Tag Archives: Wabash

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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Game Day: A double homecoming

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That’s what I have today, anyway: homecoming at Allegheny and at Mount Union. I will throw it open now. What’s up today?

We’ve got Keith McMillan at Frostburg State-Wesley, Gordon Mann at Del Val-Leb Val and Jason Bowen at East Texas Baptist-McMurry and Mary Hardin-Baylor/Hardin-Simmons.

Meanwhile, an overcast day here at Allegheny, temperature in the low- to mid-60’s, a little wind. No swamp here anymore, just artificial turf.

Color guy for Allegheny just proclaimed this game against Wabash as “clearly the two best teams in the conference here today.” Not sure I agree but eventually we’ll find out.

Heading to Ohio

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We don’t usually travel to Mount Union in the regular season. In the most general terms, we want to go where the news is, and in the past 10 years there hasn’t been much in Alliance, Ohio, this time of year other than a Mount Union victory.

Nothing wrong with Mount Union winning, you know, it’s just that it’s hard to justify the trip when it’s likely to be just another check mark in the ‘W’ column.

But this week I’m breaking with that tradition and heading to Alliance, because of a comment Mount Union coach Larry Kehres made to me during an interview this summer. Kehres asked me, “Have you ever been to Mount Union?”

I was a little taken aback at the question, wondering if he had more than one interview scheduled that day and forgot which one this was. I’ve been there probably 10 times. I think I said, “Sure, I’ve been there.”

He responded, “Well, you haven’t been to Mount Union until you’ve been here at night.”

So I looked at the schedule: two home night games for Mount Union, against Muskingum and Baldwin-Wallace. So off I got. Baldwin-Wallace hasn’t had much success on defense this season and it doesn’t look like a great game on paper, but heck, I’ll have seen Mount Union at night. I’ll be broadcasting audio of the game Saturday night, along with Brandon Stewart.

In the afternoon I’ll be heading over to Meadville, Pa., to see Allegheny host Wabash. By the end of the trip, my all-ime list of schools I’ve seen play will be at 119, halfway to the current Division III total of 238. Adding Baldwin-Wallace and Allegheny, plus Allegheny’s stadium will make 66 schools’ stadiums in which I’ve seen a D-III game.

It’s going to take a while to get those other 119 teams, though.