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ATN Podcast 389: Week 5 fireworks

Ah yes, we not only go from the land of serious tailgating to also serious tailgating. From 20,000 fans to 6,500 fans in a rivalry game. These are two great tastes that tasted great together on Saturday, part of a smorgasbord of great Division III football, with so many games that we actually didn’t even talk about Muhlenberg-Ursinus in this podcast. (But we will probably talk about Muhlenberg at some point.)

Here’s who you will be seeing — or hearing about. We run down the UW-La Crosse win at UW-Whitewater and talk with La Crosse coach Matt Janus, we talk about Oshkosh-River Falls, we talk about North Central-Wheaton and hear from North Central coach Brad Spencer, and we talk about Bethel-St. John’s and Royals coach Mike McElroy joins us on Fast Five.

It’s like this week was a Christmas present wrapped up in an October day that sure felt like it was Aug. 22. Phew. Hot! But so was the action on the field in Week 5, and Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, spotlight the unusual stats of the week, Logan Hansen talks about which teams have the best chance of getting a top-eight seed and protected home field in the playoffs, we go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Plus, we take the mailbag question that really ties it all together and has a nice finish.

Every team we spend time on is tagged in this post and you can see those at the bottom of this page. It’s a ton.

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:

Postgame interview and footage with UW-La Crosse, Matt Janus (YouTube)

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Photo by Steve Woltmann for North Central athletics

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ATN Podcast 369: Easing into the playoffs

This slimmed-down version of the first round actually worked out pretty well. Five of the eight games went down to the final couple of minutes, and the three blowouts were against the No. 38, No. 39 and No. 40 seeds in the tournament. So now that that’s out of the way, we can move on to the Round of 32. But first, we’ll recap those eight games, you’ll hear from some of the key playmakers on Saturday, including both winners of our game balls, just like it should be.

Is John Carroll upset at having to play Mount Union? Not that we can tell. Is Mary Hardin-Baylor upset about playing Hardin-Simmons? Not exactly — UMHB is just happy to be playing a D-III team, as Cru coach Larry Harmon said after the game.

How did the ESPN+ experiment work out after one game? Should there be more bowl games? We’ll tackle those questions and get an insider’s advice on how to punch up your broadcasts. And we’ll talk about who this Round of 40 really benefited.

Plus, we chat with John Carroll coach Jeff Behrman for Fast Five (Nifty Nine), about the injury to quarterback Nick Semptimphelter and his quick recovery, Behrman’s approach to practice, his quarterback and top receiver’s quick rapport, and facing Mount Union again

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.
John Carroll athletics photo by Doug Beigie

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ATN Podcast 368: Much ado about bracketing

Why is Endicott playing in the first round? Why is Ursinus? Why does Centre get a bye? Why does Salisbury have to face a 6 or 7 seed in its first game instead of a 9 or 10?

When the teams are already identified and all boiled down to a number value by a mathematical equation, the bracket is all we can talk about, and go figure, sometimes decisions are still being made by geography. Sometimes the NPI ranking of a team doesn’t match up with what the general Division III fandom thinks, or what our voters think.

And it doesn’t seem like we would learn anything from talking to the NCAA committee chair, so we decided instead to interview the algorithm. Or in this case, we talked to Logan Hansen about who the last teams in and first teams out were, how John Carroll and Mary Hardin-Baylor made their big jumps up the NPI ranking, and exactly how much of an impact the UW-River Falls win over UW-Oshkosh on Saturday had — it’s more than you probably think. And it’s way more insightful than most committee chair conversations, so we hope you agree.

Plus, we chat with Linfield coach Joe Smith for Fast Five, about west coast D-III football, his team’s two-quarterback system, and the Wildcats finally being able to put last season’s loss to Whitworth in Week 11 behind them. And we take a number of your questions in our mailbag segment.

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.
Endicott athletics photo