Division III playoffs: Triple Take sets the expectations for the Round of 32

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Keith McMillan

Welcome to the most exciting Saturday of the postseason.

Thirty-two of the nation’s best teams meet in 16 first-round playoff games. Eight kick off at noon Eastern Time, and seven more at noon Central, meaning that for almost two hours, 15 14 of the games will be going on simultaneously. The first steps on the Road to Salem are a mad rush, and although you’ll likely be focused on just one game, you’ll care about what’s going on elsewhere.

Here’s how this works; it’s a bit different from the regular-season Triple Takes. The goal is for Ryan Tipps, Pat Coleman and I, each guessing a score for each game without consulting with one another, to set the national expectation. Then, we want you prove us wrong. What fun would be a playoff in which we can predict all the outcomes? We’ll set the expectation, and when the score on Saturday looks different than what we forecast below, that’s a signal to everyone across the country that something significant is happening.

[The 2015 playoff bracket | Our surprise teams and disappointments]

Each of us will correctly predict between 11 and 15 winning teams; that’s just the nature of the Round of 32. But we’re not trying to prove who’s the smartest, emulate gamblers or earn bragging rights. We provide the picks and the line of consensus as service, to advise you on what to expect from unfamiliar teams, so that when you’re sifting through 15 game scores on Saturday afternoon, you’ll recognize a surprising result in the making. (Like last season, when we all picked Delaware Valley, a Round 1 loser to Christopher Newport, or when Texas Lutheran kept it surprisingly close with Mary Hardin-Baylor.)

— Keith McMillan

Our Triple Take Crew:

Keith McMillan

Ryan Tipps

Pat Coleman

ST. THOMAS QUADRANT
Keith’s take: St. Thomas 49, La Verne 10
Ryan’s take: St. Thomas 52, La Verne 9
Pat’s take: St. Thomas 56, La Verne 7
Consensus: It’s a great year for the SCIAC champ to dodge the NWC champ … or is it?

Keith’s take: St. John’s 35, Dubuque 17
Ryan’s take: St. John’s 38, Dubuque 17
Pat’s take: St. John’s 42, Dubuque 21
Consensus: It’ll be closer than the 45-9 Sept. 5 game, but not close enough.

Keith’s take: Thomas More 38, Washington and Lee 34
Ryan’s take: Washington and Lee 45, Thomas More 42
Pat’s take: Washington and Lee 51, Thomas More 49
Consensus: This matchup of 10-0 teams will be a shootout, and a toss-up.

Keith’s take: Wabash 34, Albion 21
Ryan’s take: Wabash 48, Albion 14
Pat’s take: Wabash 56, Albion 21
Consensus: The high-octane Britons haven’t seen a defense quite like the Little Giants’ unit.

LINFIELD QUADRANT
Keith’s take: Linfield 55, Whitworth 13
Ryan’s take: Linfield 45, Whitworth 13
Pat’s take: Linfield 52, Whitworth 7
Consensus: Not all that different from the 52-10 game at the Catdome on Oct. 24.

Keith’s take: Salisbury 28, Cortland State 26
Ryan’s take: Salisbury 27, Cortland State 20
Pat’s take: Salisbury 48, Cortland State 45
Consensus: Salisbury spent four seasons going to upstate New York to beat Empire 8 teams. Cortland State runs out of close-game magic. But even so, all three think it will be close, so …

Keith’s take: Huntingdon 49, Hendrix 24
Ryan’s take: Hendrix 51, Huntingdon 45
Pat’s take: Hendrix 41, Huntingdon 28
Consensus: In the first Arkansas-Alabama playoff matchup in D-III history, two of the panelists like the upstart. It’s also the first matchup where our score guesses are wildly different.

Keith’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 30, Hardin-Simmons 24
Ryan’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 31, Hardin-Simmons 27
Pat’s take: Mary Hardin-Baylor 31, Hardin-Simmons 21
Consensus: It was a slow start and a furious fourth in HSU’s 29-26 win on Oct. 31. This time in Abilene, UMHB ekes it out.

MOUNT UNION QUADRANT
Keith’s take: Mount Union 56, St. Lawrence 14
Ryan’s take: Mount Union 55, St. Lawrence 13
Pat’s take: Mount Union 52, St. Lawrence 7
Consensus: We’re not dissing the Saints. Mount Union’s allowed 34 points all season.

Keith’s take: Albright 37, Norwich 17
Ryan’s take: Albright 38, Norwich 7
Pat’s take: Albright 38, Norwich 13
Consensus: The Cadets have lost four games. No. 5 will be the highlight of the Lions’ season before a trip to Alliance.

