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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.

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

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

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ATN Podcast 365: Hope is not lost

This past week, a number of teams had their shot. They had the opponent they wanted to play on the field in front of them. They generally even had that game at home, in front of their home fans.

But in Week 8 of the 2024 Division III football season, it didn’t really break as these teams hoped. Not for Ursinus, not for Coe, not for Case Western Reserve, not for Washington U. Not even for St. Olaf, if you want to dig down that far.

In the past, that would generally be it. A chance at reaching the Division III playoffs was going to be a stretch. But not anymore, not with 12 at-large teams, a 40-team bracket, and an NCAA Power Index rating system that just might save some of these teams.

Who has hope? Patrick and Greg break it down with analysis, rather than overreaction.

Marietta made the Top 25 this week for the first time in program history, and Pioneers coach Andy Waddle sits down with us for Fast Five. This is a program that has come a long way, but still has its two biggest games of the regular season yet to come, and both are on the road.

Plus, Patrick and Greg hand out game balls. Patrick pulls out a highlight clip from 21 years ago, and yes, a number of clips from this past weekend. Plus we go through more highlights from Region 1 through Region 6, we answer a couple of reader questions in the mailbag, and not only does Greg wax poetic in On the Spot, we Axe poetic as well. Plus, it’s our 365th podcast — we now have a podcast for every day of the year. So that’s a thing.

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.

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.
Jason Kapusta, Westminster (Pa.) athletics; Wheaton athletics photo by Michael Hudson photography; Marietta athletics photo by Rebecca Wheeler Photography

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ATN Podcast 355: QBs vs. Cancer, the Breakfast Bowl and the CONEheads

There’s a bunch of serious business being done by Division III quarterbacks this offseason, as nearly four dozen of them have joined up to raise money to fight cancer as Quarterbacks vs. Cancer. There’s also some light-hearted work being done by Division III football coaches, as two of them in the NJAC have joined up to fight food insecurity and battle out the proper name of a popular breakfast meat.

And one more thing: The Commonwealth Coast Conference has selected a new name. They’re announcing it on Aug. 1, but we found it on a website and at the 18:45 mark of this podcast we will tell you the new name.

Seriously. Kudos to the sleuthiness of Dave McHugh.

Quarterbacks vs. Cancer is an organization helmed by Alma quarterback Carter St. John, who thought he might only raise a few hundred dollars to support a local area cancer center, but that was just the beginning. He’s joined by UW-Whitewater quarterback Jason Ceniti, Concordia-Moorhead quarterback Cooper Mattern and Carthage quarterback Bryce Lowe, plus another 40 additional Division III signal-callers. St. John, Ceniti, Mattern and Lowe join us for a great conversation.

And then there’s the Breakfast Bowl — it’s the brainchild of Montclair State head coach Mike Palazzo, who was looking for a way to create a rivalry game for his team and Rowan, in the New Jersey Athletic Conference. And he hit upon a breakfast meat, and if you don’t know the Jersey rivalry over the name Taylor Ham or Pork Roll … listen to this podcast. We’ll get you caught up!

Patrick and Greg talk about their preseason Top 25 ballots, plus we take two mailbag questions, so make sure you hear them both, and talk about the latest conference shuffle. That’s not a repeat from last month’s show. We had another.

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 monthly in the offseason.

Links: Brandon Misener’s GoFundMe page

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.
Photo by Ryan Coleman, Doug Sasse, Larry Radloff, d3photography.com; Kayleigh Wieska, Carthage athletics