Tag Archives: Susquehanna

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ATN Podcast 413: Going 5-for-5, Bethel’s big test, Thunder, helmets

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The discussion of 5-for-5, which is to say, a five-year window in which to play up to five years of sports, has been rampant at the Division III level in recent weeks, especially since Division II went in on the concept which was pioneered at the Division I level. Plus, we get you ready for Week 1 by talking with Mike McElroy and Cooper Drews at Bethel, and Jesse Scott at Wheaton. And we pay a visit to the Helmet Guy.

This edition of the D3football.com Podcast is sponsored by GameStrat, the most reliable & fastest in-game video replay system on the market. Find out more at GameStrat.com.

Division II jumped in quickly on adopting 5-for-5. Can Division III do the same? Should Division III do the same? And is 5-for-5 really what it sounds like? Patrick and Greg dive into the process, the survey of athletic directors and conference commissioners and whether such a concept aligns with the Division III mission and philosophy.

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We are also joined by McElroy and Drews, whose No. 2-ranked Bethel Royals have a bunch of attention on them this year. First off, they’re looking for a name for their offense — can it be as good as Top Gun at UW-River Falls last year? The circumstances are pretty different for Bethel in 2026 compared to 2025, as the offense is returning essentially everyone who ran the ball or caught a pass, so the Royals hope to hit the ground running, or passing, when facing D3football.com preseason No. 1 North Central.

Wheaton is hitting the field in Week 1 with a tough game once again, as the Thunder host Mount Union. Jesse Scott tells us how the game came about, what sort of extra lore could be added to the matchup, talks about quarterback Mark Forcucci and how to replace a tough defender in Peter Johanik, who graduated. Also, the Thunder program and alumni had a moment of tragedy this offseason, and Scott talks about the loss of Jalen Shaffer and Philip LoChirco over the summer.

Plus, who are the potential Week 1 upsets? Which conferences might be looking to join the HCAC and OAC and declare some sort of cooperative working agreement?

That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation podcast is a weekly conversation during the season, twice monthly in the offseason, about NCAA Division III football, and has been running since 2007.

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Photos: Caleb Williams, d3photography.com; Patrick Coleman, D3sports.com; Kodiak Creative

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ATN Podcast 409: Big Red’s big run, new top River Hawk, JCU’s new QB

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It’s been a big year for the Denison Big Red, and although that hasn’t completely trickled down to the Denison football team, we thought we’d check in with coach Jack Hatem. The North Coast Athletic Conference has definitely been in transition of late, with John Carroll joining the league in all sports, and WashU in football specifically, and Denison lost its rising junior quarterback, Tyler Green who elected to transfer.

More about that in a moment.

Hatem talks about how his team has to raise the level of its game to compete in a much stronger conference, what the quarterback situation will look like at Denison, what he’s learned from the national championship coaches at his school, why he stays in the game and why he loves recruiting when, in fact, he is pretty near retirement age. Plus, his taste in music.

There’s also been a bunch of change at Susquehanna, where new coach Chris Pincince is a Division III head football coach for the first time, and is coaching in D-III for the first time in nearly a quarter-century. It’s a good thing he and former coach Tom Perkovich are old friends, because Pincince talks about the hole they were left, with eight players having transferred out and so far, the transfer portal only having brought one person in. But a number of assistant coaches stayed to help the program have continuity, giving Pincince a leg up on the D-III learning curve, and Region 2 Defensive Player of the Year Galen Limantour is back as well, which is a huge boost for Susquehanna.

About Tyler Green — his transfer to John Carroll means Denison will still have to face him in conference the next two years, and JCU was in sore need of a quarterback for 2026. We’ll talk about that, plus answer your mailbag questions.

That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation podcast is a weekly conversation about NCAA Division III football, and has been running since 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:

Photos: Denison athletics photos by Jace Delgado, Susquehanna athletics photo by Kim Howes

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ATN Podcast 399: A day to remember

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When the previous “biggest win in school history” is from the 1950s, replacing the entry at the top of the list means something.

Sure, you could quibble over whether a win against Syracuse from seven decades ago, or a national quarterfinal win at Brockport in 2002, or a quarterfinal win at UW-Whitewater in 2016 should be next on the list, but no regular season win, even one against Mount Union, compares with beating Mount Union at Mount Union in the playoffs.

A win of this nature is so iconic that the head coach’s phone blows up, and so does the feed of everyone else even remotely associated with John Carroll football. The traffic on D3football.com nearly doubled in the course of 10 minutes. There’s no pretending this is an ordinary win.

And to John Carroll’s credit, they didn’t try to. We chat with Jeff Behrman, the JCU head coach, about having confidence in kicker Colin Schuler after a missed chip shot in the first overtime nearly cost them the game, about the key final play of the game, and about the team’s return to campus, the reception, and what’s next for the Blue Streaks. We bring back in former co-host Keith McMillan to break down the play, what he saw on video from his perspective as a former Division III football starting safety.

Mailbag questions came hard for this game. The one we chose to answer was whether this means that JCU is up to Mount Union’s level or if Mount Union has slipped and there’s just one elite team. The answer is perhaps no different than it was when Keith and Greg Thomas wrote a column under the headline “Today, we are all Mount Union” after the 2022 Stagg Bowl, for we are all chasing North Central.

We take your mailbag questions. We have postgame audio from all eight games and break them all down. Keith also sits down with Johns Hopkins coach Dan Wodicka and safety Sam Bourdo. Bethel’s David Geebli talks about recovering from fumbling on the first snap of the game. Susquehanna’s Josh Ehrlich takes the blame for the River Hawks’ slow start. Matt Walker talks about UW-River Falls’ slow start, although it was fairly brief. Jesse Scott talks about what they saw that was familiar in DePauw’s run defense. Berry safety Chaz Pope talks about his game-sealing interception. There’s those clips and much more in this podcast. Plus we drop some scoop as to when we will release our All-America team, we answer whether we really thought Johns Hopkins lost some shine after the F&M loss and we bring the receipts to prove it (they’re all on the website).

Patrick and Greg also hand out game balls, bring you through the stats of the week and we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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.
John Carroll athletics photo by Jose Figueroa; North Central athletics photo by Steve Woltmann; Wheaton athletics photo by Michael Hudson Photography