hampden-Sydney hosted, it came down to the wire. We urge all attending this game to cheer responsibly. First team to make a defensive stop wins.

Game that will be close but shouldn’t be: Guilford at Greensboro. These city rivals are about on the same level but Greensboro hasn’t shown much this season and Guilford has to be worried about where its next win is coming from.

Game that should be close but won’t be: No. 25 Whitworth at Eastern Oregon. Remember when EOU was in Division III? Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago. But Whitworth should be able to win this one handily.

Retired Trophy Game of the Week: RPI at Coast Guard. RPI will take the Shot Glass home for good. Yet another rivalry that Coast Guard is abandoning in dropping its program down from the Liberty League to the New England Football Conference. No more Mug, no more Shot Glass, and now the Secretary’s Cup is going to be played in September? Scratch that off the list of key rivalry games.

First to seven wins: Franklin and Marshall has scored nine points per game, Muhlenberg 16.7, and even that is inflated by the 30 points against The College of New Jersey, some of which were gift-wrapped. Last year, 15-10 F&M.

Top 25 upset waiting to happen: No. 16 Carthage. They need to find that offense, and fast. The trip to Millikin is not an easy one and neither is the opponent.

Getting off the schneid: Best shot, I think, is Massachusetts Maritime breaking its eight-game losing streak, traveling to Framingham State.

Off the hype machine: Remember what a big deal Christopher Newport/Shenandoah was last season? Hmm, not so much right now. Not only are both teams down from last season, it’s not even definite they are the top two teams in the USAC, as Ferrum already has put Shenandoah away.

Earlier this week, Hardin-Simmons announced its 2006 schedule, which includes the current defending national champion, Linfield. UW-Stevens Point remains on the schedule as well.

It’s as if someone finally gets it. This is the kind of game the automatic bid era was supposed to bring about from the get-go. The conference schedule is paramount, so why not test yourself out of conference and see what you’re made of? But games like this are still rather rare. Capital plays Wittenberg, Christopher Newport plays Rowan, Mary Hardin-Baylor has played Willamette the past two years, but non-conference games between two national contenders? There should be more of them.

How great would these games be? How about Ithaca and Rowan? Trinity (Texas) and either of the top two ASC teams? Washington and Jefferson against Mount Union?

Let’s step up and test ourselves. The access for at-large teams will never be better than it is right now. The field will likely never expand beyond 32 teams, and as more schools join Division III, it will only get harder to get into the playoffs in the future. Mount Union shouldn’t have to travel 500 miles to find a game.