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ATN Podcast 303: New UMHB coach; scheduling big; SOS

We’re continuing our offseason series diving into interviews with new coaches at Division III football powers, as we check in with Larry Harmon, the new head coach of the defending national champion, Mary Hardin-Baylor.

Much like last month’s guest, new North Central coach Brad Spencer, Harmon had been an assistant coach at his school for years, including defensive coordinator for the past 17. Harmon talks about what the expectations are for the Cru’s title defense, the transition into taking over the UMHB program, and what the team learned from spring ball. Plus, UMHB made some of the biggest news of the Division III offseason in April, announcing an ambitious non-conference schedule of Muhlenberg and UW-Whitewater.

Plus, three words: ASC-WIAC Challenge?! Sounds like it could happen.

That leads us into the other podcast conversation, where we dive into exactly what strength of schedule means, why it’s broken, and what it would take to fix it. We have that conversation with Logan Hansen, @LogHanRatings, the former Wartburg player whose ratings have been refined over the past decade to provide a quality ranking of Division III football programs.

The current SOS metric could take a couple of minor tweaks to fix obvious flaws, and we talk about those, but it needs a wholesale replacement which involves measuring home-field advantage, and yes, margin of victory. Logan talks about how that works, why running up the score won’t work, and much more in our conversation.

Plus, Pat and Greg talk about the various big games on the schedules that have been announced so far.

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:

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.
Photo: North Central athletics

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ATN Podcast 286: The bell, the poll, and why you aren’t ranked

From bell reality to poll potential, there’s a lot to talk about in this week’s podcast. First off, you can hear exactly what North Central coach Jeff Thorne had to say about a lack of respect for his team immediately after Saturday’s Little Brass Bell game win against Wheaton, and how his team reacted. Andrew Kamienski will tell you what he was feeling when he took the trophy and then took off running to bring it to his teammates and their fans. And we’ll tell you what we saw from this team, its new quarterback and more.

North Central, the new No. 1. Not too big a surprise there, we presume. But this is the time of year where fans of teams which start off, say, 2-0 or 3-0 look at the Top 25 and say, hey, why aren’t we ranked? There are a number of reasons, and we’ll talk about them. It’s a good reminder of how hard it is to get ranked!

Plus, game balls go to defensive backs who made big plays, including one in a big upset. That and much more in episode 286.

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:

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: DJmentos.
Photo by Pat Coleman, D3sports.com

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ATN Podcast 284: Both happy and emotional

If you have gone 650-some days between games, you can be expected to be happy, and you can be excused for being a little bit emotional as well. And when that long break culminates in a big win, well, all bets are off.

We talk to a couple of players who had big wins of varying varieties in Week 1, plus Pat and Greg give out game balls, find the off-the-beaten-path highlights and surprising stats from Week 1. And for Week 2, they discuss their games to watch, pick a first-year coach to go 2-0, and make up a rivalry game (and more!) on the spot from a random game in the Week 2 schedule. All that and more in Podcast 284.

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.

Pat tells an anecdote about his Tour de Tejas basketball trip from Abilene to Brownwood in 2006. You can find it and a picture of him standing in front of the road sign for the town of Coleman, Texas, on our D3hoops blog archive.

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

Full episode:

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: DJmentos.
Photo: Caleb Williams, d3photography.com