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ATN Podcast 416: Living up to the hype

The task seemed impossible: For as long as we’ve been waiting for these Week 1 games and talking about them, especially the two in the Chicago suburbs featuring four of the top five teams in the country, they couldn’t possibly live up to the hype we’d given them. Could they?

Well, perhaps they couldn’t both live up to the hype, but one sure as heck did, as No. 5 Wheaton knocked off No. 3 Mount Union when offensive guard Aiden Byrne blocked the Purple Raiders’ attempt to tie the game with an extra point kick with 22 seconds left. So it was all celebration for the Thunder, and Patrick Coleman was there and brings the sounds and the observations, as we hear from Wheaton coach Jesse Scott in Fast Five, and we’ll hear from Byrne as well.

Patrick was also at the Bethel-North Central game, three-quarters of it anyway, so he got the gist, and we’ll talk about the key new personnel for North Central as well as what was missing for Bethel, plus the things that the No. 1-ranked Cardinals and No. 2 Royals need to work on. And we’ll dive heavily into No. 11 St. John’s win vs. No. 10 UW-La Crosse also. And how many viewers did the Wheaton win get?

Logan Hansen comes back to the podcast for the regular season with his breakdown of the top learnings from the week from an analytics perspective in Analytics 301, a 3 minute and 1 second swing through the big games coming up as well as key questions: Will the WIAC have a decent shot of getting four teams in the playoffs again?

Plus, Patrick and Greg Thomas swing through all six regions of Division III. Who’s only just begun in Region 1? Who has a clue in Region 2, etc.? Plus they hand out game balls, pick out the stats of the week, and answer your mailbag questions. How did our team’s Week 1 predictions go? Yes, we hold each other accountable for that and we’ll own up to it on every weekly podcast. Plus, in the Final Countdown, three results that surprised each of us from this week. We talk about dozens of teams and dozens of games, so check it all out on the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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Photos: Michael Hudson Photography; Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com; Steve Woltmann for North Central athletics

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ATN Podcast 415: Looking at a great Week 1

Kickoff comes tomorrow! That’s right, it’s Kickoff Eve and here at D3football.com we drop a new podcast to get you ready for the 2026 season openers on Thursday night, Friday night and all day Saturday.

This edition of the D3football.com Podcast is sponsored by GameStrat, the most reliable & fastest in-game video replay system on the market. Find out more at GameStrat.com.

If this is your first time following Division III football, well, welcome! We want to make sure you are as up to speed as possible when you get to your tailgating spot, and that includes us walking you through the basics of how Division III is structured, how big it is (and how hard it is to get into the Top 25!), as well as how the playoffs are put together.

We’ll also take you around all six regions on the Week 1 schedule and go through a game of the week for each region, plus two more games to keep an eye on. Who’s on the run in Region 1? Who’s in the queue in Region 2? You get the idea. Plus, Greg and Patrick take us through a Week 1 viewing schedule, one game at a time, and it’s a new season, so there’s a new bit in this podcast. A new feature. Check it out.

We have this and more in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Mailbag topics include: Which Division III coach could be next to take a Division I FCS head coaching job? Is Division III really losing too much in terms of transfers? Which unlikely predictions are most likely to come true? How will D-III fare against non-Division III opponents this week? Plus, yes, we will talk about Manchester leaving D-III next season and what it means for the HCAC, perhaps the OAC and perhaps the SAA.

Notes from the show: Etchglow’s transfer portal tracker

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. 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

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

Photos: Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com; JCU athletics photo by CJ Lyon; UMHB athletics; Eastern athletics; Steve Woltmann for North Central athletics; Millsaps athletics

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ATN Podcast 395: In the Captains’ seat

The Captains of Christopher Newport are back in the playoffs for the second time in three years and for the 12th time in their relatively short history. And they got there by knocking the Sea Gulls of Salisbury off their perch on Saturday night, in a pretty epic battle under the lights.

In one week, Eastern went from the driver’s seat in the Middle Atlantic Conference to booking a ticket to the big dance for the first time — and this is a program that three years ago, had never even been on this metaphorical bus. We bring Eastern coach Billy Crocker for another round on the Fast Five machine, after he last joined us for Podcast 333.

And who knows what seat at the table Hudson Fulcher-Melendy will be relegated to this Thanksgiving when the family gathers for the feast. Hudson is the Amherst kicker, who was 4-for-4 on field goals in Amherst’s 14-13 win, and whose sisters Dylan and Madison played women’s volleyball and soccer, respectively, for Williams, and whose mom, Lisa Melendy, has been athletic director at Williams for the past 15 years!

Honestly, if someone is telling you F&M and Coe have no chance to make this field if they lose … they may be working with faulty assumptions. To do that accurately, you have to project the results of all of the remaining Week 11 games, and projecting the team with the higher NPI as the winner across a hundred games is going to get you some data that doesn’t line up. F&M and Coe absolutely have a chance, and in Analytics 301, Logan Hansen will tell you who else has a chance with two losses.

Plus we hand out game balls, bring you through the crazy stats of the week, highlight the key goings-on in Region 1 through Region 6, get you games to look forward to next week. And we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and moreĀ in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. 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

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

 

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photos by Kris DuFour, Amherst athletics; Hanover athletics; Photo for Christopher Newport athletics by Sydney Smith