Tag Archives: Franklin

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ATN Podcast 364: Sorting out the chaos

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No, we didn’t get a four-way tie for first in the MAC after this weekend, but we still have plenty of chaos across Division III football after seven weeks. Part of this is because eight more playoff bids means more teams are in contention for the playoffs, but mostly, we’re just talking about teams chasing conference automatic bids.

So in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, that’s five teams in contention. In the WIAC, it’s really six. It’s four in the MAC and at least three in the ODAC. We’ll run those down and talk about which big games are left in each conference.

Our Fast Five guest is Western Connecticut (WestConn) coach Joe Loth, whose Wolves are laying waste to MASCAC teams in their final year in the league before they and Castleton get kicked to the curb.

Plus, should we let Greg throw in a bonus conference just to make sure he can play his random card? Does Patrick stick with his prepared material or abandon it to make sure he doesn’t get stuck holding a card? Which conference told its coaches that tiebreakers had changed after the season started? And we’ll get you a daily double of defense in game balls, give you more defensive prowess in Stat of the Week, run down the new NPI numbers — you know, the NCAA Power Index — and explain why they might be wrong, or at least, not the same as the numbers you see elsewhere. And we’ll tell you who’s having fun in the 1, who’s going for 2 in the 2, what’s the key to the 3, what’s the score in the 4, who’s looking alive in the 5 and who’s got a new bag of tricks in the 6. That plus the mailbag, games to watch, on the spot and more in this week’s podcast.

The D3football.com podcast is a weekly in-season podcast by Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas, which was started in 2007. New episodes are published weekly during the season.

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

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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:

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d3photograpy.com photos by Doug Sasse, Mike Atherton, Wade Gardner; D. Scherbenco, King’s athletics; Chris Ryan, W&L athletics; Jason Kapusta, Westminster (Pa.) athletics

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ATN Podcast 359: Definitely not a slow week

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Sometimes Week 2 of the Division III football season can be a bit of a letdown.

We know — teams generally improve the most between Week 1 and Week 2, says every football coach ever. But for the fans, Week 1 is a huge rush, and Week 2, well, some conferences are on bye and with fewer games, some years it just doesn’t stack up.

For the record: 2024 was not one of those years. Instead, how about a fantastic Week 2, with some course corrections on the field, and some more in the D3football.com Top 25 as well.

We’ll whip you through the big games in Division III from this past weekend, chat with a 24-year-old and introduce you to a 26-year-old Air Force veteran who has plenty to share with his younger teammates. We’ll hear from the wide receiver who transferred from Aurora to North Central only to have his season opening game against … Aurora. And much more. To see a list of all the teams talked about in this podcast, look at the list at the bottom of the post.

Math Correspondent Logan Hansen talks about the three biggest playoff leverage games for Week 3, plus give a snapshot for how those top eight seeds are looking. There’s a surprise team, according to the numbers!

We also hand out game balls to the top performers, pick out the stats of the week, and run through region by region to get some of the other stories you might have missed, such as the team which scored 30 points in the fourth quarter to rally from behind and win. And since that didn’t seem to be enough, Greg and Patrick have to pick one more region to tell one more story about on the fly.

Plus we chat with St. John’s quarterback Aaron Syverson, right after his team finished defeating Wartburg and giving him some much needed relief from a bad afternoon in 2022. There’s that and so much more in this week’s podcast, so give it a listen!

The D3football.com podcast is a weekly in-season podcast by Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas, which was started in 2007. New episodes are published weekly during the season.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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:

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Salisbury athletics photo by FOTOJOE PHOTOGRAPHY INC./Hannah Reagle

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ATN Podcast 316: All eyes on Platteville, plus regional rankings

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Some things we can’t seem to avoid talking about every week this season:

  • The Cortaca Jug game in Yankee Stadium
  • The University of Wisconsin-Platteville

This week, Platteville made headlines again, and for the second week in a row, extremely positive headlines as the Pioneers shook up the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference with a 17-14 win against then-No. 3 UW-Whitewater. What in the name of Dan Arnold is going on with this program? How did the Pioneers go from losing back-to-back games by an average of 40 points, to these two consecutive wins against River Falls and Whitewater?

We’ve had these questions. We assume you’ve had these questions. So we ask these questions. We ask them of Ryan Munz, the Platteville head coach, who is our guest on Fast 5, plus maybe a couple of extra minutes at the top of the podcast.

Plus, it’s really time to dig into how the playoffs are set up in Division III football. If you’re new to Division III, this is a must-listen. Even if you’ve been following for a few years, a refresher might be helpful and yes, some things have changed, even if they are small things.

In all, 69 schools merit serious mention in this week’s podcast. That includes the way in which Cortland beat Utica, how North Central handled Washington U., Austin College and Beloit breaking long losing streaks, not to mention Bowdoin pulling off an unexpected victory as well.

In addition, Pat and Greg hand out game balls, spotlight the unexpected in Stat of the Week, make guesses about Week 9 games and more. There’s a list in small type at the bottom of this page of all the teams that are talked about.

Fan question in the mailbag from @mikey_shoultz: What team from the bottom 10 ranked conferences in your conference rankings has the best chance to win a playoff game?

Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas talk about it all in the latest D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation covering the wide range of Division III football.

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

Full episode: [display_podcast]

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.
UW-Platteville athletics photo

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