Keith’s take: Wesley 40, Framingham State 27
Ryan’s take: Wesley 42, Framingham State 21
Pat’s take: Wesley 47, Framingham State 28
Consensus: Not a cakewalk for the Wolverines, but they eventually pull away.

Keith’s take: Johns Hopkins 42, Western New England 21
Ryan’s take: Johns Hopkins 45, Western New England 10
Pat’s take: Johns Hopkins 38, Western New England 10
Consensus: The Bears aren’t golden against the Blue Jays. This one is for the birds.

UW-OSHKOSH QUADRANT
Keith’s take: UW-Oshkosh 63, St. Scholastica 13
Ryan’s take: UW-Oshkosh 56, St. Scholastica 3
Pat’s take: UW-Oshkosh 52, St. Scholastica 7
Consensus: UMAC champs get the MIAC or WIAC champ in Round 1, and the results haven’t been pretty.

Keith’s take: Ohio Northern 31, Franklin 30
Ryan’s take: Ohio Northern 45, Franklin 34
Pat’s take: Ohio Northern 35, Franklin 20
Consensus: Teams that have no business being in the tournament usually prove that actually, they do. Plus, it’s an OAC No. 2.

Keith’s take: UW-Whitewater 35, St. Norbert 7
Ryan’s take: UW-Whitewater 48, St. Norbert 7
Pat’s take: UW-Whitewater 35, St. Norbert 7
Consensus: So seven it is for the Green Knights, against the defending champions.

Keith’s take: Wheaton 39, Lakeland 14
Ryan’s take: Wheaton 28, Lakeland 13
Pat’s take: Wheaton 48, Lakeland 7
Consensus: You won’t even be able to tell that much of the Thunder’s offense has been banged up.

We invite you to add your predictions in the comments below, or tweet at us at @D3Keith, @NewsTipps and @d3football. Download the Around the Nation podcast on Mondays, where Pat and Keith review the picks and the highlights from Round 1.

Around the Nation: Crazy endings, big showdowns and lots of sacks

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Pat Coleman

Impressive midseason matchups lead to some readjustment, not just in the Top 25 poll but in playoff positioning. No, it’s not too early to talk about some conference races. Plus there was a Division III record set on Saturday, and a bunch of crazy endings to talk about. We look at those stories, plus, which are the teams on the rise? What key highlights happened below the radar? Pat and Keith answer those questions, plus hand out their game balls, on this week’s Around the Nation Podcast.

The Around the Nation Podcast is a weekly conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan covering the wide range of Division III football. It drops on Monday morning weekly throughout the season.

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Triple Take, Week 2: Welcoming the fashionably late

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Keith McMillan

As noted in this space last week, 195 of the 247 Division III teams kicked off in Week 1. Among those who did not were quite a few prominent teams, including third-ranked Linfield and 22nd-ranked Chapman, who open up against one another this week, plus No. 1 UW-Whitewater, No. 5 Wesley and No. 13 North Central.

Of the 195 seasons that got underway, 97 started with a loss, which makes Week 2 a chance to wipe away the disappointment of Week 1. There are some top-25 clashes, intriguing non-conference matchups and more, and we’ll get you prepared for it all.

With so many games each week, Around the Nation columnist Ryan Tipps, editor and publisher Pat Coleman and I boil it down, independently providing our seven-point primers for games to focus on, where to watch for upsets, and other assorted predictions. Then in Monday’s podcast, we run back where we were right and where we were way off. If you’d like to play along, leave your picks in the comments below.

— Keith McMillan

Game of the week

Keith’s take: No. 22 Chapman at No. 3 Linfield. It’s a toss up between this and Wartburg-Bethel. And the last game of the weekend, Pacific Lutheran at Cal Lutheran, is an equally intriguing NWC-SCIAC clash. But there’s just so much at stake when the Panthers visit the Wildcats. D-III’s West Coast and Deep South “island” teams are pretty much guaranteed to match up with one another in the first round of the playoffs, unless an odd number of them make the field of 32. (This map is out of date, but will help you visualize how concentrated D-III schools are). So Chapman and Linfield, even if one goes undefeated and the other ends up with only Saturday’s loss, are basically playing for the chance to host in the first round of the playoffs. In their opener. Which is absurd, but reality. Last season, Chapman hosted and led in the second half of a 21-14 loss to Linfield, won every other game and in Round 1 road game, lost to the emotionally charged Wildcats, 55-24.

Ryan’s take: No. 22 Chapman at No. 3 Linfield. It’s opening day for both of these teams. Linfield lost a lot from last year, but the Wildcats are a team that perennially reloads rather than rebuilds. With All-American Alex Hoff on the defensive line and dual-threat quarterback Sam Riddle driving the offense, McMinnville will be a hard place to win. Chapman graduated its quarterback but is replacing him with a player who is already 3-0 as a starter — dating from a stint in the middle of 2012. The Panthers, like Linfield, lost a lot, but they don’t likely have the same depth to overcome such a hit.

