ATN Podcast: Big games, unbeatens

LiDarral Bailey
LiDarral Bailey ran for 110 yards and threw for 123 for Mary Hardin-Baylor.
UMHB athletics photo

There were a bunch of teams with big wins, the ones we like to call signature wins. The ones that used to be talked about openly as being necessary for playoff consideration, back when we used to have 16-team brackets and not-so-strictly followed playoff criteria.

That’s not the case anymore, but those wins are still key in terms of national exposure, respect and rankings. Pat and Keith talk about some of the key wins this weekend in this week’s Around the Nation podcast.

Also, there are plenty of unbeaten teams remaining, including teams that aren’t ranked. Why aren’t they ranked? Keith and Pat run through the list, plus some of the other surprise teams. That and more in this week’s podcast. See the list of tags at the bottom of this post to see who else is discussed.

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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

Plus, here’s the first look at this week’s D3reports, as well as Division III football highlight reels. These will also appear on the front page on Monday afternoon.

Also, this week’s photo galleries:

ATN Podcast: Time to re-evaluate?

Ohio Northern
Ohio Northern survived an upset bid by Otterbein, setting up an interesting conundrum for the people who like to play comparative scores.
Ohio Northern athletics photo

If you like playing the comparative scores game, you know, where X beat Y by 3 and Y beat Z by 3, therefore X would beat Z. But just try to wrap your mind around the direct correlation between Ohio Northern and Gallaudet, each of whom played Otterbein at home and went to overtime. Or figure out what to make of Hardin-Simmons … beating Willamette … which lost a close game to UW-Stevens Point … which got shut down by UW-Platteville … etc.

It gets even more complicated. Thankfully Keith McMillan and Pat Coleman can make at least some sense of it in this week’s Around the Nation Podcast.

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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

Plus, thanks for helping grow our D3reports. These will also appear on the front page on Monday afternoon.

ATN Podcast: Boring? Not really

Mount Union's Kyle Miller; UW-Whitewater's Levell Copage
Yep. More purple. But is that a problem?

Alright, we’ve heard all the weeping and gnashing of teeth the past couple of days, and there’s certainly reason to talk about it. But, indeed, we’ve got Purple-Purple VI and that’s because they are the best two teams in Division III football.

Would it be better some other way? Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan each have their own takes on it in this week’s Around the Nation podcast.

Stagg Bowl XXXVIII could be the game remembered for its backup quarterbacks — Neal Seaman got knocked out of Saturday’s game early in the first quarter trying to make a stop on an interception and Matt Blanchard, well, who knows? Does it makes sense for UW-Whitewater to play Blanchard at this point even if he’s healthy? Will the Mount Union running game have a shot against UW-Whitewater’s defense?

Plus, a look forward at the rest of the weekend’s festivities in Salem.

Click the play button below to listen.

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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