Tag Archives: North Central

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ATN Podcast 361: Big wins from new faces

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With so many teams taking the week off, there was a big opportunity to step up and grab the spotlight, and boy did schools such as LaGrange and Bates do exactly that. Nothing like getting a double-digit game losing streak off your back.

Plus, a game of the week that absolutely looked like one, as we break down Carnegie Mellon at Washington & Jefferson. In addition, Patrick got eyes on Bethel for the first time this season as the Royals hosted St. John’s and we get his take on how the Johnnies look and how the new-look Bethel offense is shaking out.

And then Patrick has some words for the D3football.com Top 25 voter panel — some of them, at least.

Plus, Hope keeps running and running and ran its way into our Top 25 this week. Like we said in Podcast 360, they could run enough to keep the Alma offense off the field and they did just that. Flying Dutch coach Peter Stuursma joins us to talk about it in Fast Five.

We’ll whip you through the big games in Division III from this past weekend, catch up with a brand-new running back with an interesting background, see who had an overflow crowd and who will have to wait a long time to see if they are truly playoff material. Plus, who’s having fun in the 1? Who’s pulling through in the 2? What do we see in the 3? Who’s looking for more in the 4? Who’s looking alive in the 5? And, who’s got a new bag of trick 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 5, plus gives his usual snapshot for how those top eight seeds are looking. How did that change after this past week’s games? 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 all the great finishes for various schools on Homecoming this past weekend. And since that never seems 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.

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 Steve McLaughlin for Wesleyan athletics

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ATN Podcast 350: Wrapping up an amazing 2023

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We wrap up another season, here on the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. Perhaps not as well as the Cortland defense wrapped up Luke Lehnen on the two-point conversion attempt pictured here on the page, but we try.

Was this the best Stagg Bowl ever? We’ve only seen about half of them in person, but our crew does its best to answer that question. Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas are joined by Keith McMillan, Ryan Tipps, and Frank Rossi and James Baker of In the Huddle. Plus, Cortland sports information director Fran Elia, a podcast superfan, stops by to chat, and we talk with and congratulate Cortland football fans who were getting a bite to eat and a cold beverage at the famous Mac and Bob’s in Salem, Virginia.

Our crew hands out game balls, and talk about the unsung big plays of the game. Calling a time out? Sure. Fourth-down scramble? Definitely.

Is this a changing of the guard? Great question. Will the Stagg Bowl return to Salem at some point after this? We discussed it before, but after the game, maybe things seem different. 

Plus, Patrick has some news as to the order of quarterbacks the next time awards are handed out. You’ll want to hear, complainers.

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by d3photography.com, the licensed photography bureau contracted by D3sports.com.

The crew discusses, in this edition of the podcast.

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.

Full episode:

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 Dan Hunter, d3photography.com

      

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ATN Podcast 324: The Road to Annapolis is complete

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It’s No. 1 vs. No. 2, just as everyone expected, as North Central and Mount Union advance to play in Stagg Bowl XLIX in Annapolis. While this is a rematch of teams that played in the second round in 2019, then in the semifinals the next season (2021), this particular rematch turns the tables.

It’s unusual not just in that it’s the first one being played outside of Alliance, Ohio. It’s also now a flipping of the old paradigm. Suddenly it’s North Central, playing in the Stagg Bowl for the third consecutive time, that is the program with all the players with Stagg Bowl experience, while Mount Union hasn’t played in the game since 2018, and hasn’t won it since 2017.

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by the hosts of Stagg Bowl XLIX, and we look forward to seeing all of you in Annapolis, Maryland, for the Division III football championship game on Dec. 16.

We sit down for a long postgame conversation with North Central’s Brad Spencer after his team’s win against Mary Hardin-Baylor. And we don’t, or can’t, with Mount Union’s Geoff Dartt. We certainly try, and we try multiple times a year, and we’ll talk more about that — it’s something we haven’t talked much about publicly. Meanwhile, we’ll hear from the Mount Union coach and players solely via the team’s postgame news conference.

Plus, we take reader questions, one from a reader who isn’t satisfied merely to have his team win, but questions why people didn’t pick North Central to win by more. (The answer is simple, and we’ll give it to you on the podcast.) And another prompts a good discussion of which games on North Central’s and Mount Union’s schedule provide the best opportunity to gain insight on how this week’s game will be played.

This is the first of three podcasts to come this week. The next will drop Friday morning and preview the Stagg Bowl, and the following one will drop on Saturday morning and give our breakdown of the game, plus our rationale as to why we chose whomever we end up choosing as our Offensive Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Coach of the Year.

Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas talk about it all in the latest D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation covering the wide range of Division III football.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

Full episode:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Links mentioned in this podcast:

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 Thomas Nettleton, d3photography.com; Dean Reid, d3photography.com