Pat’s take: No. 6 Wartburg at No. 19 Bethel. They’re probably expecting me to take this game anyway, and since it’s practically in my backyard, that’s even better for me. But neither team looked invincible in Week 1. Wartburg needed a huge defensive effort in the fourth quarter to beat Augsburg, a team which is further down the MIAC ladder than Bethel is (last year’s Week 11 result notwithstanding), while Bethel showed some weaknesses on defense at UW-Stout that, if nothing else, last year’s Wartburg team would just destroy them for. Bethel had three buses of students at Stout so you know they’ll show up at home. Should be interesting.

Surprisingly close game

Keith’s take: Ursinus at Gettysburg. At first glance, this seems like a team always knocking on the door at the top of the Centennial against one usually in the middle of the pack. After Week 1, when the Bullets put up 678 yards and 49 points on Bridgewater (a team it lost to last season), and Ursinus couldn’t score until overtime, this becomes a more intriguing matchup. The Bears beat D-II Millersville in the opener, though, and handled Gettysburg, 31-14, last season. I see it more like a one-score game this time around.

Ryan’s take: Whitworth at Whittier. Should we Fear the Poet, as Whittier hopes? The SCIAC doesn’t always match up well against the NWC, but Whittier is returning most of its defense and has a lot of players competing for the right to start in key positions on offense.

Pat’s take: Susquehanna at No. 11 Johns Hopkins. Sure, I’ll bite on the possibility that Susquehanna, which defeated Lycoming last week, has a shot to make this a good game vs. the Blue Jays, who have won 39 of their past 40 Centennial Conference games. If nothing else, just impressed with Tom Perkovich’s debut as Crusaders head coach and hoping to get more info on Susquehanna.

Most likely Top 25 team to be upset

Keith’s take: No. 23 Muhlenberg. No. 18 Texas Lutheran has a tough challenge, but the Mules are most vulnerable, against Franklin and Marshall, which returned 17 starters and put up 501 yards and 42 points in Week 1 (while allowing 540 and 37 to Lebanon Valley). The Mules had no such problems, allowing fast-paced Wilkes to convert just 6 of 26 third and fourth downs in their 35-7 Week 1 win, but I’ve got to pick someone. The rest of the top 25 looks liable to cruise to victory, or is in a situation where a loss would hardly be an upset, so I guess I’ve earned a spot on Muhlenberg’s bulletin board/dartboard.

Ryan’s take: No. 23 Muhlenberg. The Mules dropped this one at Franklin and Marshall in 2013, and the question is whether lightning will strike twice in that span. Both teams had good Week 1 wins, so this will be an exciting matchup to take in.

Pat’s take: No. 18 Texas Lutheran vs. Hardin-Simmons. I actually feel pretty similarly to last week, where I expect a lot of chalk in the Top 25, but Hardin-Simmons intrigues me. (Although I got an e-mail this summer asking me, “how Hardin-Simmons continues to get mention in preseason polls despite the fact they haven’t finished in the top two in the ASC in so many years and haven’t made the playoffs since 2008?”) Bottom line on that is that we still think the ASC is capable of having more than one or two good teams. One thing in TLU’s favor is that HSU will have to go from playing a bottom-25 team to playing a top-25 team in consecutive weeks and that’s not an easy transition. Nor is stopping Marquis Barrolle.

Which team that did not play in Week 1 turns in the most impressive Week 2 win?

Keith’s take: No. 13 North Central. The sense of urgency should be there for the Cardinals, who open up this week against 1-0 Trine and play No. 25 UW-Platteville and No. 5 Wesley the next two weeks. Trine, under new head coach Troy Abbs, was a 38-14 winner in Week 1, rushing for 403 yards against Manchester. It will be Jeff Thorne’s first game as NCC head coach, and although he has a ranked team and 16 starters back to work with, holding the Thunder under 100 rushing yards in a win would be impressive.

Ryan’s take: Ohio Northern. Any time you can take down an Empire 8 team that finished 7-3 last season, it’s a quality win. The Polar Bears play Utica, and this will give us a good barometer for what heights ONU might be able to ultimately reach in the conference standings.

Pat’s take: No. 3 Linfield. Cats roll. They’re on an even playing field since No. 22 Chapman didn’t play last week either. No big fancy analysis for me here — I just think Linfield is helmet and shoulder pads above Chapman, if not perhaps the best team in all of D-III football.

Which non-conference clash will have the biggest ripple effect?

