Tag Archives: UW-Whitewater

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ATN Podcast 328: Three teams with reason to look ahead

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The Division III basketball season is wrapping up and Pat Coleman is diving back into D3football and podcast production, but that doesn’t mean basketball is far from his mind. As it turns out, when you combine the two Division III basketball Final Fours, eight teams, across seven schools, only three of them sponsor football, and that’s exactly the right number of interviews it takes to make one of our offseason podcasts.

So this month we welcome Jace Rindahl of UW-Whitewater, the new 36-year-old head coach who was playing linebacker for the Warhawks so recently that he was the 2008 D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year. The Warhawks men’s basketball team made a surprising run to the D-III Final Four. We also welcome John Carroll coach Jeff Behrman. (Mount Union’s men’s basketball team made it to the Final Four, but coach Geoff Dartt again declined an interview request, so we’ll represent the OAC with its next-best men’s basketball team.) And Paul Crowley of Christopher Newport joins us as well after the CNU men won the D-III national title and the CNU women won their national semifinal and will play for the national title on Saturday, April 1.

Rindahl has spent 16 of the past 18 years in the Whitewater football program, and he comes into his first year as head coach with a schedule that is just simply loaded, starting with John Carroll. He talks with us about what kind of head coach he’ll be, how the program feels after their surprising first-round playoff loss to Aurora, and how they intend to handle each new opponent in that gauntlet. Behrman is a John Carroll grad just returning to the institution after a quarter-century, and he talks about what the university has to sell to recruits, how much he’ll change the scheme, whether he’ll be able to bring some stability to a program that is on its third head coach in three seasons, and how much Mount Union footage he has watched so far. And Crowley talks about the great gameday atmosphere at his institution, some of last year’s early growing pains in his first year as a head coach and what kind of kids he is looking to recruit to get his program back in the conference title conversation.

Plus, Pat and Greg talk about the fact that D-III seems to keep losing programs and what that means for the SCIAC (divisions?) and the SAA (expansion?). Pat puts Greg on the spot and gets a conference ranking for the SCAC, whenever it is able to get all of its programs on the field.

For the record, from the remaining Final Four teams: Swarthmore hasn’t had a football program or coach since 2000, Rhode Island College and Transylvania do not sponsor football and Smith College does not enroll men.

Also of note: There is a bonus podcast for our Patreon subscribers with more content from each of these coaches at patreon.com/d3sports.

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Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photos by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com; Vance Solseth, Christopher Newport athletics; Ben Peskar, John Carroll athletics

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ATN Podcast 316: All eyes on Platteville, plus regional rankings

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Some things we can’t seem to avoid talking about every week this season:

  • The Cortaca Jug game in Yankee Stadium
  • The University of Wisconsin-Platteville

This week, Platteville made headlines again, and for the second week in a row, extremely positive headlines as the Pioneers shook up the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference with a 17-14 win against then-No. 3 UW-Whitewater. What in the name of Dan Arnold is going on with this program? How did the Pioneers go from losing back-to-back games by an average of 40 points, to these two consecutive wins against River Falls and Whitewater?

We’ve had these questions. We assume you’ve had these questions. So we ask these questions. We ask them of Ryan Munz, the Platteville head coach, who is our guest on Fast 5, plus maybe a couple of extra minutes at the top of the podcast.

Plus, it’s really time to dig into how the playoffs are set up in Division III football. If you’re new to Division III, this is a must-listen. Even if you’ve been following for a few years, a refresher might be helpful and yes, some things have changed, even if they are small things.

In all, 69 schools merit serious mention in this week’s podcast. That includes the way in which Cortland beat Utica, how North Central handled Washington U., Austin College and Beloit breaking long losing streaks, not to mention Bowdoin pulling off an unexpected victory as well.

In addition, Pat and Greg hand out game balls, spotlight the unexpected in Stat of the Week, make guesses about Week 9 games and more. There’s a list in small type at the bottom of this page of all the teams that are talked about.

Fan question in the mailbag from @mikey_shoultz: What team from the bottom 10 ranked conferences in your conference rankings has the best chance to win a playoff game?

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: [display_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.
UW-Platteville athletics photo

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ATN Podcast 315: Lookin’ alive in the 5

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We talk about all six regions, multiple times, in each D3football.com Around the Nation podcast, For example, this week, who’s lookin’ alive in Region 5?

Ripon is lookin’ quite alive as the Redhawks remain unbeaten here in what coach Ron Ernst has announced is his final season. The team is tied for first in the Midwest Conference after knocking off Lake Forest on Saturday, and Ernst joins us for a Fast 5 minutes to talk about the team, how it has come together, and whether anyone has presented him with a keepsake on this farewell tour through the Midwest Conference.

Also from the 5, a stat of the week detailing exactly how dominant the North Central run game was this past weekend. Plus a little safety dancing from Dubuque’s win at Coe, Concordia (Wis.) heading for a conference championship showdown, and more.

How does UW-River Falls’ loss at Platteville affect the playoff at-large bid picture? Greg Thomas just wrote about it last Thursday in Around the Nation and there will be more talk about it now.

In all, 48 schools merit serious mention in this week’s podcast. Who’s getting it done in Region 1? Who’s blue in the 2? What’s the score in the 4? Who’s tryin’ to survive in the 5? Plus, who’s in the mix in the 6, and what is the sound of 19,000 cats, anyway?

In addition, Pat and Greg hand out game balls, spotlight the unexpected in Stat of the Week, make guesses about Week 8 games and more. There’s a list in small type at the bottom of this page of all the teams that are talked about.

Fan question in our mailbag from Jeff Seidel @seideljeff: Taking recent playoff success into account, dating back to 2018, how does JHU, Muhlenberg, Sus and Ursinus compare to the top 4 in other conferences? Especially since several 2018 kids are still playing at Hop?

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: [display_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 Larry Radloff, d3photography.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download