ATN Podcast 360: Cru are in the hunt; Gulls flying high

Posted on September 23, 2024 by Pat Coleman

Well, welcome back to the Purple Power of the South! It had been a good 11 months or so since we last really had to consider the Cru, when they lost to Hardin-Simmons last Oct. 28, and this season was a mixed bag with UMHB’s most telling game being a loss to a Top 10 NAIA team. Well, that’s no longer the case as the Cru went to UW-Whitewater and came away with a lot of takeaways. Eight of them, in fact.

Meanwhile, Salisbury’s season just keeps getting better. As the opponents have been higher and higher ranked, the Sea Gulls have won by larger and larger margins. We talk about their win against Johns Hopkins with coach Sherm Wood on Fast Five.

Cortland avenged its last loss, Mount Union got by against John Carroll, and a number of teams played Division II opponents this year, but one team had the best performance, and who it is might surprise you.

We’ll whip you through the big games in Division III from this past weekend, catch up with the Bendokovic Bowl, visit the game that of course, had to end on a blocked field goal. Plus, who’s getting it done in the 1? Who’s pulling through in the 2? Who’s prompting glee in the 3? Who’s getting up off the floor in the 4? Who’s looking alive in the 5? And, who’s got something to fix in the 6? 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 4, plus give a snapshot for how those top eight seeds are looking. Remember, my goodness, people, this is based on projection of how the season will play out and of course, teams with harder schedules might have a harder time making the top eight because they might not actually win all their games.

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 threw to 15 receivers this week. 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. 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.

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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:

Apple Podcasts: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast
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Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photo by Mike Atherton, d3photography.com

ATN Podcast 358: Did that really happen?

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Pat Coleman

Listen, this podcast is fun to put together and we think and hope that it is informative, but we are always trying to do more. So this week, since we’ve finally had some games played, we’re adding a couple of new wrinkles to the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

First of all, since this season the at-large bids and the seedings are basically all going to be done by computers, we figured we’d better get you all ready for that, so we’ve invited back our Math Correspondent, Logan Hansen. In his Football Analytics 3:01 segment, he’s going to spend exactly 3 minutes, 1 second of your time talking about who is key in the running for those top eight spots in the new NCAA Power Index, that thing we call NPI. We’ll tell you more about what that means. He’ll also spotlight some of the big games — key leverage games and games that will shape the playoff picture.

When you ask Patrick and Greg what the most shocking result was from Week 1 and they both say the same thing, that says a lot. It’s a quick run through the top games from this past week, plus the implications and some of the history.

1999 game story from D3football.com; Johns Hopkins rallies from 17 down to beat F&M

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. 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. At a roll of the dice, you never know what they might end up talking about — even a JV game?

Plus we chat with Calvin head coach Trent Figg, just minutes after his team defeated Oberlin in dominating fashion in the program’s first-ever football game. 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

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

Apple Podcasts: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast
iHeart Radio: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast
Spotify: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Texas Lutheran athletics photo by Nick Trumble

ATN Podcast 356: We lead off with training camp

Posted on August 27, 2024 by Pat Coleman

Division III schools are having some hot fun in the summertime, as training camp is in full swing, and for a number of Division III head coaches, they are running camp for the first time. This is true for schools from Vermont to New Jersey to Pennsylvania to Virginia to Mississippi to Wisconsin to Texas to Minnesota and beyond.

Sometimes it’s hard to get hold of coaches at this time of year, but we are super grateful to get two of them to take time out of their busy jobs and chat with us about how camp is going in their first head coaching jobs.

We talk with Bethel coach Mike McElroy literally during one of those hot, humid, weekday morning practices as he takes over from legendary Royals head coach Steve Johnson. And Hampden-Sydney coach Vince Luvara joins us as well, stepping in for Tigers’ all-time wins leader Marty Favret. In addition, we chat with Tate Journell, a cornerback-wide receiver at Wooster who spent his offseason … playing baseball? He tells us his story in this edition of the podcast.

Plus, if you’re new to Division III football, we’ll start off this podcast with a little primer about how things work and what to expect come playoff time. And we also pick a half-dozen sleeper teams — all of them teams ranked outside our Top 25 (and the extremely similar coaches Top 25 that came out this week), but whom we expect to make noise this season.

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.