Tag Archives: St. John’s

Game Day: Fall, for sure

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I mean, in your part of the country anyway, I’m sure it’s fall. But here in Minneapolis I woke up to snow on the ground. Not enough to last the day or affect any games around here, probably, but just a reminder that Oct. 10 is … yeah, way, way too early for snow.

I’ll be watching Concordia-Moorhead (Division III team No. 120 on my list of whom I’ve seen) at No. 15 St. Thomas, basically as prep for next week’s Game of the Week broadcast of the St. Thomas-St. John’s game. Ryan Tipps is at the Emory & Henry/Hampden-Sydney game, while Gordon Mann is at FDU-Florham at Delaware Valley. The short trip is my deal with the folks at home. New rule in the Coleman house: If I take a plane one weekend, I stay home or stay in the Twin Cities the next weekend. Keeps the peace.

I still have a few Minnesota schools I haven’t seen yet and will get to those eventually. Hamline will be the only MIAC team I haven’t seen, then throw in a bunch of stadiums I’ve never seen a game at: Hamline, Carleton, Concordia, Crown … pretty much you name it.

Looking at this week’s schedule on paper has me thinking not at all about last week, where there weren’t a lot of games where we could foresee upsets. We have two games between Top 25 teams (No. 1 Mount Union at No. 21 Capital, No. 22 Redlands at No. 24 Occidental), and then UW-Whitewater, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Wheaton, Linfield, Central, Case Western Reserve, Monmouth, Otterbein, St. Thomas, Cortland State and Ithaca are each playing teams where you could conceivably pick them to lose.

Stick around, watch, listen, follow live stats. The wireless connection at St. Thomas wasn’t great the last time I was there but we’ll see. I’ll be on Twitter at least from my phone, hopefully blogging.

ATN Podcast: The poll isn’t perfect

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Sure, the D3football.com Top 25 teams went 25-0 on Saturday. We’re happy about that, don’t get me wrong. But that doesn’t mean the Top 25 is perfect, or that the right 25 teams are ranked, at least not in my mind and Keith’s mind.

We’re five weeks into the 2009 season. But are some teams still getting votes from some voters based on what they did in 2008? In a sense, that’s unavoidable — I mean, we all put Mount Union and UW-Whitewater up high on our ballot because of what they did in 2008 … and 2007 … and 2006 … well, anyway, you get the idea.

See, that’s the paradox of voting in a Top 25 ranking. Some things make sense in some cases, but no single rule works for all teams and all comparisons.

So why is Willamette ranked ahead of Concordia-Moorhead despite the Week 1 loss? Or, more extreme, why is Ohio Northern behind North Central? Keith and I will try to make some sense of it all in this week’s Around the Nation Podcast.

Oh, plus, one of the two podcasters changed his No. 1 vote this week. Who and why? You’ll have to listen.

Click the play button below to listen.

You can load the podcast page in iTunes or can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/?feed=podcast

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ATN Podcast: Shaking it up

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One of the things for us about traveling a long distance for a game is that it’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. We get on an airplane for a highly touted matchup and sometimes it becomes a rout pretty early on.

And that’s not just in Alliance, Ohio.

But Keith McMillan’s trip to Boston got him a thriller, and a chance to see the NEFC in action for the first time, as Widener traveled to Curry. The game came down to the final play, and you can hear more about it, plus hear from the winning coach in this week’s podcast.

Pat Coleman’s much shorter trip resulted in a thrilling finish as well, as UW-Eau Claire gave up an intentional touchdown to get the ball back and nearly made St. John’s pay for it before falling 35-27. Hear St. John’s quarterback Joe Boyle’s reaction as he realized the Blugolds were letting his teammate head into the end zone without opposition.

Of course, those weren’t the only games which happened this weekend. Keith and Pat talk about scheduling with some chutzpah, a sleeper team that’s getting its offense together and how all the upsets this week affect Top 25 considerations and beyond.

Click the play button below to listen.

You can load the podcast page in iTunes or can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/?feed=podcast

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