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ATN Podcast 328: Three teams with reason to look ahead

The Division III basketball season is wrapping up and Pat Coleman is diving back into D3football and podcast production, but that doesn’t mean basketball is far from his mind. As it turns out, when you combine the two Division III basketball Final Fours, eight teams, across seven schools, only three of them sponsor football, and that’s exactly the right number of interviews it takes to make one of our offseason podcasts.

So this month we welcome Jace Rindahl of UW-Whitewater, the new 36-year-old head coach who was playing linebacker for the Warhawks so recently that he was the 2008 D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year. The Warhawks men’s basketball team made a surprising run to the D-III Final Four. We also welcome John Carroll coach Jeff Behrman. (Mount Union’s men’s basketball team made it to the Final Four, but coach Geoff Dartt again declined an interview request, so we’ll represent the OAC with its next-best men’s basketball team.) And Paul Crowley of Christopher Newport joins us as well after the CNU men won the D-III national title and the CNU women won their national semifinal and will play for the national title on Saturday, April 1.

Rindahl has spent 16 of the past 18 years in the Whitewater football program, and he comes into his first year as head coach with a schedule that is just simply loaded, starting with John Carroll. He talks with us about what kind of head coach he’ll be, how the program feels after their surprising first-round playoff loss to Aurora, and how they intend to handle each new opponent in that gauntlet. Behrman is a John Carroll grad just returning to the institution after a quarter-century, and he talks about what the university has to sell to recruits, how much he’ll change the scheme, whether he’ll be able to bring some stability to a program that is on its third head coach in three seasons, and how much Mount Union footage he has watched so far. And Crowley talks about the great gameday atmosphere at his institution, some of last year’s early growing pains in his first year as a head coach and what kind of kids he is looking to recruit to get his program back in the conference title conversation.

Plus, Pat and Greg talk about the fact that D-III seems to keep losing programs and what that means for the SCIAC (divisions?) and the SAA (expansion?). Pat puts Greg on the spot and gets a conference ranking for the SCAC, whenever it is able to get all of its programs on the field.

For the record, from the remaining Final Four teams: Swarthmore hasn’t had a football program or coach since 2000, Rhode Island College and Transylvania do not sponsor football and Smith College does not enroll men.

Also of note: There is a bonus podcast for our Patreon subscribers with more content from each of these coaches at patreon.com/d3sports.

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Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photos by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com; Vance Solseth, Christopher Newport athletics; Ben Peskar, John Carroll athletics

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ATN Podcast 286: The bell, the poll, and why you aren’t ranked

From bell reality to poll potential, there’s a lot to talk about in this week’s podcast. First off, you can hear exactly what North Central coach Jeff Thorne had to say about a lack of respect for his team immediately after Saturday’s Little Brass Bell game win against Wheaton, and how his team reacted. Andrew Kamienski will tell you what he was feeling when he took the trophy and then took off running to bring it to his teammates and their fans. And we’ll tell you what we saw from this team, its new quarterback and more.

North Central, the new No. 1. Not too big a surprise there, we presume. But this is the time of year where fans of teams which start off, say, 2-0 or 3-0 look at the Top 25 and say, hey, why aren’t we ranked? There are a number of reasons, and we’ll talk about them. It’s a good reminder of how hard it is to get ranked!

Plus, game balls go to defensive backs who made big plays, including one in a big upset. That and much more in episode 286.

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: [podpress]

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: DJmentos.
Photo by Pat Coleman, D3sports.com

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ATN Podcast 281: Could spring games lead to spring practice?

There is so much here to talk about as we are midway through March in Division III football, and one of the things that Division III football coaches are pointing to right now is how all of the old excuses given for why D-III can’t have pads in practice in the spring are being proven wrong.

They said it would be impossible to find field time, that athletic training staffs would be stretched too thin. Well, here we are having had coming up on 100 games in Division III this spring — and we’re not talking about asking for games: We’re talkin’ about practice.

We’re joined by three head coaches who each give their take on renewing the drive to add pads and helmets in the spring, as we hear from Hendrix coach Buck Buchanan, Lake Forest coach Jim Catanzaro and Whitworth coach Rod Sandberg. Plus, we talk with Berry coach Tony Kunczewski about his team’s 4-0 spring, and with Trinity (Texas) coach Jerheme Urban about what his team accomplished with its spring football as well.

But the best part of this podcast may well be our chance to catch up with former Berry defensive back Justus Edwards. You may remember his name because in 2018, he suffered a catastrophic spinal injury during the Vikings’ game at Centre. He has continued to inspire his classmates and former teammates on the sidelines, and he was at the team’s appearance at the SAA championship in Little Rock, Arkansas. We talked with him about the work he is doing to get stronger, plus the foundation he has started to help people who have suffered similar injuries and have nowhere to turn.

That interview starts just before the 40:00 mark, if you are so inclined to skip ahead.

Meanwhile, we talk about the big games from Week 6, hand out two weeks’ worth of game balls, and bring back a well-known name to talk about Montez Archer and offer some advice to the Bluffton freshman who has intercepted six passes over the past two games.

Plus, we tackle a listener question. All that and more in Podcast 281.

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: DJmentos. Trinity/Birmingham-Southern photo by Hendrix athletics, Justus Edwards photo from Instagram