Tag Archives: North Central

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ATN Podcast 381: Spicing up the offseason

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It’s been a spicy past month or so and when you’re coming up on a food-related holiday like the 4th of July, we’re keeping the fire hot and the burgers, dogs, bratwurst, corn on the cob and more so that you can grill us with your questions. That’s right — we’ve got some great mailbag questions and we tackle as many of them as possible on this edition of the podcast.

Plus …

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

Plus, we have three great guests to chat with in this edition of the podcast as well, which we snuck just in under the wire for June of 2025. We start with Curry running back Montie Quinn, a second team D3football.com All-America pick who had a fantastic finish to the season. We hear from him about his pursuit of the school’s rushing record, who helped him get it, and why it was important that he just keep running. Plus, how did Quinn get from South Carolina to the Boston suburbs? And how is he preparing for the 2026 season and trying to improve on his record-setting performance?

Blaise Faggiano, the head coach of Utica, joins the podcast this time around and since he was on the national committee at the time the whole changeover to NPI took place, and the “dials” were set in such a way to almost entirely discount strength of schedule, well, we grill him on that as well. But we also talk about how his team has benefited from taking a foreign tour trip, and what the great local specialties are in central New York, and his hopes for his team for 2025.

And we visit once again with Carnegie Mellon coach Ryan Larsen — we chatted with him briefly in Podcast 380 about his team’s trip to Spain, but this conversation is about the CMU schedule for 2025, why he made it so challenging and how he thinks it will help his team improve, even if the NPI might not credit the Tartans the way we would hope. It’s a great argument for still scheduling strong even if the committee doesn’t want to reward that.

Mailbag topics include: Is the ASC done with offers to SCAC teams, who else is looking for bowl game alliances, what’s on your Fourth of July menu, what do we make of the North Central quarterback situation, why does D-III spring ball look different than the other divisions, how much will our preseason Top 12 differ from the way last season ended, and what our thoughts are on Geneva and Westminster (Pa.) not facing each other this season.

Patrick and Greg cover it all in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

The D3football.com podcast is a podcast that is weekly during the season and monthly in the offseason, by Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas. The podcast was started in 2007. 

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

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Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photos by Pat Coleman, Damara O’Malley, D3sports.com

 

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ATN Podcast 376: Houston, we have a champion

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Whether it was a Red-Letter Day or a Red Dawn or Red Cardinals Fly at Night, Stagg Bowl LI was another example of the ongoing red shift in Division III football, as North Central won its third title in its five consecutive trips to the Stagg Bowl and ensured that the Walnut and Bronze would have a red tint to it for the third year in a row. 

Luke Lehnen reached the remaining records in the book. The offensive line kept his uniform clean, in this first Stagg Bowl on grass in more than 20 years. The defense eventually solved Tyler Echeverry, or at least slowed him down, even if it couldn’t stop him. And for the people who want to view Sunday’s game as more fodder for a head coaching change, why would you advocate for removing a coach who has won 93.3% of his games? Division III is getting harder and harder every year, and Mount Union is still there at the end more times than not. 

Patrick and Greg and guest/former co-host Keith McMillan break down the game, the key decisions that were made on each side, the big plays and more, plus hand out game balls in this edition of the podcast. Over/under on how many game balls Keith hands out? 5.5.

Plus, we named Lehnen, Spencer and Bethel safety Matt Jung our top award getters, and you can hear how Patrick and Greg and Keith McMillan got to those decisions in this podcast. 

The D3football.com podcast is a weekly in-season podcast by Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas, which was started in 2007. We will be taking the rest of January off from the pod and plan to see you in February.

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.
Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com

 

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ATN Podcast 374: Two teams, one ring

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We’re down to the best two teams in Division III football, both of whom are playing their best games at the right time. Mount Union is certainly firing on all cylinders now on offense after some struggles during the regular season, and you’d be hard-pressed to find more than one thing that went wrong for North Central as they absolutely demolished Susquehanna.

How did they get here? What do we do with the two weeks off? Who benefits more from that extra nine days? Soccer stadium for the Stagg Bowl — is that really OK? We talk about all the key moments of the semifinals, plus take your questions in this edition of the podcast. We talk about the depth of the North Central running backs. We discuss the two-quarterback system for Mount Union and how it worked in key spots. And more.

Plus, we can’t forget that Cortland coach Curt Fitzpatrick is leaving D-III, and we talk about that move plus another, possibly bigger move, with one of the top defensive players in Division III this season going into the portal and coming out as a scholarship player with the University of Wisconsin. You know, UW-Madison. The one in the Big 10. And what has been our favorite semifinal games to cover/attend/watch?

The D3football.com podcast is a weekly in-season podcast by Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas, which was started in 2007. 

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.
Photos by Matt Durisko/Magnolia Media PA for D3sports.com; Doug Sasse, d3photography.com