Keith’s take: Hardin-Simmons at No. 18 Texas Lutheran. In 2013, the Bulldogs’ only loss was a Week 10 73-44 shocker at Hardin-Simmons. TLU returned to the site of that beating in Week 2 of last year and won, 37-14. Finally, they get the Cowboys in Seguin. After a Week 1 win in which they were tied with Sul Ross State at 27 to start the fourth, the Bulldogs have every reason to be amped. HSU hung 77 on Southwestern in Week 1, but if they can’t hang a loss on TLU (which plays Louisiana College and No. 4 UMHB, among others, before finishing with their three SCAC opponents), it could have wide-ranging effects. ASC and SCAC are both angling for the one Pool B bid guaranteed to non-automatic bid conferences, so anyone else in Pool B is going to want to see those teams beat up on one another.

Ryan’s take: Trine at No. 13 North Central. In Kickoff 2015, I pegged Trine to surge this year, and cutting their teeth this early in the season against a power like North Central will be telling. And these two teams aren’t annual foes, so there could be surprises on both sides of the ball.

Pat’s take: Albion at Augustana. Here we have two teams who had impressive Week 1 performances. Albion put up 65 points in a win vs. UW-Stevens Point and reminds us that the Britons are one of the big dogs in the MIAA despite all the buzz about everything Olivet has returning. Augustana rolled out its new offense after taking more than a decade to painfully back away from the Wing-T that helped define the program during its heyday and beat a Mount St. Joseph team that would like to think it can win the HCAC this season. I’ll be interested to see how these two end up after Saturday.

Which matchup of in-state opponents intrigues you most, and who wins?

Keith’s take: Delaware Valley at Wilkes. There are lots of better games that are mentioned elsewhere or are a state border away from fitting here (Cortland State-Framingham State; Lycoming-Stevenson; Rose-Hulman-Illinois College). I’m intrigued by this one following Del Val’s 27-24 season-opening win against Montclair State. Duke Greco led the Aggies to a win despite just two starters back on offense and nine overall, and I’m interested to see more of the new Del Val. Meantime, Wilkes can get a lot of plays off (they ran a record 113 against the Aggies last year), but it hasn’t translated into many points. I’ll pick Del Val.

Ryan’s take: LaGrange at Berry. We’re only in Week 2, and already a state title is about to be decided. What’s not to like? While Berry is on the road upward as its fledgling team gets older and gains more experience, I’ll give the nod to LaGrange in this matchup.

Pat’s take: Cornell at Coe. It’s hard to tell just from last week’s blowout at the hands of Wheaton exactly how good or bad Coe is in 2015. But one thing we do know, in addition to the 52-14 loss, is that Coe started camp with just 85 players, which is a low number for them. (I know, Cornell started with even fewer, but that’s their status quo.) Cornell last beat Coe in 1999, and that’s a long time to lose to your rival. Readers of Kickoff got Coe’s take on this rivalry game. It will be interesting to see if these teams, which were 79 spots apart in our preseason ranking, are any closer than that.

They’ll be on your radar

Keith’s take: Christopher Newport. Facing what seems like a weaker-than-usual Hampden-Sydney team might not tell us much about what the Captains will look like against NJAC competition, but I’ll be watching anyway. CNU dominated the first half of a 31-21 Week 1 win at TCNJ, while H-SC played a top-10 team in Wabash. I’ll also be watching the Secretaries’ Cup and Coe-Cornell for rivalry purposes, as well as Albion-Augustana and Rose-Hulman vs. Illinois College. Those last two combined for 142 points in last year’s clash, reminding us that epic D-III games can come from anywhere, and was the subject of a Kickoff ’15 prediction question about how many they’ll combine for this time. I’ve got 67.

Ryan’s take: Cal Lutheran. In reading Kickoff 2015, there was something about Cal Lutheran that intrigued me, something that made me feel they’ll improve significantly over last season. Maybe it’s just that their young team is older and wiser, or that there isn’t a clear front-runner in the SCIAC, or that their first opponent (Pacific Lutheran) is going through a rebuilding year. If the Kingsmen can end the day Saturday (which will be Sunday on the East Coast) with a win, be prepared to see a team making noise once again.

Pat’s take: Coast Guard at Merchant Marine. Not sure I need to say much more — this is a great rivalry between two of our maritime academies and I’m looking forward to a couple of years from now when these teams are both in the NEWMAC and this rivalry game can be pushed back to Week 11 where it belongs. A decade ago, when Coast Guard abandoned ship on the Liberty League and set sail for the smoother waters of the NEFC, this game was sandwiched into non-conference play, which hurts the exposure of this great matchup.

We invite you to add your predictions in the comments below. Download the Around the Nation podcast on Mondays, where Pat and Keith review the picks that were prescient, and those that were terribly off base.

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