Tag Archives: Millikin

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ATN Podcast 420: No consensus, plenty of contenders

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UW-Whitewater found a freshman-sized answer to a championship-sized challenge, while St. John’s turned shovel passes into an avalanche against Bethel and WashU broke through with the first top 10 victory in program history. Across Division III, defenses joined the scoring spree, long field goals delivered big wins and the playoff picture got a whole lot more interesting.

Which two defenses each produced three pick-sixes on the same Saturday? Which quarterback ran for three fourth-quarter touchdowns on just four carries? Which offense somehow scored 335 points on 336 plays? Oh yes, we did the math.

Who came up with the key defensive plays to get a game ball in Trinity’s revenge win against Berry? Who became a one-man Falcon wrecking machine in Whitewater? Who hit from 54 yards to give Luther a win, and who earned the nickname “Patty Ice” while kicking St. Olaf to a win?

Plus, WashU coach Aaron Keen joins us for Fast Five, the analytics say what they’re going to say, and Dickinson produces a third quarter unlike just about anything we’ve seen. Who survived an even longer delay than the one at St. John’s? Who scored three touchdowns before the opponent even recorded a first down? And who finally got to see the St. John’s tailgate?

And looking ahead: Can Whitewater follow its biggest win of the season by winning at UW-La Crosse? Will Rowan’s defensive prowess continue at Salisbury? Might Howard Payne make a statement at Mary Hardin-Baylor? Can Ohio Northern throw a great big … bear paw … into the OAC race? And most importantly, what happens when No. 1 North Central and No. 2 Wheaton meet for the Little Brass Bell?

Patrick and Greg tackle all this, plus your mailbag questions, in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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Photos: Semanco Media for WashU athletics; Evan Laserstein for UW-Whitewater athletics, Ella Carlson for St. John’s athletics

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ATN Podcast 416: Living up to the hype

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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.

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

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

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ATN Podcast 366: Understanding the playoffs

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Most years, we dedicate some space on the website or some time in our podcast to really give newcomers to Division III football a bit of a primer as to how the playoffs are structured, how at-large bids are determined, the whole 10 yards. But this year, let’s face it — we’re all newbies in some manner. Nobody has ever actually put together the Division III football bracket in this manner.

So, forget what you learned last year, or any of the previous 10 or more years. All that is out the window. You’ve been hearing about NPI — the NCAA Power Index? If you’ve been hearing angry things, well, hey, we don’t love the system either, but it’s what we have, so we’re going to give it to you straight. Patrick and Greg spend the top of the show detailing what we know about the 40-team playoff bracket, how it will be constructed, what it means to be a Top Eight seed and more. Then Logan Hansen will talk a little more about what goes into the NPI and how it’s calculated, and lastly we’ll take your questions in our mailbag segment, and there were a lot of questions, so we took several more than usual.

Five teams clinched automatic bids to the playoffs this week as well, and save themselves from having to worry at all about NPI. That includes Susquehanna, and we’ll talk with River Hawks coach Tom Perkovich in our Fast Five conversation. And we go through our usual run of high points from Region 1 through Region 6, Greg gets put on the spot about a swing state, Patrick does weather on the 8’s, and more.

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:

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Susquehanna athletics photo by Brandon Love