ATN Podcast: Looking at playoffs

Trinity (Texas)
Trinity (Texas) answered Huntingdon’s statement with one of its own.
Trinity athletics file photo

It was an interesting week down south, with Birmingham-Southern and Huntingdon taking losses and Centre and Trinity (Texas) getting a leg up in the SCAC race. Salisbury rolled up an amazing point total and continues to dominate against Empire 8 foes. Wartburg fell and Redlands rose in crazy fourth quarters. (Here’s a link to that video.) Plus Kean picked up its first loss after flirting with it in previous weeks.

Keith McMillan and Pat Coleman discuss that and more in this week’s Around the Nation Podcast. See the list of tags at the bottom of this post to see who else is discussed.

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.

ATN Podcast: Starting 2011 with a bang

The trophy
Redlands quarterback Chad Hurst led four second-half scoring drives in the Bulldogs’ win.

The opening weekend of the season is exciting enough without all these hear-stopping finishes we had. North Central … Otterbein … Delaware Valley … Mississippi College … Bridgewater … Illinois College. Plus a big Top 25 matchup and much more to talk about.

The Around the Nation Podcast is a weekly discussion between D3football.com Executive Editor Pat Coleman and Deputy Managing Editor Keith McMillan, who writes the Around the Nation column. It’s the first analysis of the week that was. The show tends to run anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes per week — fit it into your lunch hour.

Click the play button below to listen.

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, we want you guys to get in on the act as well. See below for more:

D-III from the other side

Thirty-two teams are preparing for NCAA playoff games and a handful of others are readying for other postseason experiences. Others headed for the offseason with a warm feeling from beating an archrival in the final game, or breaking a streak of losing seasons, finishing on a hot streak or any of a bunch of ways to gather some momentum going into the offseason.

And then there’s a fairly large group at the other end as well, teams whose seasons ended on a down note. That doesn’t include just RPI, Redlands, Montclair State and the others who played their way out of a likely playoff bid with Week 11 losses, but teams who were quickly out of the playoff running altogether.

Or winless, even.

Such was the fate of Colorado College, along with McMurry, Principia, Maranatha Baptist, Massachusetts Maritime and Cornell. And if you remember from early on in the season, Colorado College freshman Chris Jarmon was writing on his blog, The D3 Experience, about the season.

Reading back on it now, you can sense the frustration. This was from a post heading into the final game:

We’re 0-8 now, and just saying that feels strange. It’s hard to believe that with all of the talent and confidence we entered the season with, we’ve been unable to win a single game. I feel especially bad for our seniors, who have busted their tails for four years and deserve better.

For all of those out there who feel that pain, good luck this offseason. Don’t give up. It can get better. But college football, at any level, is hard work.